Baby Polar Bear - Snowball Christmas Tree Decorations

Remember the weird and wonderful potpourri I bought a few weeks back from my favourite Evesham charity shop for £1.50? 

Well, this is the first project to come out of the bag, once I’d sorted all the bits and pieces out …….

……. made by taking two of the middle sized, seed pods/nut shells (???) and giving them two coats, inside and out, of a Wilko white emulsion test pot.

When everything was thoroughly dry I tentatively used my new electric drill to make a hole for a screw eye hook.  My old hobby drill finally gave up the ghost, it owed me nothing as it must have been 20 years old, however it’s replacement is not as sturdy or robust, so I think I will have to treat it very gently.  The end of the screws did show from the inside, but wouldn’t be visible later on in the making.

I put Hobbycraft white, Superlight Airdrying Clay in the bottom of the shell/pod to look like snow.

This wasn’t too bad a job, but adding the pre-glittered MDF trees was very much a trail and error job ……….

……. as I wanted them to show as symmetrically as I could, behind the tiny, ceramic, baby polar bear (20p each from another local charity shop).  It took several attempts before I was happy, before using E7000 to keep them in place should the clay shrank when it had completely dried.

The polar bear was securely glued down too.

The edges were then gone over several times with DecoArt Snow Writer to build up layers and dimension……..

……. so that it sort of resembled cross section of a snowball.

The edges then given a light  dusting of ultra fine, translucent glitter to add the Christmas magic.

It was tempting to add a ted or blue bow on the top, but I don’t really do bows, so opted for a less is more finish. On looking at the pictures I know I need to touch up the bear’s noses with a fine tipped, permanent pen.

I am now on the charity shop prowl for other tiny, wintery/Christmas figures to put in other similar receptacles or some of the walnuts shells I have left over. I’ve looked on eBay and they are asking stupid money, even in China, so I have just got to be patient.  

These are so cute and yes, I am super chuffed, one each for Iris and Bertie to hang on their tree this year to hopefully come out year after year, with memories of Christmas’s past, long after I’m “gone” and they have families of their own, hence all the glue!