Little Silver House Ornaments

Check out these silvery little ornaments...

They are a 2-D version of my secret-compartment house pendant.  Materials used: cardboard, duct tape and some oddments from your junk drawer.

Want to make some?  Here's the DIY.

First make some squiggly wire smoke plumes.

To make the puffy ones, do this:

Cut some silly tiny houses out of cardboard.

Arrange various flat oddments onto the plain houses.  Scrounge around and improvise.  I tried beads, a plastic leaf, some filigree shapes and paper doilies.

Sandwich your oddments in, using my favorite, magic silver duct tape.

Real aluminum duct tape, from a hardware or home improvement store.  Seriously, you need some, it is fab!  (Click here to see yet another magic metal tape project.)

Snip around the corners and wrap.  As you wrap the chimney, include a smoke plume.

If the wrapping doesn't cover the back of the house or the smoke-plume wire completely, just add more tape to fill in.  Here's how your house will look at this point:

Pretty blah, yes?  But now begin burnishing the tape down around the oddments, and see the textures emerge!

For a burnishing tool, you could use the handle of a butter knife, the rubber grip of a tool (as in the picture above) or anything small and rounded.  You might accidentally press too hard and rip the tape, like I did.  (See that little crescent of green cardboard peeking through?)  No biggie!  Just add a scrap of tape and burnish to blend it in with the rest.  This stuff is very forgiving.

Now you are done!

I think they're pretty cute!

Make a few for your holiday tree if you have one.  I do not have a tree this year, so naturally I hung them on a bouquet of  beaded sticks and peacock feathers.

Naturally.

Psst!  Want to check out some of my other ornament ideas?  Click here!  And here!  And how 'bout here?

Thanks for visiting!