Holiday Decorating: No Special Tools

Making your own holiday decorations requires both creativity and the ability to turn household objects to special tools for the job.

A good crafter has to be resourceful. Small objects that keep slipping in wet glue can be held firmly with a pair of mini-clamps in the form of two old screw-type earrings.

Crafts ‘n Things magazine has another tip for people who work with patterns for fabric toys or ornaments that need to be enlarged. If you have a checked tablecloth with one-inch squares, you have an excellent graph. Put a piece of tracing paper over the squares and enlarge your pattern. You can use the grid over and over again.

If you make wooden ornaments from one-quarter-inch plywood and have gaps that need to be filled, a solution of sawdust mixed with glue makes a fine filler.

If hairs on paint brushes made from real animal hair, such as sable, become crushed or bent, the magazine recomends swishing the brush in the protein on the bottom of a freshly-broken eggshell. It says the brush will look like new.