Thursday, December 13, 2012

Making a Wooden Christmas Star Ornament

Wooden Christmas ornaments are very popular in Austria!  Last weekend my son took part of a mini "make and take" workshop and he created his very own wooden star!  It was not hard at all - just took a bit of time (like all things hand crafted).  He had a great teacher - very organized and patient - shown above with him.  This is the website for the man who was running the workshop.  It is in German, but easy enough to translate in the funny way that computer translators translate!
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Below you can see the man's set-up, which is in a Christmas tent in the city right now.  Plus, he had a long table with a bench for the children to sit on while they created their masterpieces.  After seeing this, I guess lugging a sewing machine to a workshop is a piece of cake!


Here you can see my son gluing the segments together with the glue gun and then, quick, quick - clothes pin the units so the glue sets!  The mat in front of him is the "measuring" mat with all the lengths and how many units needed clearly marked.  In this way, the children were able to do the project by themselves with minimal supervision.

A close-up of the progress being made.  You need lots of clothespins!  One of my friends is going to try this in her daughter's classroom as a Christmas craft - using colored paper.  I think that is a great idea!  I can just imagine a window all decorated with colorful paper stars!

1 comment:

Laurie said...

I think the wood ornaments are lovely. I am intrigued with your comments about Austria. We are planning to visit Salzburg next fall, so I love hearing bits and pieces about life there. I have yet to do much research about it though.