Fragrant Vintage Ornaments

Satisfy your handcrafting urge by making Fragrant Vintage Ornaments.  Though mostly made from items in your pantry, these ornaments are not edible.  This recipe makes about 12 ornaments.  They can be used for tree and package decorations, bookmarks, necklaces, pins, and/or drawer fresheners.

First combine 1 cup of cinnamon, 1 tablespoon ground cloves and 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg with a whisk in a medium size bowl.  With hands, work 3/4 cup applesauce and 2 tablespoons of Aleene's Tacky Glue and mix with hands 2 to 3 minutes to make a mildly wet dough.  If it is too dry and another tablespoon of applesauce.  If it is too wet add a little more cinnamon.

Divide ball into four balls and knead dough like Play Doe.  Keep the other balls of dough covered with a damp cloth until you work with it.  This is a good time to pass out dough to as many as 8 children by dividing into 8 pieces.

Placing the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap, roll or pat to 1/4 inch.

Take off the top plastic and cut dough with cookie cutters.  When doing this project with children, cookie cutters with few corners works best.

As long as the dough has been well kneaded and not rolled too thin, the dough should be easy to peel away and reused.  The cutouts can be gently peeled off the plastic and placed on a cookie sheet.  I like to line my sheet with parchment.

Using a straw, make a hole at the top of the ornament, but not too close to the edge.  Place in an oven no more than 200 degrees for 2-4 hours, turning over halfway through.  Or place in a sunny window on a cooling rack turning over time to time to ensure even drying.  This could take up to 4 or 5 days.

When ornaments dry, you can insert ribbon--cut to 22-inch lengths--through hole and tie ends into a knot.  Tie another length into a bow around first ribbon near ornament top.  Ornaments can be decorated with opaque paint markers found in arts and crafts stores, if desired.  I used white Puffy Paint to make it look like royal icing.

Candy Cane Reindeer Ornaments

Reindeer Ornaments would make cute table centerpieces for parties or to decorate side and coffee tables.  I like to decorate my tree with them and then give the reindeer out to visitors (especially children).  You need mini red poms for the nose, mini googly eyes (I could have gone up one size on both), and brown pipe cleaners.  Also Aleene's fast drying craft glue keeps the eyes from sliding, and don't forget the box of candy canes!  This is a pretty good project for kids.

First cut a pipe cleaner in half (unless you want really big antlers).  Making sure the candy cane is in the middle of the pipe cleaner half, twist the pipe cleaner around the top of the candy cane crook.  Then fold the pipe cleaner in 45 degree angles about two or three times (more for larger antlers).  Put a bead of glue on the back of the antlers behind the twist so that the antlers stay on tight.

Next glue a pair of googly eyes to the candy cane making sure they touch each other.

Add a red pom for a nose.

Setting each into a cup is a good way to help them dry safely.  If you made your antlers large, they can lay flat on a table.  Now read Imogene's Antlers by David Small (hilarious!  He also wrote George Shrinks):

Grateful Living: M.H. Spa Retreat

Count your night by stars, not blackness, Count your time by good deeds done. ~Ethel C. Smith

This is the last of my Grateful Living Series--are you grateful?  About 20 years ago I read in my women's church manual about enjoying what you have.  An example was given of an older woman who had a very modest apartment without very many material possessions.  But what she had, she took good care of.  Her apartment was kept neat and clean.  There were little touches such as houseplants and photographs and other simple things attractively displayed.  The little apartment was inviting, warm and comfortable to guests.  Being newly married myself, without hardly a stitch of furniture, the lesson really struck home.  I have followed its guidance in every home I've lived in.

vintage pillowcases hide the laundry

It never occurred to me at nineteen that  in my forties I would choose to live in a mobile home!  I totally sympathize with Janet Palmer who said, "Turning forty was the biggest let-down of my life.  I thought I'd be happy and in control by then."  However, I know I wouldn't trade my life with anyone else.  Having an oasis from disappointments or stress or just plain exhaustion has come in the form of my bathroom or as I like to call it, my "Spa Retreat."  I even play soft, soothing music with calming background sounds from nature--just like at a real spa.

My husband replaced the tile and lights, and installed baseboards and the curtain rods, but basically everything else was done by me during a particularly stressful period.  The job was therapeutic. We had just added a third bedroom and large bathroom to our mobile home and I thought we'd never get it done.  Little did my family know that they would no longer be welcome again in the old bathroom--My Bathroom.  You do what you have to to get by sometimes, and having my own bathroom--the only room in the house that no one could mess up was critical to my psyche!

Dealing with the massive mirrors over the tub was the biggest obstacle.  They came with dark curtains, but I saw a picture in a magazine of a softer, brighter window treatment and knew that would be simple and inexpensive and a huge improvement.  I painted the cheap vanity cabinet with the same kind of paint I used on the baseboards and crown molding (cabinet and trim paint).  My husband sanded the knobs to find a really nice "nickel" color underneath the gold so we kept it like that.  The only gold is the bathtub faucet because the one that came factory installed fell apart and this very expensive model was practically given away at the hardware store.  Everything else in the bathroom is nickle, but I've made peace with the gold faucet.

Pegs hold towels, robes...

I tried flat paint on the walls and ended up repainting with gloss.  Satin would probably do just as well, but I was very careful to finish out the mobile home walls so that there were very few flaws to see.  I painted the ceiling with Kilz first and then ceiling paint.  My best advice for renovating a mobile home is to make sure you're fairly comfortable with what you are doing.  Save up for jobs that you don't feel competent, (especially wiring!).  Study before you take on drywall, painting, even hanging anything on the wall.  As the old saying goes--Measure twice, Cut once!

Keep an idea book of what you like for at least a year before you delve into renovating a room.  When you start to see a lot of ideas that go together in your book, you will begin to know better what you want.  Some people are super gifted with this--not me.  I'm talking to the rest of us who don't have a clue!  The main thing is being happy with the results of all your hard work.  My goal was that when I was inside my home, it was a home not a mobile home.  I can look around and there is nothing left of the "factory installed" and my home is warm, comfortable, and inviting (at least to me!).


Living Small
Homemaking Journals
Homemaking: Homebuilders of the World
Grateful Living: Scaling Down to A Mobile Home
Grateful Living Series: Dress Up M. H. Windows
Grateful Living: Repurposed Trunk
Grateful Living: Class Up the Mobile Home Fireplace
Grateful Living: Front Porches
Grateful Living: The !#*! M.H. Walls
Grateful Living: M.H. Spa Retreat
Grateful Living: My Collection on Reflections of Home

Grateful Living: The !#*! M.H. Walls!

This I learned from the shadow of a tree, That to and fro did sway against a wall:  Our shadow selves, our influence, may fall Where ourselves can never be. ~Anna G. Hamilton

Above is how I arranged my collection of cross-stitch samplers.  I got the idea from a past issue of Southern Living Magazine.  A tip I learned from Martha Stewart is to trace the frames onto wrapping paper and cut out.  Using removable tacky putty (whatever it's called), you can try all kinds of arrangements for picture placement.  I actually keep pictures from magazines of picture arrangements that I like in my Idea Book.  It really comes in handy.  Also, Martha taught me to use little Velcro circles to put at each bottom corner of a picture and then press in place to the wall.  Then the picture doesn't move out of place.  Which is great if you live in a mobile home with paper thin walls.  See my post on Picture Groupings.

I wanted to do something my very Southern grandma did in her hall and have my own "hall of fame."  As children, my sister and cousins and I loved to look at old family photos, baby pictures, and pedigree charts that literally lined my grandma's enormous and long hallway.  Somehow, I had to find a way to make my now less wavy hallway wall more interesting to walk through (and wavy wall even less noticeable).  Here's how I got the hall wall's flaws to be less noticeable.

I'm not sure if this is a common occurrence or cheap building gone amuck, but our hall had become a real
sight!  For some reason the outside wall is all wavy.  My husband's standard response is "What do you expect from a mobile home?"  My reply is always, "Remember that wavy wall in our family room in the house we built for $250,000?  Bad construction happens folks!  I am a great lover of old homes that were built to last but no matter how well-built a house is, there is bound to be something that goes terribly wrong.  You can't just blame everything on bad construction and hope your wife backs off!

So we thought about using spackling to even the wall out, but that would really take someone talented with spackle or someone who has a lot of patience--neither of which was us.  We thought about replacing the wall board (it's literally a cardboard substance!) with bead board.  However, my husband had just put baseboards and crown molding up and we didn't want to mess with that.  I thought about painting the wall in vertical stripes as an optical illusion.  But the hall is such a narrow space that I thought stripes might overwhelm it even if I used narrow stripes in soft colors.

Finally, I was in Lowe's and became attracted to the paintable wallpaper products and noticed some that looked like bead board. That's what I decided on.  My husband, younger daughter and son put the wallpaper up.  My husband is a little OCD and soon learned that you didn't have to place the wallpaper to the wall with great force.  My son's method of simply placing the paper to the wall gently actually held the best.  Here again, my husband complained that nothing was straight in the mobile home and therefore it was impossible to place the wallpaper up straight.  I quietly reminded him that we have never lived in any HOUSE where any of the construction seemed straight.  That's where the kids came in.  They actually seemed to have fun with the project and turned my husband's mood around.  Also lots of yummy snacks keep spirits high.  I kept the paint color the same in the hall as throughout the house.  I use flat paint because wavy walls and other unsightly flaws show up less.


Living Small
Homemaking Journals
Homemaking: Homebuilders of the World
Grateful Living: Scaling Down to A Mobile Home
Grateful Living Series: Dress Up M. H. Windows
Grateful Living: Repurposed Trunk
Grateful Living: Class Up the Mobile Home Fireplace
Grateful Living: Front Porches
Grateful Living: The !#*! M.H. Walls
Grateful Living: M.H. Spa Retreat
Grateful Living: My Collection on Reflections of Home

Grateful Living: Front Porches

When you live in the country (in a mobile home), you have to give serious consideration to a porch.  In our case, we have a closed-in front porch and a "back deck."  Since the front door is the easiest to enter from our attached carport, we needed some way to take shoes off before entering the house.  This is because there is a lot of dirt in the country.  We have a gravel drive which is very dusty when it hasn't rained in a while.  Our cars need constant spraying down due to the amount of travel they go through, (we're 30 minutes from the nearest Walmart).  Also, front porches are really important in the South for welcoming people.  When you live in a mobile home where you walk through the door and HELLO there's your living room, kitchen, dining room, etc., it's kinda nice to greet people on the porch and chat awhile while the family straightens up.  My goal was to make my front porch so cozy (as well as a way to trap dirt) that we might just visit there instead.  The decor has to be simple but homey so that it doesn't become one more place that requires constant attention.  It has to be okay if there are leaves and grass on the floor.  They are easily swept away and pretty much expected on a porch. I added what I call Parlor Touches like the knick knacks, pillows, houseplants.  A double rocking chair with cushions and corner bench with storage are easy to wipe clean.  The porch ceiling is painted a coastal green and the nooks are filled with little treasures.  (Ceiling painted Valspar Signature Colors - Southern Breeze SR901)

Living Small
Homemaking Journals
Homemaking: Homebuilders of the World
Grateful Living: Scaling Down to A Mobile Home
Grateful Living Series: Dress Up M. H. Windows
Grateful Living: Repurposed Trunk
Grateful Living: Class Up the Mobile Home Fireplace
Grateful Living: Front Porches
Grateful Living: The !#*! M.H. Walls
Grateful Living: M.H. Spa Retreat
Grateful Living: My Collection on Reflections of Home

Grateful Living: Class Up The M.H. Fireplace

Some women go through life turning on lamps in the evening.  Others are themselves a light. ~Helen Parks

One of the first renovating projects I did (after replacing the carpet!) in our mobile home was to antique the fireplace.  The original was pretty cheap looking wood and cheap looking tile.  My husband replaced the tile with marble leftover from the house we built.  He also painted the fireplace insert with a brown, "hammered-look" spray paint designed for metal that can be exposed to heat (I think Rust-oleum brand).  I replaced the blah handles with adorable twig-shaped ones.  I used the below product that I found at Walmart at the time.  It was very simple.  Because the adjacent wall has my cross-stitch collection displayed on it and there's a TV above the mantle, I chose to decorate the mantle sparsely.  I have my grandma's figurines from her dining room that my sister and I used to play with (and quite possibly broke!).  

I'm pretty siked about another Rust-oleum product on the market that will class up my kitchen cabinets.  I chose a light color for the fireplace to make the tiny living room appear larger.  I would do the same with the kitchen cabinets as well:  http://cabinets.rustoleumtransformations.com/

Living Small
Homemaking Journals
Homemaking: Homebuilders of the World
Grateful Living: Scaling Down to A Mobile Home
Grateful Living Series: Dress Up M. H. Windows
Grateful Living: Repurposed Trunk
Grateful Living: Class Up the Mobile Home Fireplace
Grateful Living: Front Porches
Grateful Living: The !#*! M.H. Walls
Grateful Living: M.H. Spa Retreat
Grateful Living: My Collection on Reflections of Home

Grateful Living Series: Repurposed Armoire

Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have. ~Kiki Knickerbocker

Living in a mobile home, I had to think about whether I could use another piece of furniture (painted girly pink) that my sister was wanting me to take.  She was about to give it to someone else when I realized that it was just what I needed in my master bath as a linen closet.  I had my husband move the tiny pantry-sized factory-installed cabinet to the kitchen where I could place cans of food in it, and made space for this very pink armoire.

The armoire stayed on the front porch for quite a few days.  Every family member would go out there and sand on it a little.  It wasn't until my eldest daughter spent about three days sanding that I was finally inspired to really go to work.

I pulled off the bottom door that hinged open and painted that space as well.  I found two lined, white baskets at Lowe's that fit perfectly in this opening.  My husband placed two more shelves in the side of the armoire normally used for hanging clothing.  We used regular shelf board from Lowe's.  You iron-on strips to the exposed sides of the shelf to give it a finished look (it's really cool).  We replaced the door handles with something that looked vintage and actually fit the piece better than the original.  I was going for a spa look in my bathroom so white furnishings with the metal door handles added a minimalist, clean feel.


I was inspired by these two pictures from Before and After (ISBN 1574862960).  The first picture convinced me to paint the armoire and the second one showed me what I could do with the empty space once I took off the hinged door on the bottom of the armoire.  I'm only sorry that I didn't take a "before" shot. 

Living Small
Homemaking Journals
Homemaking: Homebuilders of the World
Grateful Living: Scaling Down to A Mobile Home
Grateful Living Series: Dress Up M. H. Windows
Grateful Living: Repurposed Trunk
Grateful Living: Class Up the Mobile Home Fireplace
Grateful Living: Front Porches
Grateful Living: The !#*! M.H. Walls
Grateful Living: M.H. Spa Retreat
Grateful Living: My Collection on Reflections of Home

Grateful Living: Repurposed Trunk

The Spirit of the Hive (Beehive girls' theme):  Have Faith.  Seek Knowledge.  Safeguard Health.  Honor Womanhood.  Understand Beauty.  Value Work.  Love Truth.  Taste the Sweetness of Service.  Feel Joy.

My oldest daughter and I worked on this trunk that my mom had been given by an elderly neighbor who had recently passed away.  It was in pretty bad shape.  I wasn't sure if there was anything that could be done.  But it was built of solid construction and had a lot of character.  Then I saw the trunk pictured below in Flea Market Finds, Before and After, Leisure Arts (ISBN 1574862960).  Since it was a trunk, we decided to go with a travel theme.  As can be seen, the cushion on top of the trunk has gotten a lot of use.  I really like this blog that inspires me to repurpose older furniture:  http://fineandhandy.blogspot.com/.

Living Small
Homemaking Journals
Homemaking: The Homebuilders of the World
Grateful Living: Scaling Down to A Mobile Home
Grateful Living Series: Dress Up M. H. Windows
Grateful Living: Repurposed Armoire
Grateful Living: Class Up the Mobile Home Fireplace
Grateful Living: Front Porches
Grateful Living: The !#*! M.H. Walls
Grateful Living: M.H. Spa Retreat
Grateful Living: My Collection of Reflections of Home

Grateful Living: Scaling Down to a Mobile Home

Jacqueline Kennedy once said, "Every thing in the White House must have a reason for being there."  This is even more true for a small house!  Want to know one of my decorating inspirations?  Old episodes of The Rockford Files!  (Gotta love Jim Rockford!)  One thing I noticed about his crummy little mobile home (NOT trailer!) on the beach was that as soon as Rockford went inside and shut the door, the place was quite charming.  For a tough guy, there were a lot of homey (yet masculine) touches.  I thought, "I could do that!  I don't have to stick with this generic factory-built decor."  Decorating a mobile home can be a lot of fun--especially if you have ever had a doll house for your Barbies like I did.  It takes so much less money and time than bigger houses.

When you have limited floor space you have to think small.  Most of my larger furniture has been exchanged (literally I swapped furniture with various people), for smaller pieces.  My furniture has to be practical and comfortable.  Furnishings are kept to a minimum.  I've even decided to swap out a full-sized piano for a keyboard style they use in music schools (update: daughters have prohibited this!).  The big screen T.V. has been exchanged for a flat screen that fits on the wall above the fireplace.  The workout equipment has been swapped for a family gym membership near my son's school that's $55/month.  Father and son go together each morning on their way to work and school and their bathroom at home stays much, much cleaner.  Plus, working out no longer interferes with family time.

I have a comfortable love seat that sits off the ground, which helps to expose more floor area.  Matching the couch color with the wall color so that it's not such a contrast really helps to make the room seem larger.  It's a smaller piece of furniture with narrower arm-rests.  I also have two comfortable dark leather chairs that are really too big and dark for the space and I would like to replace them with light leather recliners that are smaller (I've seen these at Macy's but they are expensive!!!)  I have to keep the furniture against walls in order to have as much floor area exposed so the place stays light and airy and not so crampt and I like to do yoga and Leslie Sansome workouts on the area carpet in the middle of the room.

As I've mentioned, mobile homes look best if the furniture is small-scale and the home and furnishings have small-print textures and patterns in wallpapers, fabrics, tiles, etc.  We used honey-colored wood-look linoleum flooring throughout.  I can't tell you how many times folks thought it was real wood flooring.  We had wood flooring throughout the 2,200 square-foot house we built and then sold, (bathrooms and hall were tile), and I was always so exhausted from having to take care of the floors.

Our walls are the same throughout the mobile home which is good for small homes.  I chose butter cream for the paint color.  Just take a stick of butter to the store and match it to a paint sample and voila!  That's the color of my walls.  They are cheerful, yet warm and comforting.  I've gotten pretty depressed from moving from my house to a mobile home and having to scale down so much -- yet wall color really can help create a peaceful, happy feeling and keep me grounded.  (And listening to Dave Ramsey).  But light, cool colors are generally good for small spaces.

I don't use a lot of tables, coffee tables, etc.  I was given a small and charming matching buffet and china cabinet and I use the buffet in the living room to house the electronic stuff for the t.v. and also extra dishes, etc. that don't fit well in the kitchen/dining area.  The china cabinet is pretty and functional and all of my dishes are housed there.  (See my post about scaling down http://homemakers-journal.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-really-like-this-blog.html)  The only other table in the living room is a side table that has a glass top.  (Not a fan of glass tops, especially around children, but if you have to have tables, glass tops are better for small spaces).

Pages from my Idea Book

I have an Idea Book for Recipes and one for decorating and gardening.  Idea Books are a great way to keep track of what you like so that when you're ready to decorate (inside and out) you can just have at it and know that you'll probably love it.  Time to time, I will weed the Decorating Idea Book of ideas I'm no longer interested in, but I'll usually keep the pics that inspired something I have done.
(Some of the tips are inspired from the following source:  Sep/Oct '96 Country Woman, p. 45)

Living Small
Homemaking Journals
Grateful Living Series: Dress Up M. H. Windows
Grateful Living: Repurposed Trunk
Grateful Living: Repurposed Armoire
Grateful Living: Class Up the Mobile Home Fireplace
Grateful Living: Front Porches
Grateful Living: The !#*! M.H. Walls
Grateful Living: M.H. Spa Retreat

How to Love Scouts

By the time my daughters were in Young Womens at our church, my son was beginning Scouts.  Before that, I did  Tiger Scouts with him on our own because we couldn't find a troop in our area.  This worked out fine for us because we were starting to homeschool kindergarten and I treated Tiger Scouts like another subject with fun field trips the whole family took together.  I wish I would have thought to take pictures of this but since we were not in a troop it didn't occur to me.  They wore orange shirts with matching caps.

When Bryce began Cub Scouts, I made sure the leader had something Bryce had accomplished at home to record at each meeting.  Next thing I knew, I was called to be the Cub Scout Leader for our church Cub Scouts.  We went on field trips, but mostly I helped the boys get caught up and advance.  At one family meeting there was a fun obstacle course to complete in the gym.  We did a Cake Bake where father and sons (without the help of a female) made and presented a cake and held it out at the church pavilion.  Everyone received an award.


We also had a Court of Awards where I went all out on the decorations!  I made these lanterns as centerpieces and used them at several Court of Awards.  They were made with painted Popsicle sticks and wax paper with fleur de lis (Boy Scout symbol) cut-outs on each side.  This was the second time they were used.  I used battery operated tea candles to light them.  I found all kinds of ideas just by Googling Cub Scout decorations.

When my son was in Cub Scouts, they really encouraged families to be involved.  This is a recipe holder that Bryce made with his dad's help.  I've used it ever since!

When planning a Scout meeting of any kind, I always tried to fill the entire time (60-90 minutes) and even practiced the activities ahead of time.  Because of this, most meetings (involving several short activities) transitioned smoothly and kept the boys from becoming restless.  See MORE of my Boy Scout photo gallery by clicking on Read more...

This layout shows a box car rally and field trip to a local fire house that the recent tornadoes just demolished!  There's also pics from our Blue and Gold Banquet.

Here's the Cake Bake and Relay Race from two separate family events.

This shows the boys at the Stake Raingutter Regatta and the second Blue and Gold Banquet that I did.

My husband took Bryce and Sam to the last Cub Scout event before they turned eleven and became Boy Scouts.

Rickwood Caverns is a great place for a Boy Scout over-nighter (just get permission from the Boy Scout office first!)  There are caverns to tour, a pool, group primitive camping, lots of pavilions, etc.  Here Bryce and Sam are working on many beginning requirements such as lashing, swimming, cooking, etc.  They also went to their first Boy Scout Camp near Mentone, Alabama at Top of the Mountain.  Those are the top three pictures of this two-page layout.

My husband took advantage (with a little help from moi), of all the camping opportunities for new scouts.  The stake had an 11-yr.-old campout that Sam and Bryce went to and were able to sign off quite a few requirements!

Chief Ladiga Trail in Cleburn County, Alabama is such a great place to do Cycling Badge.  They guys loaded up their bikes and headed out on several trips to the trail to finish a total of 50 miles!  They're legs looked awesome (see below pic!).

Winter Camp (right after Christmas) is a good time to get those badges that can be completed at camp (so Mom doesn't have to help you finish them at home!)  I never minded my husband taking the guys to camp (using up rare vacation time) to spend quality time with his boy and helping the other young men from church advance in Scouting.

My husband had volunteered to be the Scout Master because otherwise they weren't planning on doing Scouts--just in time for my son to become a Scout!  Apparently, not too many people at our church do 11 yr. old Scouts, even though the Stake has an event for them.  So with my help (record-keeping), my husband took on not only the new guys like Bryce and Sam but anyone else who wanted to do Scouts.  There were only a handful of us--believe it or not only 3 families!

Spencer's dad volunteered to go to summer camp and ended up writing the skit our troop was to do.  It sounded like they were very successful.  They did pretty much everything you could do at Camp Sequoyah near Mt. Cheaha.  Before they went, we did a preclinic were we got some Camping Badge and other requirements completed (see top three photos, left page).  In fact the Young Women actually ended up attending this as well.

Star Spangled Shelf Paper

We used the "Star Spangled Shelf Paper" to edge the table.

I was always impressed with Laura Ingalls Wilder's mama.  No matter how many places that husband of hers drug her out to, she would try to dress it up a little--even a sod house which was normally considered very temporary housing.  In one book, Laura describes her mom making her own shelf edging to make the shelves a little more attractive.  I thought this would make a nice decoration for our dessert table at our Achievement Days Country Fair.  Here's how to do it:
I used packaging paper and taped pieces of paper together as I needed to.  Then you fold the strip of paper into 1/2-inch accordion pleats.  Cut out half a star.  A star cookie cutter or printing off a star from the computer and using it as a pattern by folding it in half would work.  I also gave the according fold a scalloped look so it looked lacy.  Carefully unfold the paper and smooth it out.  Fold the edge with the stars down so that the stars hang down over the edge of the shelf.  Secure the paper on the shelf with pieces of tape if you want to.

Cornhusk Dolls

Landmark Park, Dothan, AL  2002

Members of our Junior Troop included my 9 yr. old daughter, Elise and 11 yr. old daughter Christen and a homeschool friend of Christen's.  Sidekick Bryce is working on his own cornhusk doll while the three girls demonstrate to other visitors of Landmark Park at a special event (probably Heritage or Harvest Days).  Between our homeschool group and Girl Scouts, we visited Landmark Park a lot!--usually free since we were doing some sort of service while there.  The following instructions Cornhusk Dolls can be found at Pioneer Days, by David C. King (ISBN 0439259398).

Cornhusks have a smooth side and a rough side.  Always keep the smooth side facing out.

1. If the cornhusks are green, dry them until they are straw-colored.  Place between sheets of newspaper.  Store in a warm, dry place for 5 or 6 days, or until color turns.  (Can be found in produce section of grocery store or in craft stores).
2. Cover work area with more newspapers (we used a plastic table cloth).  Soak dried husks in water for about 5 minutes before working with them.  This will make them softer and easier to shape.
3. Remove all the husks from the water and shake the water out of them.  Cover the ones you are not working with, with a damp towel.
4. Cut off the pointed tips of all the husks with craft scissors to make the shapes more alike.
5. Form the doll's head by taking a large piece of husk and folding it in half.  Stuff 3 or 4 cotton balls under the fold.  Tie a piece of heavy thread (candle wicking is good) around the husk 1 to 2 inches from the fold to create a head shape (we actually used thin pieces of cornhusks to do this).  The ends of the husks will extend several inches below the neck.
6. For the arms, cut a thin piece of husk about 7 inches long and wrap it around the 6-inch piece of wire or pipe cleaner.  Fold back the tips of the husk at each end of the wire.  Tie them with the thread at the wrists to form hands.  (You can omit the pipe cleaner/wire--they can be made without this).
7. Slide the husk-covered wire between the two halves of the husk below the figure's head to form the arms, one on each side of the body.  Carefully bend the arms into any position you wish.
8. Tie a piece of thread around the doll's waist.  Stuff 2 or 3 cotton balls between the husks to fill out the torso.
9. For a full skirt, place 3 or 4 husks around the doll's waist, but point the husks up, so that they extend above the figure's head.  Tie the husks around the waist with thread, then fold them down over the tied thread to created the skin.
10. If you would like, glue a little corn silk to the head for hair and use felt-tip pens to add facial features--eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth.  (I prefer not to do step 10 and leave them more natural).

making the skirt

how I like to leave the dolls

Here is the simplest version for making Cornhusk Dolls found in the Nov/Dec '98 CopyCat Magazine, p. 11.  See my post for homeschoolers or teachers of K-3rd graders: http://homemakersjournal.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/native-american-culture-activities-for-kids/indian0018/