Monday 23 January 2023

Hobbycraft Wooden Christmas Decorations

As I always say, a bargain isn’t a real bargain unless you use them, so with so many new bits and pieces wheedling their way into my stash, I really ought make a start on working my way through them, so my apologises as this is a Christmas related post, so soon after the big day!

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Firstly, I can’t believe how such simple things could take so long to complete, either I am just getting slow or I faff and fiddle a little too much!

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I don’t think I originally included these wooden decorations from Hobbycraft in any of my earlier haul posts, but they were reduced from £2 to £1 each.

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I decided to give the decorations a lick of Wilko satin, quick drying varnish to help prevent the risk of any pen used bleeding into the wood.

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It was at this stage I discovered that the layers of the decoration could be separated, something I wasn’t expecting, but a very welcome bonus, making the colouring, glittering etc. much easier.

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The first stage of the decoration was painting the front layer, background trees, snowflake and snowman white and then colouring the house with brown Sharpie pen.

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I covered the windows of the house  over with a tiny patterned yellow paper to add a little more colour to the decoration and give the illusion of a light being on inside the house and then always conscious of what everything looks like from the back, painted over paper scraps white too.

I added snowy details to the front of the house using white Ranger Enamel Accents, a little doodling using a white acrylic paint pen and translucent glitter on the roof. 

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The background trees were glittered with a silver ultra fine glitter, and the Christmas tree at the front with green. The snowman given a hat and scarf using  red and black Sharpie pens …….hmmmmmmm.

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It was time to put the decorations together again, sanding them lightly beforehand because of the added layers of paint.  They were then glued together and put under a 2lb weight to help fix and flatten them.

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At this stage they still looked a little lacklustre, so I added white Tulip Slick around the edges and the bottom for snow, followed by a sprinkling of translucent ultra fine glitter, but the snowman just left me cold, he didn’t look right, so I was going to give his the Ranger Glossy Accents treatment, adding tiny, black, flat back gem eyes and buttons ……… but then ……..

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……. I received a wonderous parcel from my friend Diane and in amongst all the treasure were these resin snowmen ……… they were perfect and seemed to add an air of cosiness to the scene.  They weren’t an exact fit, but I think I’ve made them work.

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I may have then gone overboard in adding the wooden sentiment and poinsettia but  hey ho!

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Although seemingly simple, they were on my desk for a whole week ……

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……. as I constantly seemed to be waiting for something to dry ………..

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They certainly feel and look more substantial and not  as naïve as they originally were. I am not 100% with them at the moment, but they are now put away safe until November, when no doubt, my opinion of them will probably have softened.