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Friday 23 November 2018

Happy Thanksgiving - and a Pinecones tutorial

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends from the USA. How I wish I was there for the madness that is Black Friday, I found that so much fun when we were living in Florida.

Like most people, one of the things I am most grateful for is my family - although, of course we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, our turkeys are saved for Christmas! So I loved this photo of Alex and Dec taken just after they got married, being showered with confetti. I made this scrapbook page mimicking the confetti, by flicking black, white and pink acrylic paint onto the top portion of the page, and added a few sparkles. The sentiment is by Cricut, and the butterflies are a Fiskars punch


Talking of family, Molly, our little poppet will be two on Monday - born two days after my birthday, which is today...she is a joy!


Quite a few of you asked for instructions on how to make the pinecone ornament, here is a quick photo tutorial for you - I hope it makes sense.

You need a polystyrene/foam ball, some pins, and patterned Christmas paper - I used plain and pattern as you can see from the final photo, but they can be made in just one paper if you prefer. Cut the paper into 1" squares


Fold each square as shown below


Now pin the first four shapes as shown



Following the 'seam' on the pinned down layer, pin your next shapes about 1/2" down the ball



But this time, you only pin the bottom piece to secure, and leave the point unpinned. Add more squares in the same way in the spaces you can see (this is where I used a contrast paper). Now follow that first row as a pattern all the way down the ball, dropping each consecutive row by around 1/2". So each row will have eight points


When you are about halfway down, pin a length of ribbon on each side of the ball, allowing enough ribbon to form a loop at the top of the ball, carry on pinning your papers over this ribbon. When all your ball is covered, complete with more ribbon tied in a loopy bow. I find organza ribbon works best, rather than a stiff ribbon


Do share if you make some of these, I would love to see. Enjoy your weekend and if you are recovering from an excess of turkey and green bean casserole, I hope you have a restful time xx