My newly 4 year old nephew Kai is obsessed with pirates right now, and also has a December birthday. Having a December birthday myself, I know how often you get shuttled to the side with promises to make it up that never materialize. So when we go down to see family on Christmas day I wanted to have two presents for him. One for Christmas, and a special one for his special birthday.

But it also had to be cheap because Christmas is expensive.

This trunk started life as one of those cheap styrofoam coolers you can find at the grocery store or in a well stocked dollar store. We got some spray paint and painted it brown, but there’s a bit of a trick to it. Spray paints will melt styrofoam, so you need to do thin coats from far away and be patient with it. Unless there’s a section you actually want to melt, like the part of this cooler that had the manufacturer’s name on it. I gave that area a good hard blast with the spray paint and now it’s no longer legible.

The chest needed a hinge, but the cooler wasn’t made to accommodate one. I took three pieces of thick grosgrain ribbon and hot glued them in place to make a hinge that was flexible enough to account for the oddly shaped lid, then covered all my mess up with a fun fabric lining.

The clasps are what make this look like a pirate chest instead of a painted hunk of styrofoam. To attach them I took the screws included in the kit, covered the ends with hot glue, and shoved them through the clasp and into the styrofoam. The heat of the glue will melt the styrofoam enough as you go to act as a screwdriver at the same time.

Gold ribbon mimics the leather straps found on old luggage, and once again hides the evidence that this is a cheap piece of junk. Make sure you wrap the ends neatly so the lid can still come on and off easily.

I looked and looked for those metal corner pieces that come on old luggage but couldn’t find anything even close. So I just painted them on. You could keep going with this idea and paint on a lock or other metal embellishments.

I have to give credit where it is due, this was totally Bear’s idea, nearly from beginning to end. We had the styrofoam cooler kicking around in the garage and he was the one who brought it to me and said, “With a little paint, this could look like a pirate chest!” He is living proof of what I always say – Creativity is a muscle. He just proved he’s a weightlifting champ.

In my brainstorming about candy canes, I of course came across the traditional idea of the pipe cleaner ornament. A staple of Christmas tree for years, I wanted to come up with something a little bit different, perhaps even a little less…fuzzy.

So I wandered through the craft store and waited for creativity to hit me over the head. In the floral aisle I came across this raffia covered wire and thought it could be just the thing to evoke the simplicity and tradition of a pipe cleaner candy cane but done in a slightly more grown up version.

I painted half of the wires white and half of them red. Make sure you get a really thorough coat because when you twist the wires together some of the raffia will unravel and reveal the underlying layers of brown.

Twist a white and a red wire together. After a few trials and errors, I found the easiest way to do this to be to match up the middles and twist toward the ends.

The wires that I bought were long enough to make two candy canes, so I used wire cutters to cut them in half, and then bent one end to make the crook.

On my white tree they blend in enough to just give a pop of color in those few little bare spots. I think these are also easy enough, and cheap enough to be a really cute package decoration, or tied in the middle of a bow on a gift basket.

I spent way too much time over the last couple of months thinking about gingerbread. After the houses I naturally thought about making some gingerbread men, but I couldn’t crack a new or interesting way to make them since tutorials exist all over the internet, including this one which might just be untoppable.

I was also still deeply in love with that puffing fabric paint and looking for another excuse to use it. So here’s what I came up with.

I drew up a pattern for an iced gingerbread cookie and cut the shape out of fun foam, which is fast becoming one of my favorite craft mediums. Make sure you punch a hole for the hanger to go through.

Draw on your “icing” with the puffy paint. I’ll include my pattern of course, but you could go wild and do anything your heart desires. Or let the kids do what they desire. Just as you would during a cookie decorating marathon.

Hit the paint with a heat gun. My happy little discovery in this process is that the fun foam melted a bit too. You have to be a little careful – you can end up burning your cookie – but it turned the color from an anemic tan to a beautiful toasted color, and took off some of the smoothness of the foam to look far more like an actual cookie.

I did a line of icing around the outside too, just to hide those square edges that make it look too fake.

This project ended up being really cheap – I’d guess each ornament ended up costing about 12 cents – so it could be a great thing to put your kids in front of while you’re frantically making Christmas preparations. Christmas multitasking at its finest.

One more ornament tomorrow and then it’s time for reveals!!

This is really a reprisal of an ornament that I originally made for last year’s whimsical halloween tree. It’s so simple, but effective, and you should all know by know that I’m never going to miss a chance to glitter something.

This time I used a variety of different sized styrofoam balls, and I started by painting them all in colors that would match the glitter I planned on using. This might seem like an unnecessary step at first blush, but it will make it so that you don’t need to do more than one coat of glitter. That was a lesson I learned the hard way.

Cover the ball with a layer of white glue, then roll in glitter. Let dry.

This time I used plain clear cellophane because I found it more effective in showing off the glitter inside. For the large balls I used a rectangle of cellophane measuring 10″ x 11″. For the smaller balls use a rectangle measuring 8″ x 9″. Wrap the rectangle around the glittered ball and twist the ends closed. Tie fishing line around one end, then tie the other end of fishing line around the other end and leave enough slack to create a hanger.

These look best nestled right up next to a light. The light not only reflects off the glitter, but also off of the cellophane. It’s a little sparkle bomb among all the rest of the paper and fabric ornaments.

This is such a classic ornament that everybody has a version of it. Martha and BHG both put beads in between each fold, I saw a paper version floating around somewhere this year, I think even the long lamented Carol Duvall show featured a version. Mine keeps it as basic as possible.

I think the big secret in this ornament is the ribbon you pick. It needs to be wired, but also look like the candy. I scored this ribbon on a huge drum from Costco this year. You basically just need a ribbon with some stripes running down the whole length.

Cut a 24″ length of ribbon and fold it every 2″, going back and forth like an accordion.

Cut a length of fishing line to 24″ long and thread it through a sharp needle. Thread a bead all the way to the bottom of the fishing line, then bring the needle around and back through the bead. Pull tight. This will be a stopper to hold the fishing line in place and keep it from pulling all the way through.

Poke the needle through the center of your ribbon stack and pull all the way through. You may have to wrestle with it a little, so that’s why it’s good to use a sharp needle that’s as small as you can use on the fishing line.

Fluff out your layers, shaping the folds around your finger to get that nice round ribbon edge.

When you’ve got your ribbon as fluffed out as you want it, tie a knot in the fishing line snuggled right up next to the ribbon. Cut the remaining fishing line in half to get the needle off, then tie another knot to create your hanger.

It’s a popular one for a reason. Quick, cheap, and so evocative of an old fashioned Christmas.

A Christmas Sweets tree would be unworthy of the name without some prominent candy canes, so I’ve come up with a couple of different options. Today’s uses strips of fabric to make a nice substantial ornament, but it’s easy and cheap enough that it would make a great package decoration too.

Start by cutting three strips of fabric 1 1/2″ wide. I did two white strips and one red strip and cut them across the full width of the fabric. Once I cut off the selvage ends, this was long enough to make two candy canes at the same time. Bunch the ends together and use a fabric glue to hold them in place.

While you’ve got the fabric glue handy, cover the end of a piece of wire with it and tuck that in between the layers of fabric.

Now just braid the strips together like you were doing your Barbie’s hair. The only trick is that to cover the wire from both sides you’ll need to bring one of the strips under the wire as you’re braiding. You’ll see as you go, it will make sense.

When you get the whole thing braided until you can’t braid any more, cut the wire off. Bunch the remaining fabric together, trimming as needed, and secure in place with fabric glue.

I found it easier to make these two at a time than to create more work for myself, so once I got the whole 45″ strip braided, I folded it in half and used a wire cutter to cut it. Then secure the newly cut ends with fabric glue.

Bend one end to make a crook and your candy cane is all done. I really liked the frayed edges because I thought it added a rustic look to the ornament that I hadn’t used elsewhere, but if you’re allergic to the messy edges you could cut your strips a little wider and hem them, or just use a non-fraying fabric like felt or fleece.

When I was a kid being dragged along to the grocery store, my sisters and I would hightail it to the bulk candy section and beg for the different Brach’s candies available there. I still remember the specific way I had of eating the jelly nougats or the coconut Neapolitan coconuts, and I remember the colorful metallic wrappers of the Caramel Royals.

To start, cut a piece of fabric to 7″ x 9″. I wanted to use a specific color green to blend with the rest of the tree, so I decided to take the green fabric I wanted and make it appear metallic. I rubbed the fabric with a clear ink pad and then poured a silver embossing powder over the top of it.

Shake off the excess (I ended up shaking off a whole bunch to show off the green better) and use a heat gun to melt the embossing powder into the fabric.

Use a zig zag or overlock stitch to hem the short edges, then bring the long edges together and sew to make a tube. Turn right side out and stuff with pillow filling.

Tie a piece of fishing line around one end, tight enough to cinch the wrapper closed.

Bring the fishing line over to the other side and tie it around tight enough to cinch that end closed. Leave enough slack between the two sides to form the hanger.

This could be so great in some of those dual colored fabrics – you know the ones that look one color from one direction and another color from the other? What are those called? Michael Miller’s Fairy Frost line could be really great here too. You could skip the metallic part altogether and go with something really fun with polkadots. Or, since this is such a small project, you could just raid your scrap pile and have a whole tree full of scrappy candies in no time at all.

This project is so simple I feel a little silly even posting it as a tutorial. But then I finally got around to reading this month’s Martha Stewart Living* and saw an article where she demonstrated how to make the same thing using real fruit. And heaven knows if it’s good enough for Martha it’s good enough for me.

*Really a must see this month. Her article on outdoor lights has me wanting to drop everything and create one of those extreme lighting houses you see on youtube.

I bought some cheap glass ornaments in a deep burgundy color. Pop off the top and cover with a layer of white glue. It works best if you work one side of the ornament at a time so you leave yourself something to hold on to.

While the glue is wet, sprinkle coarse white glitter over the top of it. A fine glitter will be pretty and sparkly, but a coarse glitter will look more like sugar. Sprinkle over a bowl or a folded piece of paper so you can save the excess glitter.

When the glue is dry, pop the ornament cap back on. Hot glue some leaves onto the top to emphasize that this little ornament is now a piece of fruit. I pulled these leaves off of a plant in the backyard, but if they don’t end up drying very well I’ll just replace them with some leaves off of a silk flower. But I hope they dry OK because I love the texture and that acid green color. It looks so fresh.

Along with being an easy project, and one that’s good for kids to help with, it’s also a great way to bring new life to ornaments that have seen better days. Some of the ornaments I used were pretty scratched up, but you’d never know that once that glitter covers it all up.