Traditional Christmas Craft - Orange Pomanders

Orange pomanders fill the house with a delicious scent, are satisfying to make and very pretty to look at. If you are looking for a quick and easy craft, with supermarket ingredients, try method 1 below. For a more traditional, longer lasting pomander, try method 2.

Method 1 - short-term pomanders

Choose a number of thin-skinned oranges. Using a large darning needle, prick a design on the oranges. A large-spaced random design works well, as does a double row of holes around the middle of an orange. Push a clove into each hole. Arrange in a bowl or glass vase and enjoy the gorgeous scent.

Idea: "Write" a letter in cloves on each orange and use to spell a Christmas word (perhaps Merry, Christmas, Yule, or Noel). Arrange the oranges on your mantlepiece, or down the center of your table, for an original and sweet-smelling display.

Method 2 - long lasting traditional pomanders

You will need:

A medium-sized thin-skinned orange
1/2 cup whole cloves
1/2 cup orris root powder
2 tablespoons cinnamon powder
1 tablespoon ground allspice
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg

Instructions:

Roll the orange in your hands to warm it: this makes it easier to push the cloves into it. Using a large darning needle, poke holes into the orange about 1/8 inch apart, and then push a clove into each hole. A traditional pomander covers the entire orange with cloves closely, but it is easiest to work on a small area at a time.

Mix all the powders together, and roll your clove-studded orange in it, filling the spaces between the cloves as much as possible. Store carefully in a small cardboard box lined with tissue paper, and tip the extra powder on top. Keep in a warm (but not hot) dry place, such an airing cupboard, for 3 to 4 weeks. Shake off excess powder and tie a pretty ribbon around the pomander, with a bow and a loop for hanging. Any excess powder can be saved and used again.



Lindsay Small is the creator and editor of http://www.christmasiscoming.co.uk/, where you can find free Christmas crafts, printables, recipes, stories, decorating, entertaining and gift ideas - in short, everything you need to make Christmas special!



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Use Free Christmas Clip Art In Your Holiday Craft Projects!

It's hard to believe, but Christmas is right around the corner, now is the time to start your Christmas and holiday craft projects. You can use free Christmas clip art found on the internet to spice up your web site or holiday greeting cards. With a simple Google image search for Christmas clip art, you can find hundreds of free images for download which you can use in all of your holiday projects. Not only will you find lots of great free Christmas images to download, but you can also find Christmas craft projects for the entire family with a quick search.

Some of the cool holiday and Christmas images that you will find are Santa images, Christmas tree images, wreath and holly clip art images, and snowmen and other holiday characters. If you have access to a photo program like Photoshop or something similar, you can download the images directly to your computer and then edit them in your photo program.

Scale them to different sizes, change colors and create your own Christmas creation. Many of the holiday clip art images you will find are outlined with no fill colors. This means you can download and print these images, which make perfect coloring projects for the kids.

It can be a lot of fun to create your own holiday greeting cards by using a text or image program, combined with free Christmas clip art that you download from the internet. You can select which images you want to use in your greeting cards and customize them to be completely original. If you have your own blog or website, you can also upload the clip art images to decorate your pages for the holiday season. So if you're starting your holiday craft projects, do a quick google search or you can visit this link for tons of free Christmas clip art images.



http://christmasclipart.blogspot.com/


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