Snowflake Sprite Ornaments

These aren’t the faeries I mentioned in my last post, but I thought I would show you these first. My friend Maria came over today and we had dedicated today to make these oh so cute Snowflake Sprite ornaments designed by Colleen Babcock.

If you join Doll Street, you will get this wonderful pattern for free. I don’t know how long the offer will be there, but if you have made any of Colleen’s other designs, you will be just as pleased with this one to and won’t want to miss out on it. 

This is like the little sister to her other design, Snowflake Sprite which also can be a Spider for Halloween. How great is that. And I bet if you wanted to, you could make these into miniature ones for Halloween with a just change to a spider trim on the back and Halloween colours for her. Or how about some pretty Valentine colours for someone special, I bet you could come up with some other really cool themes for her.

Before I post the pictures, a few things we discovered as we made them.

• all shrink plastic is not created equal. Some shrink more than others which is expected, but we also discovered some curl and move around more than others.
• we had a few pieces that wanted to stay curled, but with gentle persuasion we were able to make them relax. Just put them back in the oven, let them warm up again. Then when we took them out, we quickly put the potholder over them and held the pieces down until they cooled (it only takes a minute)
• I tried a little experiment. My first one had a little wow in her midsection, as though she were doing a belly dance or pelvic thrust…lol  So I thought, what have I got to lose by trying something. I put the pieces together with the brads (without the lace), put the doll on the cookie sheet (lined parchment paper). I let it heat up for a couple of minutes, then quickly pulled it out and pressed the oven mitt down on it until it cooled. Presto, she flattened right out with no casualties.
• we also discovered what depth of  colour we can now use to get the effect we want.
• we learned that lightweight lace is best. Maria tried cutting up a cotton doily, but it was to heavy to gather nicely for such a tiny little doll.
• I used lace with points on it, my preference, but certainly other laces with work as well as you’ll see with Maria’s.
• the last thing, don’t pull to hard to get a curl out of the plastic. Maria had a toe come off, but will fix that later with a little something on the end of the foot as though that was intended. I ended up with one of mine getting the hole punched to close to the edge and it came off. No problem, it didn’t effect the hat at all, it’s just one little section shorter.
• one more last thing. The lace on one of mine was a bit wider and didn’t want to stand up right, so I used a bit of spray starch on it and then I used a little bit of Fabri Tac glue and just put a little touch of it behind her hands and feet and that worked like a charm.

We haven’t added the polka dots yet in these pictures. Maria had to leave, so we’re adding those after the fact. I will be adding some glitter dots as well.

Now here are the pictures. I know you will love them, so if you feel so inclined, pop over to Doll Street and sign up. It’s very reasonable. The first two ornaments are mine, Maria is faster than me and she was able to make three.