The Dollar Nut - When my children were small, I used to take care of a tiny
old woman who would carefully clean out the insides of the walnut, place
a folded up dollar bill inside and glue the shells back together. She would
glue a string loop at the top and hang them on her tree. when children came
to visit, she would let them choose a dollar nut from her tree. My children
still remember that. Contributed by Bev Forsling, forsling@xmission.com
Make a Walnut Ship by filling half a walnut shell with molten wax, then
setting three "masts" made of tooth picks, and a front spar also of toothpick.
Use the round ones. Then, use thread and glue to make cross spars on the
masts. Use thread to string together rigging on the masts, and small swatches
of white cloth or paper (old cotton handkerchiefs work well), to make
sails. Glue these on the spars, and use thread from the bottom corners
of the sheet to the sides of the gunwales. You can also add small flags
to the masts. These make great Christmas tree ornaments.
Contributed by John Thompson, jthompso@mcs.net
Make a Jack o Lantern - Sand the fat end of a whole walnut so it will
stand on end without tipping. Paint orange, and add a yellow face of eyes,
nose, mouth. Add a short stick for a stem, with a couple of leaves and
two pieces of thin green wire. Makes a great Halloween decoration.
Contributed by John Thompson, jthompso@mcs.net
Make a Walnut Granny doll - Instructions
here
Make a tiny cradle - Instructions here
"Hidden treasure" basket of nuts - Instructions
here
Walnut Strawberries - Paint the whole walnut red and randomly glue on
tiny pearls for the seeds. Then cut a green felt strawberry leaf top and
attached a hanger.
Make a mouse! - Take half a walnut shell and place flat side down. Take
two pistachio nut shell halves and glue them, pointy standing up, near
the pointed end of the walnut half for ears. Glue on two of those tiny
googly eyes, a pipe cleaner tail and some whiskers made of fishing line
and put a black dot at the very pointed end of the walnut shell and you
have a little mouse. These can be used as ornaments, or glued to packages
just for fun. And you can use the nutmeats for candy making, another of
my Christmas passions.
Contributed by Jean Lexington, drlois@hotmail.com
Racing mice! - You can take Jean Lexington's idea one step further.
If you place a marble in the hole at the bottom of the mouse and glue
a piece of fabric (not felt) over the bottom (trim the fabric when the
glue dries) you can race your mice. Place them on a table and flick them
with your fingers. They will roll across the table.
Contributed by Angi Hathaway, ahathaway@kconline.com
Tiny treasure boxes - Instructions here
Tiny knitting baskets - For a cute Christmas ornament that looks like
a knitting basket -- use half a walnut shell, position a length of yarn
in the bottom of the walnut shell and glue for a hanger. Wind up little
balls of yarn and glue into the shell and on top of the yarn hanger. Stick
in a couple ball head pins for knitting needles. You can also fill with
a pinked square of fabric and fill with tiny pine cones. Use a ribbon
for the hanger (attaching the same as for the knitting baskets.)
Contributed by Nancy Worrell
Nancy Worrell Designs
A walnut mouse bed - Make the mice faces from little grey poms with
felt ears and bead eyes and noses. Fill the walnut shell with some polyfil
and cover with a little piece of fabric for a blanket. Let the faces poke
out from the blanket and cut little felt tails to glue just under the
other end of blanket. Attach a hanger. Or you could make pom bears instead
of mice.
Contributed by Shirley of
The Craftmall USA
Make a pink flamingo - Instructions here
Walnut Strawberries - For the walnut strawberries we painted the whole
walnut red and randomly glued on tiny pearls for the seeds. Then cut a
green felt strawberry leaf top and attached a hanger.
Contributed by Shirley of
The Craftmall USA |
