Decorations Refresh

As I’ve documented on this blog before, my work decorations tend to be more seasonal/holiday than personal themed.  They can also be a bit over the top at times, so some of them take a bit of time to create and thus are often seen again the next year or so.  However, this fall I decided two of my holiday themes needed a break.  Both the Haunted Mansion (Halloween) and Gingerbread House (Christmas) had made three annual appearances.  Here’s their replacements for this year: Columbus Day (October) and Snowflakes (December).

Along with the pictures, a little background on each.

Columbus Day – The cute little Columbus on the outside wall was something I made for my mom’s classroom a long time ago…15 years at least.  Thanks to good storage and the wonders of lamination, he survived pretty well and served as the centerpiece and inspiration. 

If it is not very legible in the picture, the map is labeled with Spain and “Asia” aka. The New World.  Hanging in front of the map are the three ships, and yes, the Pinta was taking on water and on her side most of the time.

 

Snowflakes – Since snowflake decorations have long been a favorite of mine, choosing the theme was a no-brainer.  I found the perfect snowflake print wrapping paper at Walmart (great price for the amount, takes a bit to cover all of the walls inside and out).  The “snow” batting and white string lights were leftovers from previous decoration. 

While that total coverage makes an impact, my smaller outside wall space has created a need for always having something hanging from the ceiling.  A little internet searching found a science/cooking experiment that worked perfectly!  Check out the close ups of the two snowflakes. Here’s the simple steps to create these cool crystallized decorations:

1. Bend chenille stems (aka. pipecleaners) into the desired shape.  Mine were snowflakes, but you could make candy canes, wreaths, etc.
2. Tie a string to one end and tie the other end of the string to a pencil/pen.
3. In a large mouth jar, mix boiling water and a liberal amount of borax.  I probably used ¾ to 1 cup of Borax for a quart of water. 
4. Submerge the snowflake into the water solution, balancing the pencil/pen across the opening so the snowflake is fully submerged but ideally doesn’t touch the bottom or sides.*
5. Leave for several hours, overnight for best results.
6. Remove from jar and marvel at the cool creation!

*Note: If it is touching the bottom/sides, the snowflake get stuck to the jar.  I had a couple do this and it really wasn’t a problem to pull them loose.  So don’t let the size of your jar limit the snowflake size too much.  I used an assortment of mason jars, large candy jars, and large yogurt containers and each worked well. 

One interesting observation I made about these.  I had two basic snowflake designs: one with just a six point formation (snowflake 1) and another with the six points plus “Vs” added to each point (snowflake 2).  I noticed the first design came out solidly covered with small crystals, about the size of typical sugar, while the others grew much larger crystals akin to a rock candy look.  Although I like the second one better, the contrast is interesting.  

The tree is the same, with this year’s SWA ornament added to the mix.  Notice Tink fits in quite well with the theme also!