Features of handmade Christmas decorations

Christmas tree, decorated with toys - the main attribute of the New Year and Christmas. The most valuable are toys made by yourself. Creating them, as if you are writing a story of your own family. And when once a year you take out beautiful little things out of the box, created with your own hands and the hands of children, you remember the most pleasant moments of life spent in the circle of loved ones.

The first tree was decorated for the holiday on Christmas Day 1500 in Germany. She was decorated with candles. Then there was a tradition to decorate the top ate a star, and the branches - apples and gingerbread. Along with edible decorations, paper flowers appeared on the forest beauty.

Glass decorations "settled" on the tree at the end of the XVII century. There is a legend that they tried to make an artificial version of an apple when there was a crop failure of these fruits, and there was simply nowhere to take the usual decorations.

The tradition to put and decorate holiday trees came to Russia through German families who lived in St. Petersburg at the end of the 18th century.

The most fashionable decorations for the holiday tree in those days were cones and icicles, various small animals made of shortcake dough, wrapped in foil.

Not only ordinary people who made handmade Christmas decorations for their home, but also artisans who were engaged in small-scale production were taken for the manufacture. They used various fabrics, cotton wool and papier-mâché as materials for toys. You could also buy German-made toys. And only after the First World War in Russia began the industrial production of glass balls for Christmas trees.

In Soviet times, Christmas itself was outlawed. Only in the mid-thirties for the Christmas paraphernalia they found a worthy excuse, declaring it to be New Year's. People received the legal right to decorate Christmas trees and create a festive mood.

New Year's Christmas decorations of the Soviet period were distinguished by a variety of topics. Along with the traditional Grandfather Frost and the Snow Maiden from glass, an astronaut turned out to be on a spruce branch.

Nowadays, on the store shelves in the pre-New Year period, you can see real masterpieces of Christmas tree decorations - the same glass balls painted under Khokhloma, palekh and gzhel.

There is a separate category of collectible toys produced in limited quantities. Unique things for the Christmas tree are made of glass, high quality porcelain. In the course is crunching and precious metals. These unique decorations have their own numbers and certificates of authenticity.

All this is adjacent to inexpensive Chinese goods. Such toys do not fight, but they are not particularly pleased with their cheap shine. If there is no money for the balls decorated with paintings made by a professional artist, or for other unique products, you can achieve the individuality of your Christmas tree on your own.

It can be simple ornaments from what is in any house:

• yarn;
• glue;
• wire;
• light bulbs;
• beads;
• beads;
• color ribbons and bows;
• plastic bottles;
• cardboard;
• colored paper;
• twine;
• napkins;
• pieces of cloth, felt;
• cotton wool and other soft fillers.

Can be made and porcelain toys. And from homemade porcelain. To create it, PVA glue, corn starch, glycerin, citric acid and hand cream (without silicone) are taken. All this is mixed in a certain proportion, left for some time, then warmed up over low heat. The finished dough is placed in a plastic bag, pre-processed cream, sealed and retracted in a cold place for eight hours. After that, the resulting mass can sculpt toys, then covering them with acrylic paints.

It is rather difficult to create balls or other glass figures at home. For this you need a certain skill and special equipment.

Some exclusive decorations for the Christmas tree can be made without any difficulty, having almost no skills for making crafts with their own hands.For example, take a beautiful pine cone, stick it not with a glue gun of beads and beads, varnish and sprinkle with sequins. It remains to attach a thread, and the decoration for the Christmas tree is ready.

To paint the ball colors it is necessary, besides the very basis for painting, to have:

• medium hard pencil;
• gum;
• acrylic paints;
• brushes;
• water;
• a piece of cloth.

It is preferable for work to choose a glass sphere, rather than a plastic one, since a seam is visible on the plastic one in the place where the hemispheres match. The product should be matte and large in size, then it is convenient to paint it.

With good artistic skills, you can try to put on the drawing of a drawing according to your own plan. Another option is to make a copy from an image peeped on a postcard or in a journal.

First, dotted outline future drawing. Do it without pressure, so as not to break through the base.

A small amount of paint is applied to the palette or just white paper and mixed to make the right shades. The painting should be carried out gradually, allowing the paints to dry, otherwise they will smear.

Some places of the pattern during the painting can be highlighted with sparkles. They need to be applied before the paint grabs.

Upon completion of all the work remains to hang the ball, giving him the opportunity to dry completely.

If there is a strong doubt in their own artistic abilities, the technique of spot painting will be suitable for work. Putting paint in small dots according to a predetermined pattern or creating an abstract ornament of circles or stars, you can make a unique decoration for the Christmas tree.

From the remnants of the fabric, you can make cute decorations in the form of different shapes - heart, stars, New Year's sock, deer. It is quite possible to draw blanks yourself, or you can download them on the Internet and print them.

It remains to make a pair of rag patterns and sew them together, leaving a small hole to fill with padding polyester or holofiber. Stuffed toys need to tight. You can use a pencil. After that, sew a loop to make it convenient to hang on a branch.

To create these toys fit a variety of fabrics. The more colorful, the better.The seam can be made on the machine from the inside, and you can outside.

A good idea would be to use felt. In stores selling goods for creativity sell special sheets of this material. This kind of textile is of different thickness. There are very thin, and there are dense versions of felt that perfectly keep their shape. When they are combined in one product, one or another effect is achieved. You can also use felt of different colors, with images, for example, in peas or a cage.

As is the case with toys from ordinary cloth, thick paper patterns are made here., pair elements are cut out on them, which are connected with the help of a thread and a needle, and then the resulting toy is stuffed with filler.

With the help of buttons, beads, ribbons, small multicolored felt elements, it is easy to give a certain amount of visual power and elegance to one or another decoration.

Learn more about how to make Christmas toys, you will learn from the following video.