A Christmas Mouse

Dec 22, 2010

Mom and I love all the lit­tle fig­urines of Christ­mas mice that can be seen dur­ing the hol­i­days. My grand­mother on the other hand could not STAND see­ing any­thing which slightly resem­bled that of a mouse. I can remem­ber once when I was very, very young being at my grandparent’s camp in Acton, Maine and gram run­ning out of the camp scream­ing. It was years later I found out my mom had dis­cov­ered a lit­tle mouse nest in one of the kitchen draw­ers that had a baby mouse sleep­ing inside. Well gram did not want any­thing to do with that and left in a dash. Poor gram. So in the spirit of all the adorable Christ­mas mice mom and I see dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son I thought it would be fun to make one for her Christ­mas tree. I think my mouse looks as though he is in com­pe­ti­tion with Santa on the most cook­ies eaten as he does have the look of a super full tummy.

Sup­plies Used: Maya Road Cir­cle Coaster Album (1 page), Maya Road Foun­da­tion Chip­board (2 ovals), Cream Felt, Brown & White Baker’s Twine, Red & White Baker’s Twine, Vin­tage Sheet Music, Book Page, Creamy Brown Ink, Col­lage Pauge Instant Decoupage — Glossy, Crys­tal Coarse Glit­ter, Holly, Pale Pink Seam Bind­ing, 1 — Self Adhe­sive Red Gem, 2 — Rhine­stones, Fabri-Tac, Glue Stick

Tools Needed: Scis­sors, Zigzag Scis­sors or Pink­ing Shears, Sand­ing Block, Paint­brush, Pencil

Instruc­tions:

• Trace one page of a cir­cle coaster album onto cream felt.
• Using Zigzag Scis­sors or Pink­ing Shears cut out the cir­cle just out­side the line. This way you will have a slight zigzag edge.
• Remove the outer piece of the foun­da­tion piece, cover the outer areas of two oval foun­da­tion pieces using vin­tage sheet music, sand and ink the edges using creamy brown ink.
• Cover the inner area of the two oval foun­da­tion pieces using a book page, sand and ink the edges using creamy brown ink.
• Put the foun­da­tion pieces back together, using a paint­brush cover the entire oval foun­da­tion pieces with col­lage pauge instant decoupage then gen­er­ously cover the two pieces with crys­tal coarse glit­ter, tap off excess, let dry.
• Cut a piece of brown & white baker’s twine to 12″ in length, tie the ends together and loop through the hole of the album page at the top of the page. This will be the hanger for your orna­ment as well as the tail for the mouse.
• Apply Fabri-Tac to the front of the cir­cle chip­board album page, attack the round piece of cream felt.

• Apply Fabri-Tac to the back of the oval foun­da­tion pieces and attach to the felt cir­cle as shown in the photo.
• Cre­ate a small bow out of pale pink seam bind­ing and attach to the ears using Fabri-Tac.
• Using Fabri-Tac attach a small piece of holly as shown in the photo.
• Using Fabri-tac attach two small clear rhine­stones to cre­ate the eyes.
• Attach one self adhe­sive red gem to recre­ate the nose as shown in the photo.
• Cut six pieces of brown & white baker’s twine to 2″ in length. Using Fabri-Tac attach 3 pieces on each side of the nose to recre­ate the whiskers as shown in the photo.
• Cut one piece of red & white baker’s twine to 6″ in length, cre­ate a bow and attach to the base of the (hanger) tail as shown in the photo.

I want to thank you all for your com­ments of sup­port as well as the loads of email you sent regard­ing my pre­vi­ous blog post. Please don’t get me wrong, this indus­try does have lots of fab­u­lous peo­ple to work with and I have been so for­tu­nate to work with many. But sadly there are some in this indus­try that aren’t eth­i­cal. I feel if we all stick together we can make a change for the bet­ter. I know 2011 is going to be the year we all help each other, keep each other informed and strive to see each of us be the best we can, not only as artists but as pos­i­tive upbeat peo­ple. We can make a difference.

Wish­ing you all a very Merry Christmas.