Christmas Crafting!

Posted on by Astrid

I have a confession to make: this is my first year ever actually doing Christmas decorations. I used to like them as a child. Particularly though, I liked fidgeting with the little wooden snowmen and angels and Santas in the Christmas tree.

When I left my parental home to go into independence training, it never occurred to me to decorate for the holidays. Besides, I was back with my parents over Christmas. I never celebrated Christmas in my independent living student accommodation and once in the mental hospital, I hated decorations with a passion. During my first year there, I even ripped them all off. I don’t think my husband cared much for decorations during the years I lived with him either. Then when I went into the care facility, for the first two years, apparently I wasn’t feeling stable enough to decorate my room. In fact, I never quite considered it “my room”. Now I sort of do. I consider that a major win, since it means I’m beginning to feel safe in the care facility. Maybe the fact that I started decorating for Christmas, has some symbolic meaning.

I don’t have a lot of decorations. I have a store-bought, simple, ready-made Christmas tree and a couple of smaller decorations here and there. The point is I have something though.

In addition, this is probably the first year I’ve genuinely crafted something for Christmas too. I mean, during the year I did card making (around eight to nine years ago), I did create Christmas cards too, but these were so ugly a five-year-old could have made them. This year, I actually added my very own home-crafted piece to my Christmas decor.

First, several weeks ago, I created a cookie cutter polymer clay Christmas tree charm. I fully intended on finishing it off with gold Fimo Liquid after adding the balls, but decided after it got out of the oven that I didn’t really like the way it turned out after all. I don’t have a picture for this reason.

Then, last week, I found out how to make an actual three-dimensional Christmas tree. I made it using the same color (Fimo soft Emerald) I’d used for the cookie cutter charm. It’s a shame Fimo doesn’t offer Christmas tree green! I added two colors of balls (Indian Red and Metallic Gold) and added a Metallic Gold star for its top.

Later that week, one of my staff told me about a project she’d been working on in which she’d used a metal ring, a part of a tree trunk, a string of lights and some washi tape to create a Christmas decoration. I thought to myself, how fun would it be to glue my polymer clay Christmas tree onto the tree trunk and work from there.

On Friday, fully having the tree trunk and metal ring project in mind, I created a polymer clay snowman too. That was a bit harder, because it had to be smaller than the Christmas tree and of course the snowman includes more intricate features.

On Saturday, when the staff who’d talked about the tree trunk project came by, she showed me the tree trunk. I think here’s where my concept development is a bit lacking, as I had absolutely no idea how huge a tree trunk would be. In my mind, I had imagined a small piece of wood, but it was the actual trunk of an actual, large tree. Yes, she’d said a tree trunk, right? Needless to say my Christmas tree, which isn’t even 10cm high or 5cm wide, would be invisible when used on this trunk.

Instead of the trunk, we decided to use a small piece of cardboard to stick the Christmas tree and snowman onto. I am not sure how well they will remain secured, as I’ve heard mixed messages about glue and polymer clay. The fake snow we used to spread around the tree and snowman, also hardly stuck at all, but for now, it’s in its place.

We decided to use a much smaller ring than the one my staff had had in mind, because of course the large ring would again drown out my polymer clay sculptures. Since the string of lights was meant for the large ring, we couldn’t use that, but we could use some mini Christmas balls and washi tape.

I couldn’t do much in creating this final project, as most of the parts had to be glued together using a glue gun, but I don’t mind. I like that I at least did the polymer clay crafting.

Do you usually do any Christmas-related crafting?

Linking up with Inspire Me Monday and #LifeThisWeek.

Gratitude List (December 10, 2021) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this cold but lovely Friday. Today, I’m doing a gratitude post, just because I can. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful my mammogram came back all clear. I still suffer with slight discomfort, but I feel comforted knowing it’s nothing serious.

2. I am grateful I got my COVID booster shot yesterday and I didn’t even suffer a sore arm. Well, not that arm, at least. All my limbs were stiff this morning, except for the arm I’d been jabbed in.

3. I am grateful my one-on-one support got approved again. Not only that, but it got approved for two years this time! I am so intensely happy, but still can hardly believe it.

4. I am grateful for crafty inspiration. I am currently working on a mixed media Christmas project which includes polymer clay.

5. I am grateful my husband was able to sort out my health insurance for next year. Here in the Netherlands, basic insurance is mandatory but you get to pick your own private insurance company. The government decides what is covered under basic insurance but insurers get to fill in the fine print and decide which care providers (eg. doctors, hospitals, etc.) to contract with. In addition, they get to offer additional coverage packages. For several reasons, my current health insurance was no longer fitting for me, so I decided to change insurers, but needed my husband to help me make the actual switch. I am so glad it seems to be sorted now.

6. I am grateful we still have pepernoten. That’s a typical St. Nicholas (December 5th) treat and I love it!

7. I am grateful that I was able to have quite varied lunches over the week and most were relatively healthy too. I had Turkish pizza on Wednesday, which was my unhealthy lunch of the week. Yesterday, I had a boiled egg on bread and today, I had a toasted cheese sandwich. On Monday and Tuesday, I think I had my usual lunch of a peanut butter sandwich, which I don’t really like.

8. I am grateful I was able to clean my essential oil diffuser (the new one) yesterday and that it was hardly dirty at all.

9. I am grateful for my Christmas tree and its lights. Its lights were almost out this afternoon, so initially I thought its batteries were empty. That would’ve been highly annoying, since I had only put the batteries in last week. Thankfully, switching the position of the batteries did the trick of turning the lights on again.

10. I am grateful I have been sleeping really well over the past several nights. Last week, I had a few rough nights, but this week is much better.

It was harder than I expected to actually make it to ten things of thankful. I mean, I am overjoyed at my one-on-one having been approved, but that makes for only one item on the list. However, I am trying my best to remind myself that even the little things in life that I am grateful for, can and should make it onto this list.

Polymer Clay #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this gloomy Saturday. I thought I’d join Word of the Week once again and my word for this week is “polymer clay”. After all, I’ve been working with this medium all week. Well, except for Thursday, when I had to get my mammogram and the whole day went chaotic as a result. And except for yesterday, when I was sick with some type of hopefully short-lived stomach bug.

Like I told you all already, I crafted a white polymer clay unicorn late last week. I don’t think I posted the picture to my blog so far yet, so here it is.

White Polymer Clay Unicorn

The creator whose YouTube tutorial I used, didn’t use a ball of tinfoil for the inside of the unicorn, so neither did I. This did mean I used up a lot of my white Fimo. Today, I wanted to make a snowman and didn’t have enough white clay even when using tinfoil for its insides.

Back to unicorns. I made another one on Monday, but threw it in the trash after baking because its horn drooped and it was cross-eyed. I did want to make another one though, so went back to the table on Tuesday to create one. This one, I did without even watching the YouTube video. This one’s made of Fimo in the colors Sunflower Yellow, Tangerine and Apple Green. I nicknamed it Sunnycorn even though its horn is green.

Sunnycorn

By late Tuesday, I was fully obsessed with creating polymer clay unicorns, but I had also thrown out most of my Fimo, because it was too crumbly to work with. The only colors suitable for a unicorn I had left, were Indian Red, Sunflower Yellow and Brilliant Blue. I don’t like the combination of red and blue, but red and yellow do look good together. I joked that they’re the colors of the nearest top league football club. Now it happens that one of my staff is a fan of that club and she had her birthday yesterday, so I decided to create a football unicorn in red and yellow for her.

Football Unicorn

For this one, I made use of some tips I’d gotten from people online and used a little wire to put in its horn to keep it from drooping. If you were to look at the unicorn from underneath it, you’d see that the wire stuck out a tiny bit. I guess I’ll have to figure out a way to prevent this, but for now, it’s okay.

On Wednesday, I finally gave in and ordered some new colors of Fimo Soft polymer clay. In fact, I ordered twelve (!) new colors, including four shades of blue. I already had Brilliant Blue and now I also have Pacific Blue, Blue Ice Quartz, Blue Agate and Pastel Aqua. I am tempted to create a completely blue unicorn now. Or a whale. I also ordered several shades of purple, Pastel Vanilla, Lime, Metallic Gold and Pastel Peach. My staff also went out to buy me some Fimo at the local craft store, where it’s more expensive but she saved on shipping. She bought me Emerald, Cherry Red and some new Tangerine, because I did know I’d almost used that one up. And now that I want to create a snowman, I realize I’m nearly out of white. Ugh.

I also ordered a mold for creating butterflies. This one is useful for both polymer clay and soap, though of course once I’ve used the mold for Fimo I can no longer use this exact one for soap.

Today, since I was out of white and couldn’t do a snowman, I decided to create a Christmas tree instead. I got cutters for St. Nicholas last week, so I cut out a Christmas tree out of Emerald Fimo and put little balls of Indian Red onto it. Then I had my staff put a hole into the top of the tree to put a ribbon through. Once it’s baked, I’m probably going to decorate the tree with gold Fimo Liquid.

This evening, I was originally going to try out the mold I’d ordered on Wednesday, but I got distressed over dinner and then didn’t want to do any more crafting. However, by 7PM, my distress had subsided and I did try a small butterfly in Brilliant Blue. I must say it turned out okay for my first attempt.

How was your week?

Word of the Week linky

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Posted on by Astrid

Today, the staff at day activities have been setting up the Christmas tree and other decorations. I know some people in other countries do so much earlier, but St. Nicholas is celebrated on December 5 here and it’s pretty much not done to set up your Christmas tree before then.

I have a book of Christmassy journal prompts. They start on December 1, but I haven’t written on any of them yet. Today, I’m choosing to write on the Dec 2 prompt, which is about Christmas trees.

Growing up, my family had a Christmas tree almost every year. The one or two times we didn’t, it was because of our cat. We had a live tree and our parents pretty much detested faux trees. We had the tree decorated with silver and red Christmass balls and bells that were made of glass. Almost each year, I would accidentally break at least one ball or bell. We also had a ton of wooden figurines including santas, snowmen, angels, etc. I particularly loved to play with these figurines. We had yellow Christmas lights on the tree. I’m not even sure other colors were available back then. We didn’t have a star or other large decoration at the top of the tree.

When I moved out of my parents’ house, I didn’t particularly care for decor. After all, I was totally blind by this time. No Christmas tree for me.

In the psychiatric hospital, we did have a lot of Christmas decorations. Yes, even on the locked ward. Of course, they had to be safe, so they couldn’t be made of glass or in any other way used to cause harm. I was admitted in early November and, by the time the decorations got put up, was still pretty unstable. One day, in an anger outburst, I pulled all Christmas decorations off the wall.

I still don’t really care for Christmas decorations, though I don’t really dislike them either unless they’re in my way. It is very intriguing to know how much people can put in my way in the name of decorating. At my last psych unit, I was in crisis almost every December due to having bumped into one tree or another (we had several) a little too many times.

This year, I know my staff will make sure to place the Christmas tree somewhere I won’t bump into it. Both at day activities and at the home, I’m not the only autistic or blind person. My staff asked me whether I want to make a Christmas decoration with one of them next week. I said yes.