Cookie Cutters and Huichol Yarn Painting = Pretty Holiday Ornaments

Recycle cereal boxes and scraps of leftover yarn into beautiful Huichol tree ornaments using cookie cutters as your patterns and this tutorial: how to paint with yarn from "That Artist Woman"!

Meg over at Mega Crafty inspired the use of cookie cutters and their simple shapes seemed a perfect background for playing with yarn painting.

Grab a few saved cereal boxes, find some richly colored yarn and felt scraps in your stash, and gather together a pencil, scissors, Aleene's Tacky Glue, small brush, and if you like, some embellishments - buttons, beads, - that sort of thing.

Now let's make ornaments!

Trace the shapes of your cookie cutters onto the cereal boxes.

Cut them out! I never tire of these cookie shapes! They make me smile!

Cut a piece of felt just a tiny bit larger than your shape. I have found the best way to do this is to glue your cardboard shape right onto the felt and once it is dry, cut around the shape leaving about a 1/16" to 1/8" border as shown above.

Place a "bead" of glue along the exposed edge of felt and carefully outline the shape with yarn.

You will find that a wooden skewer is a valuable little tool for maneuvering the yarn and keeping wet glue off your fingers!

If you are feeling creative and adventurous, go for it!!

Let your yarn edges dry overnight

I loved how these looked edged and ready for "painting"!

And now pop over to Gail's tutorial to complete your yarn paintings!

A couple notes:

1. Practice! Pratice again! It will be worth the time, trust me. It takes a bit of practice to get used to maneuvering the yarn so that you get a nice smooth painting.

2. A wooden skewer will help you adjust and push the yarn.

3. Use worsted weight or even bulky yarn - you can see I used several different weights and kinds.

4. Gail suggests Aleene's Tacky glue and after having used Mod Podge on a previous project, I can honestly say, Tacky Glue is the best choice because it grabs and holds the yarn in place - just like Gail said it would!!

5. It is almost inevitable that there will be bits of glue on the surface here and there - it will disappear when dry.

Have some fun with this! Try a little inlay, experiment with twisted yarn and yarn that is more like a lightly twisted roving. Try a few fancy yarns.

And finally - embellish!

I used hot glue to attached the buttons, beads, bows… but Aleene's Tacky Glue is also a good choice. Both nearly disappear when dry.

Huichol ornaments are beautiful on holiday trees, strung as garland, decorating wreaths or tied on packages!

Have fun! And let me know how you use them!