Christmas Magic Continues

Ivy's fairy flower crown and fairy wand.

This was fun to make. I figured out how to do the flowers while making the fairy doll and her crown. A series of little circles in coordinating colors and various sizes, small, medium, large, and extra small. In some of the circles, I notched the edges with my scissors all the way around. Sometimes I trimmed the notches to look more like petals, sometimes I just left them.

Then I glued the circles together, using various colors and different color combos. Then I glued the flowers on a strip of felt that I measured to fit the girl's wee head.

I did lay out the flowers before gluing them down, so that I had a good assortment and could make sure that all the pieces had somewhere to go and I didn't end up with circles that were too big or too small for their parts. Sometimes a flower consisted of only two circles, sometimes three, sometimes four. Then I laid the flowers out on the crown, with the largest in the center and the mediums spaced out and the smalls scattered between them. If I'd had a light green felt square, I would have added leaves, but I didn't.

If I had more time or were better with a needle, I would have stitched them. It wouldn't have been that hard to tack them together in the center. It might also have been interesting to embroider or bead the centers of the flowers. That will perhaps be a different fairy crown for an older Ivy.
Gabriel's "Disappear-Appear" Wand

Here is the boys wand. I made one for him too, even if he's not getting a fairy crown. I am still debating the rest of his dress up costume. Not sure how I can make a robot costume, but I will figure something out in the next two days. Maybe I can do a superhero thing instead. Or maybe I'll do a super-robot thing. I have no idea.

How did I make the two wands?? They were pretty easy. I took four pipe cleaners in coordinating colors (matching the fairy stuff for the girl, and something a little more Harry Potterish for the boy) and bent the ends in then twisted them together until they were spiraled. Then I cut out two felt stars... I did free hand because I like the wonkiness of it, but you could do them with a pattern. A star shaped cookie cutter would be a good pattern to use. Then I glued them together on the end of the pipecleaners, using enough glue so they would stick.

Then they got different treatments. I took my silver embroidery floss and split it into three strands (so it would fit through the needle) then sewed it through the center of the blue star, around the pipe cleaner end and back through the center. I tied the ends of the floss together with a double knot. I repeated that on the other side of the star, so both sides would have the silver rays.

The girl's wand wanted thin green ribbons to match the tutu I made, and I couldn't sew that through the star, so I tied two ribbons just underneath the star and knotted them on. Then I did the same for two pieces of silver floss, making sure that I knotted one strand each on each side of the star, so the silver and green rays would spread out evenly from the wand. Magic is even, you see.

I decided on the pipe cleaner in the first place because I didn't want any hard sticks in there to whack people with. I don't know how long these will last... it depends on how hard the kids are on them... but they were so easy and cheap that it's okay if they get messed up. I think making these wands would be a pretty good project for kids to try, but not really ones as young as mine. The crown would be fun for older girls to make, too. Making felt flowers is pretty easy. You could do anything with them.