Out for a walk yesterday evening, I came across this beautiful vintage hand-carved children’s bed frame that had been put out for garbage and I just had to bring it home! Isn’t it just so sweet with all the lovely little hand-carved details? I just couldn’t let such a wonderful piece like this end up in the landfill, so after my walk we drove back to pick it up and now our littlest has a lovely ‘big bed’ to look forward to!

It looks like someone painstakingly stripped the paint that was on it to get it back to the original wood. I think we’ll leave it as-is and put it together once the little one is ready for a big bed. For now, it works as a lovely photo backdrop for my shop!

I love to decorate the house with handmade ornaments using natural materials as people used to do in olden-times. It reminds of a time before this season became so commercially focused and people made simple, handmade ornaments, decorations, and gifts.

These simple little felted wool acorn ornaments make a great needle felting project for anyone who is a beginner or for children who’d like to try out the craft (just mind those little fingers – felting needles are very sharp!)

Follow along the steps below and bring some handmade, natural charm to your home this season!

Making Needle Felted Acorns

what you will need

• Acorn tops
• Small amount of wool roving in colour of your choice
• Thin ribbon or twine
• Awl
• Scissors
• Glue
• Felting needle

Carefully poke a hole in the acorn top – be gentle and go slowly as the tops can crack easily. I find it best to make the hole close the the middle of the acorn top and not near the edge.

Using a small amount of wool, felt a small oval shape – if you are felting for the first time, just wrap a small bit of wool tightly around itself and then start poking it with your felting needle – this will start to felt the fibres together. Once you have a good shape, you can roll the ball around in your hands to further felt the fibres.

Cut a length of twine or thin ribbon and feed it through the hole in the acorn top. Tie a knot. You might need to enlarge the hole a bit if your ribbon or twine won’t fit through.

Pull the knot snug against the inside of the acorn top.

If using twine, you can pull the strands apart, then tie them at the top to make a hanging loop. If using ribbon, you can feed the other end through the hole and then make a knot, or tie the ribbon to itself near the base of the acorn.

Add some glue to the inside of the acorn top. I just used regular clear school glue, but you could also use a glue gun, if preferred.

Press the wool felted ball into the acorn top and hold for a minute or two to make sure it has good contact with the glue. Set aside to dry.

You can add other embellishments to your acorn ornaments – here I’ve added a little sprig of boxwood and tied it into the twine. You could also add a little bell, some dried berries, or other dried plants or flowers would look lovely too!

Enjoy hanging your lovely natural ornaments on the Christmas tree or around the house, or add as a nice little adornment for that special gift!

This is a fun little craft you can do to make your house a little more festive this season! It’s quick and easy and great to make with kids who like to paint. I had the idea to do festive doors as you see so many lovely doors at Christmas-time all dressed up with wreaths and garlands and even the doors themselves are lovely and ornate and have beautiful little details to replicate in a painted garland.

The best part of this craft is it is also low-waste as you can use any old cardboard envelopes or thin cardboard boxes (the thicker ones are a bit tricky to cut the shapes) and many people have an abundance of these coming in at this time of year.

I will include a printable outline for the door shape you can cut out and trace onto card in both large (about 8 inches tall) size and mini (about 5 inches).

Making the festive door garland

what you will need

• Recycled cardboard or brown Kraft paper cardstock
• White gouache paint
• Thin and medium thickness paintbrushes
• Festive ribbon or twine
• Antique-look bells or other trimmings

MethoD

1. Print out door template (if using), trace onto cardboard, and cut out.
2. Find some inspiration for festive-looking doors either in your neighbourhood or by searching online! Make some quick sketches so you have a few ideas to work with. You can reuse similar elements and mix and match to make your doors unique.
3. Using white gouache paint and thin to medium paint brushes, start to paint designs on your door shapes.
4. When all your doors are painted and dried, add holes to the top, string some festive ribbon or twine through and add bells or other embellishments as you please! I thought it would be nice to add some greenery around each door but didn’t get to it this time.

click on the image below to download pdf template

Such a pretty embossed biscuit tin, reminding me of tea and cookies at my Grandma’s house I think this one is perhaps 1940s, but not certain of that. Made by Gray Dunn of Scotland. The design and colours are just gorgeous, such a lovely piece!

I’d never come across one with a biscuit selection paper on the bottom like that, and was pleasantly surprised to see this when I turned the tin over!

Another vintage suitcase in such a lovely shade of deep blue, and hard to resist at only $4! Perfect for fabric storage… and occasionally, traveling, of course!

Isn’t the tiny cross pattern of the lining just so pretty?

Here’s a closer look at the lovely lining pattern.

As you can tell, I can’t resist a vintage tin! I found this lovely Christmas tin by Peek Freans. Shame about the little scratch on the bunny, but still very nice. A quick search tells me it’s from the 50s – lots of them for sale on Etsy, if you’re looking for one!

Some lovely vintage glasses, I think from the 70s – so elegant!

So that’s the round up of my recent vintage finds, I hope to be back with a more craft-related post soon – I’ve got a couple in the works that I need to finish up. We’ve just cycled through the usual back-to-school round of illnesses, the little one got the worst of it with a few days of fever and malaise, so not much sleep for us – he’s finally starting to feel better just as the tickle starts in my throat – off to gargle some cayenne and hopefully finish up some photos for those posts!

Little bit of a long overdue post, the lovely birthday girl in question celebrated in November and here I am posting about her birthday many months on! Ah well, ‘better late than never’ has always been my motto, along with ‘I’ll study tomorrow’ and um, ‘all in good time’… I think you can see the theme here. Anyway! I came across the birthday photos on my camera and realised I had not posted about them… or really much of anything in quite some time, so about time for a new post!

For my daughter Aoife’s 14th birthday, I went with a bit of a vintage theme since she’s been quite into vintage everything in the last little while – clothing, music, room décor, etc. – so thought she would appreciate some vintage-y themed decorations and treats.

I came across these beautiful Two-Toned Frosting Rose cupcakes on Sally’s Baking Addiction and thought they would be perfect for the party. I am very much in amateur territory when it comes to any kind of baking decoration and in absolute awe of all the beautifully decorated cookies and cakes I see on Pinterest, but I’m actually quite pleased with how these turned out with Sally’s tutorial! Though mine are perhaps less ‘rosette’ and more ‘swirl’ I was just happy they looked presentable… which is all I really aim for when it comes to birthday cake decorating!

Scroll down for more on how to make a nice vintage rose colour for your icing/frosting, how to make your own vintage-look cupcake toppers and gifts and gift wrapping vintage (+ eco!) style

Vintage Rose Pink Icing for Two Tone Roses

Start by making up a batch of Vanilla Buttercream icing/frosting from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

I found this pack of Wilton icing colours at my local Bulk Barn and thought they’d be perfect with their lovely muted tones of Creamy Peach, Cornflower Blue, Rose Petal Pink and Moss Green.

To make the two-tone rosettes, you need to keep half of the white icing aside and then add colouring to the other half.

To the portion I wanted a vintage pink tone, I added 10 drops of each Rose Petal Pink and Cornflower Blue. It was a little too dark for my liking so I added a bit more of the white icing to get the tone I wanted.

I thought this was such a lovely muted pink tone and would be perfect for the vintage-look cupcakes.

The sprinkles I found at Michaels and thought they were the perfect colour combination for vintage cupcakes. My lovely aunt gave me the gorgeous tiered cake plate on the right – I adore it and it makes me smile every time I get to use it!

Don’t you just love the design of Tala products? I love that they haven’t changed their packaging design or logo and still sell products in this vintage style made of tin and steel – so lovely! Actually their iconic product – The Cook’s Measure – is such a part of the imagery of my childhood since my mum did a lot of cooking and baking, so the one she brought back from England years ago was always in use. Mum even brought me one back from England a few years ago and it is now a treasured part of my own cook/bakeware Just came across this great video on the history of the Tala company, who were founded in 1899 in Liverpool, England, and still make their products by hand using the same historical tools and presses.

I used the closed star tip from the Tala icing bag set – the tutorial on Sally’s states you can use a 1M or 2D (closed star) tip and either will do well to make the roses.

making Vintage cupcake toppers

I made these vintage-look cupcake toppers in Canva and you can easily make your own! Canva has lots of vintage elements and fonts and you can adjust elements to suit your tastes by choosing a vintage colour palette. Please scroll down for a link to the editable Canva template where you can add your own birthday message, name and birthday number!

click here to access cupcake topper template

What You Will Need

• Printed cupcake toppers – just edit the template on Canva and print
• Coffee stir sticks, toothpicks or lollipop sticks
• Tape or glue

Edit printable cupcake toppers on Canva. Print and cut out either by hand, with a 2-inch paper punch or with a Cricut machine or other electronic cutting machine.

If using coffee stir sticks, they are quite long so I snip them in half for using for cupcake toppers. They work out quite a bit cheaper than using lollipop sticks and are something you might be likely to have lying around the house!

Glue or tape a stick to the back of each paper circle.

Your vintage cupcake toppers are all ready for the party!

We were really pleased to find these sweet little pure beeswax birthday candles made by Honey Candles, at one of our favourite Toronto shops – The Handwork Department!

A vintage suitcase full of gifts

I have an old 1940s suitcase that I’d picked up whilst thrift shopping when I was a teenager in the 90s and had filled with ephemera and favourite little bits and pieces – concert ticket stubs, jewelry, writing, my own art, notes from friends, photos, poetry books and loads of magazines and clippings featuring my favourite bands and singers – Nirvana, Tori Amos, Pearl Jam , Hole and many others.

I brought this suitcase back with me after one of my visits home to see my family and my daughter loved looking through it and had expressed an interest in keeping one of her own. I had the idea to find one for her birthday and fill it with little presents both new and thrifted. I found the perfect case at one of my daughter’s favourite shops here in Toronto – Ethel! Ethel is such a lovely little shop, packed full of vintage treasures and I was so happy to find a lovely old suitcase there that matched mine almost exactly!

Here is my daughter’s birthday suitcase filled with birthday treats. I tried to wrap everything in ecologically-minded but still pretty and vintage way – so used some recycled birthday paper, a lacy vintage tablecloth with a pinned on sachet and used little glass jars decorated with fabric and bits of ribbon.

ecologically-minded gift wrapping

Ideas for Wrapping

• Use a large piece of fabric and fold in the same way you would paper wrapping, pin edges together with a pretty vintage pin or brooch
• Use beads placed onto safety pins for securing fabrics
• Vintage tablecloths and napkins make great wrap as they often have lovely lace edgings or embellishments
• Use a layer of plain fabric to conceal a gift and then wrap overtop using a vintage lace fabric or tablecloth
• Use recycled paper gift wrap and tie with a scrap piece of linen or silk to secure paper
• Recycled paper wrap can also be secured by gluing a vintage scrap paper to secure the edges – a simple and unique wrapping idea!
• Use jars to hold smaller items, then decorate the tops using small pieces of fabric secured with ribbon or twine

I hope you’ve enjoyed these ideas for a vintage birthday party! I’m relieved to have finished up this post at long last after having sat in my drafts folder for ages – I promise to be back with another post much sooner than it took me with this one!

These items were all Salvation Army finds – a thrift store that still has decent prices!

I hesitated on this Appaman blue velvet suit ($225 CAD new!) – turned out to be a little too small for my bigger boy and way too big for my little guy, so will tuck it away for now. Lovely suit and a beautiful colour! The knees are a tiny bit threadbare, but not to worry.. perhaps a patch or two in their future.

Can’t resist a stripey sweater and this merino is perfect with its 3/4 length sleeves.

This noodle bowl was too pretty to refuse – love the turquoise crackle glaze inside! As well as being great for noodles, might make a nice photo prop as well.

Was really happy to find this cookbook – it’s got some great recipes made with, as you can see, coconut flour. The chocolate chip cookies were delicious, everyone in the family loved them. Excited to try some more of the recipes, such as the cinnamon buns and the chocolate cake, below!

My attempt at the cookies don’t look quite as nice as the ones in the book, but they certainly were yummy!

So that’s the end of my first ‘Thrifting Thursday’ post… I think I’m about 10 years late for such a trend, but thought it would be fun to do anyway! Seeing as I thrift shop a lot, I’m likely to be back with more.. but maybe not by next Thursday as there’s only so much we can fit in this little house!

Our littlest one recently celebrated his third birthday and as a Very Hungry Caterpillar‘s superfan, I thought I’d try my hand at making Hungry Caterpillar cupcakes for the occasion. Being not very adept at cake decorating, I knew I wanted to keep things as simple as possible, while still coming up with something that at least resembled the famous little green and red guy!

The most time-consuming part of these is making the little faces, but even they don’t take too much effort. You can make the faces ahead of time and then have them ready to pop on the cupcakes when you’re ready to do the decorating.

While our older two didn’t really take to ‘cata-peeyah’ (as he’s known in our house) quite as much (maybe they came to the story too late), Arthur was quite taken with this ravenous little guy, and his tale of great hunger and subsequent transformation (spoiler!).. into a beautiful butterfly! He’s now memorized the story and so ‘reads’ it more to us now than we do to him.

I think the cupcakes turned out pretty cute and are quite easy to decorate, so if you’ve got your own little Hungry Caterpillar fan at home, I hope you’ll have fun giving these a try too!

how to make very hungry caterpillar cupcakes

Cupcakes

• Use your favourite cupcake recipe – I’ve used the Moist Vanilla Cupcakes recipe from lifeloveandsugar.com a few times now, and they’ve come out perfect every time!
• Be sure cupcakes are well-cooled before decorating.

How to Make Very Hungry Caterpillar Faces

I used the same recipe as for the Candy Bones and Eyeballs I made at Hallowe’en which make a moldable icing that hardens when left to air dry. You can make the faces ahead of time and keep them in a container in the fridge until needed.

ingredients

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons meringue powder
• 6-7 teaspoons water
• Parchment or waxed paper
• Tray
• Red, green and yellow food colouring
• Soft black licorice, such as this Australian Licorice

METHOD

• In a medium bowl, mix together powdered sugar and meringue powder. Slowly add the water teaspoon by teaspoon until the mixture forms a dough. Start out mixing with a spoon, then use your hands to mix. Knead dough until smooth.
• Divide dough into 3 portions – two smaller amounts and one larger. To the largest portion, add red food colouring, as much as is needed to make it a deep red. Mix until the dough is uniformly red.

I first mixed the dough with a spoon but then kneaded it with my hands to get the colour to mix in thoroughly.

Be sure to wash your hands between mixing colours!

• Do the same process for the two smaller portions of dough, making one green and one yellow.

NOTE: Keep the dough covered when not in use as it dries out quite quickly!

Making the hungry caterpillar head

Take a small portion of the red dough and roll into a ball, then flatten to a small oval/disc shape. Only make a few heads at a time as you don’t want the dough to dry out before you’re ready to add the eyes and nose.

Make sure you make the ovals small enough that they’ll fit on a cupcake, keeping in mind you’ll need room to fit the caterpillar body too. The ones I made were about 1 inch across by 1.25 inches tall.

Place ovals on a parchment paper covered tray, ready to add the eyes and nose.

making the hungry caterpillar eyes

Roll tiny balls out of the yellow dough and flatten to a small oval/disc. Do the same with the green and then place the green on top of the yellow.

putting the hungry caterpillar face together

Place the assembled yellow and green eye pieces onto the red face piece and press down gently to secure. If they’re not sticking, just take a drop of water on your finger tip and tap on the back of each eye and then try attaching to the face again.

For the nose, cut or pinch off a tiny piece from the soft black licorice and press into the face just below where you’ve placed the eyes.

Set aside to let air dry for a few hours. Make sure to be gentle when handling these as they’re quite delicate until they dry!

If making ahead of time, the faces can be stored in a container in the fridge until ready to use.

How to Decorate the Very Hungry Caterpillar Cupcakes – Putting It All Together

I was attempting to make the caterpillar bodies in a two-tone/ombre kind of look akin to Eric Carle’s lovely Very Hungry Caterpillar artwork. Not a complete success on that front as the two colours didn’t really come together until the last few cupcakes I decorated. Feel free to play around with the colours yourself, or just go easy on yourself and make them all in one shade of green!

Keeping with the style of The Very Hungry Caterpillar illustrations, I used a base of white icing/frosting, followed by some rainbow sprinkles for all the lovely colourful dots in the illustrations and then added our caterpillar friend piped in the middle, with a little sprinkle of yellow dusting sugar for his fuzziness.

what you will need

• Premade Hungry Caterpillar faces
• Vanilla icing/frosting – white and green
• Green food colouring
• Yellow sanding sugar, such as this one
• Candy coated chocolate balls or rainbow sprinkles
• Soft black licorice – cut into thin 3-4cm long pieces – 2 per cupcake
• Piping bag with an open star piping tip

vanilla icing/frosting

I used the icing recipe that goes along with the Moist Vanilla Cupcakes at lifeloveandsugar.com. I think next time I would double the recipe as I ended up a bit short and would have liked to make the caterpillars a bit more plump too! I guess mine turned out more like the little caterpillar before he ate up all that food…

Set aside half of the icing/frosting to keep white for the base decorating. With the other half of the icing, add green food colouring until it reaches your desired shade of green. I made two shades to mix together when piping on the caterpillar body. Just one shade of green will do perfectly fine as well!

prepare all ingredients before starting to decorate

Piping Bag

Prepare piping bag with open star tip, then add in green icing. If using two shades of green for an ombre effect, fill one side of the bag with one shade of green and place the other shade on the opposite side. There is a helpful tutorial at Sugar & Sparrow if you need help.

Candies & Sugar

Prepare your other decorations – rainbow sprinkles, yellow dusting sugar and black licorice cut into 3-4cm long segments.

Ice the cupcake using the white icing.

Pour the rainbow sprinkles onto a plate and roll the cupcake around on the sprinkles until you have a rim of sprinkles all around the base, leaving white in the middle to place your caterpillar.

Pipe a caterpillar shape onto the white middle of the cupcake, curving the icing around half of the top. As I said, I wish I’d made my caterpillars a bit more plump!

Press one of the premade caterpillar faces onto one end of the piped green body.

Just behind the caterpillar’s head, stick two of the black licorice antennae into the cupcake. Sprinkle some of the yellow sugar into the body of the caterpillar.

Your Very Hungry Caterpillar cupcakes are now complete and ready to delight the little birthday girl or boy!

Enjoy seeing your little one’s face light up when they see their favourite little caterpillar adorning their birthday treat

This paper heart mobile is just about the easiest mobile you could make and turns out so very pretty!

If you’re looking for a sweet little gift to make for a new baby’s nursery, or decoration ideas for a Valentine’s party, this is the post for you! You can make this mobile in no time at all and since it is mostly made with paper it’s also very inexpensive, and you might just have everything you need on hand already!

making hearts using paper punch or die cutting machine

I used a paper punch to cut out the hearts for the mobile – there are many options for paper punches out there. You can check out options at craft shops such as Michael’s, art supply stores or of course, Amazon.

For my birthday I was so fortunate to receive a Cricut Maker die cutting machine (so grateful, yet a bit terrified at the same time!) and so for my very first project I decided to stick to something really easy and manageable whilst learning how to use the machine – a page of hearts similar to the ones I cut out with my old paper punch. So happy to say, they were a success!

If you have access to a Cricut machine and would like to use my heart page SVG, please see the bottom of this post to get a copy. Personal use only, please! Not to be copied and redistributed anywhere else (for free or purchase), thank you.

paper options

I made the mobile above with hearts gradating in colour from light at the top to dark at the bottom and the supply list will reflect that. You can choose whatever pattern and colours you’d like, of course! Experiment with different kinds of paper, or make from recycled materials such as magazines or pretty packaging paper – anything goes, really!

what you will need to make a paper heart mobile

• Cardstock – 6 shades from light to dark – made mine with lightest pink to red
• Mobile ring – I used a gold one with a 9 inch diameter – found at craft or bead stores
• Twine – Two lengths of twine that are 50 inches long each
• Baker’s twine – I used pink and white – cut eight – 16 inch strands
• Paper heart punch
• Hole punch with capability of punch small holes – I use a leather punch
• Alternately, use Cricut die cutting machine instead of paper punch + hole punch
• White glue (optional)

paper heart mobile tutorial

Making the paper hearts

1. Choose six shades of cardstock – I chose varying shades of pink and red. Cut out paper hearts (either using a paper punch or Cricut machine) – you will need six hearts in each shade. Feel free to add more or less, depending on the look you’re after!

2. Punch two small holes vertically on each heart. I use a leather punch that works really well for this, but if you don’t have one, you can also just make holes using a large needle or an awl.

Alternately, if you don’t have a paper punch and would like to cut hearts on a Cricut die cutting machine, please see the bottom of this post for my free paper heart SVG. If cutting hearts on a Cricut, the centre holes will be made for you.

After all your paper hearts are ready to go, gather all other supplies – metal hoop, baker’s twine, natural twine, scissors and white glue (optional).

Making mobile base – attaching twine to hoop

We’ll start making the mobile by attaching the natural twine to the metal hoop.

1. Cut two lengths of natural twine that are each 50 inches long.

2. Wind the twine around the hoop 3-4 times, leaving a few inches for tying. Tie a knot and then another knot to secure. You can add a little dab of white glue to further secure the knot and keep it from sliding out.

3. Attach the other end of the twine across the hoop from the knot you just tied. Secure in the same way as the first knot.

4. Attach the second piece of natural twine on the hoop at a 90 degree angle to where you tied the first two knots, so you will have knots equally spaced around the hoop, ensuring the mobile will balance.

You will now have twine tied on four points around the hoop (image below)

5. Gather the twine together so that the pieces are even and then tie a knot so that you make a loop at the top that is about 2-3 inches long. This will be the hanging loop for the mobile.

Once tied, the top loop will look like the image below.

making strands of paper hearts & attaching to mobile

1. First decide if you want your hearts to go from light at top to dark at the bottom, or vice versa. Whichever you’d like at the bottom, you will thread that colour on first.

Thread your needle with a 16 inch strand of baker’s twine (for 12 inch length when finished + 4 inches for tying onto hoop) and make a knot in the end that is large enough it won’t go through the hole (will need to make knots on top of one another to make a larger knot).

2. Start by coming through the back of the heart in the bottom hole and then back in through the top hole.

The first heart should look like the above image, with the knot at the back of the paper heart.

3. Add on another paper heart in the same way as you did the first, by pulling the baker’s twine through the back and then into the top hole toward the back again.

4. Continue adding on hearts until you have as many of each shade as you’d like. I did 6 hearts for each strand, going from dark at the bottom to light at the top.

5. Continue making strands of hearts until you have eight strands total, or however many you’d like on your mobile!

6. Now you’ll tie each strand onto the mobile, between the places where you tied on the natural twine for hanging. I placed two strands per quadrant. Tie the stands on in the same way as you tied on the natural twine. You can add a little spot of white glue on each knot to secure it.

Your paper heart mobile is complete! Now find a lovely place to hang it or give it away to someone you love and warm their heart today

Please remember, if hanging mobile in baby’s nursery always make sure to hang well out of reach of baby or other young children.

hearts svg for cricut Maker

To save the SVG, please click on the image and once the image opens, right click on the image and save it to your computer. Please scroll down for more info regarding making the paper hearts on a Cricut.

When making the hearts on a Cricut, I made the canvas size 8 x 10 and used an 8.5 x 11 inch paper (US letter size). (See image below)

When selecting material size, select 8.5 x 11 in (Letter) in the ‘Material Size’ dropdown. I used the standard grip mat (green mat).

Valentine’s Day is soon upon us and it is such a fun holiday for kids to celebrate by giving out Valentine cards to friends and family as well as making yummy Valentine treats to share!

I’ve been working away on a fun package of Valentine’s Day printables for my Etsy shop – Little Willow Press – 10 activities in all! I’ve tried to pack as much in there as possible to help little ones celebrate the spirit of this season of friendship, love, and caring

The Valentine’s package, and everything else in the shop, is currently 25% off!

If interested, you can visit my shop by clicking the image below, or continue on down the post for more information about this Valentine’s Day printable package

Valentine’s Day Printable Package

here is everything the package includes:

All You Need Is Love Activity & Colouring Page – kids can explore all things love and kindness in their world with this fill-in and colour-in activity page
Valentine Cards – sweet full-colour cards that are ready to print & give
Valentine Cards to Colour – print, colour-in and give to friends!
Heart Crown – kids will love decorating & wearing this printable crown on Valentine’s Day!
Heart Crown Style 2 – this blocky crown is especially loved by Minecraft & Roblox fans!
Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunt – a fun Valentine’s Day activity for home or classroom.
Valentine Card BINGO – kids will love playing this game with the Valentine cards they’ve received!
Happy Valentine’s Day Colouring Page – kids will learn about the many symbols of love while having fun colouring this page.
Valentine Pouch Name Plate – a page to decorate and then attach to a Valentine pouch – great for classes!
Treat Bag Tags – sweet tags that are perfect for attaching to treat bags to give to friends and family.
Kindness Coupons – a lovely way for kids to spread kindness and care for others on Valentine’s Day!

Clove orange pomanders are so fun to make and are a lovely way to make your home smell festive and fresh! I remember my mum making orange pomanders when I was little and loved having one sitting prettily in a glass dish on the piano at Christmastime, greeting us with it’s lovely scent coming in the house on wintry days.

There are a number of ways you can make clove orange pomanders and I’ll detail a few options in this post, so you can try your hand at making whichever strikes your fancy! Not only do clove oranges smell delicious, but you can also create pretty festive bowls to display them in and add a lovely natural touch to your holiday décor this season.

what is a clove orange pomander?

An orange clove pomander is a decorative ornament made by studding an orange with whole cloves. To make a pomander, you’ll need an orange, a package of whole cloves, and an awl, needle or other pointy instrument to poke holes in the orange so you can easily insert the whole cloves.

Start by poking the awl or needle into the orange to create a small hole, then insert a clove into the hole. Repeat this process until the orange is completely covered with cloves. The pomander will release a pleasant, spicy scent as the orange dries out.

To create a more decorative pomander, you can also add ribbon or other embellishments to the orange once it is covered in cloves. Pomanders are often used as holiday decorations, but they can also be hung in closets or drawers to add a pleasant scent to the air as well as to ward off pests such as moths (who dislike the smell of cloves).

using other citrus fruits

Not just reserved for oranges, you can also use other citrus fruits to make pomanders! I’ve used clementines to make smaller pomanders to hang on the Christmas tree and you can use lemons, limes, tangerines, etc. as you can easily stick cloves into these and they dry similarly to oranges.

4 decorative pomander ideas

Here are a few ideas for how you can make a variety of different clove orange pomander balls. Scroll down for details on how to make each type.

• COVERED – Completely cover with cloves, add twine through centre of fruit for hanging.
• RIBBON WRAPPED – Wrap a ribbon or cut a thin length of linen to wrap orange, leaving some parts of the orange showing. Add cloves to the uncovered parts.
• CARVED DESIGN + CLOVES – Use a tool to scrape off parts of the orange rind so that the white of the pith is showing beneath. I found using a lino-cut tool is really great for this, but you can also use the corner of a zester or other sharp instrument to a similar effect. You can then dot cloves along the design you’ve created.
• DECORATIVE DESIGN USING CLOVES – Make a decorative design over the surface of the orange – as simple or complex as you’d like! Using an elastic band around the orange is very useful for keeping your lines straight. A scrolling design is also quite lovely.

#1 – clove covered orange pomander

what you will need

• Firm, ripe orange, clementine or other citrus fruit
• Awl, needle or sharp instrument for making holes
• Whole cloves
• Twine for hanging (optional)
• Large needle (optional)

Step 1. If making a hanging ornament, start by cutting a long piece of twine and threading large needle with it. Going from the bottom of the fruit, push the needle all the way through from one side to the other and then back down and through, so your needle comes out close to where you went in. Make a knot at the top and tie a bow at the bottom.

Step 2. Using your awl or needle, poke a few holes in the fruit and begin placing cloves in the holes. Continue until the entire fruit is covered.

Hang on your tree for a lovely scented ornament or year round in the closet to repel moths.

#2 – Ribbon wrapped orange pomander

what you will need

• Firm, ripe orange, clementine or other citrus fruit
• Awl, needle or sharp instrument for making holes
• Whole cloves
• Ribbon or narrow length of linen or cotton – length will depend on the size of the fruit

Step 1. Start by wrapping your ribbon around the orange so that you go over the orange and down the sides, cross the ribbon at the bottom side and come up to the top again. Tie the ribbon in a bow at the top.

Step 2. Begin making holes in the orange at the parts not covered by ribbon. Place cloves in the holes, continuing until all exposed parts of the fruit are covered.

Note: If you find that the juice of the fruit is messing your ribbon as you work, alternately you can make light pencil outline at the edges of the ribbon, remove the ribbon and add all the cloves, then retie the ribbon once all the cloves are in place.

Add an extra ribbon at the top for hanging by looping under the top of the ribbon already in place then hanging on the tree or on a doorframe, etc.

Another display idea is to place your clove orange pomander in a dish to display along with other festive natural items such as pine, boxwood, cinnamon sticks, anise, etc.

PLEASE NOTE: Oranges that are not completely covered with cloves are slower to dry out and risk molding rather quickly. To lessen the chance of your pomanders getting mold, you can add make your clove design, then place the orange in a paper bag to dry out for several days. Once the orange has dried you can then add ribbon and hang up.

#3 – Carved design with cloves orange pomander

what you will need

• Firm, ripe orange, clementine or other citrus fruit
• Awl, needle or sharp instrument for making holes
• Whole cloves
• Lino-cut tool or citrus zester
• Elastic bands
• Pencil for marking

Step 1. If you wish to make straight lines of cloves on the orange, place an elastic around the fruit to use as a guide for placing the cloves. Use the awl or needle to make holes and then push the cloves into the holes. On the example below, I made one line of cloves around the centre and then made swirl lines using the lino-cut tool.

Step 2. Using a zester or lino-cut tool, make patterns and designs by cutting shallow lines into the peel.

Step 3. Place cloves along the lines you made with your cutter or zester.

Make a pretty and festive display by placing a bit of raw wool in a wintry bowl or mug and placing the pomander on top, then tuck bits of natural elements such as lavender, holly, boxwood or pine behind the orange. Add anise, bells, cinnamon sticks, etc. to the bowl for a beautifully scented, festive presentation.

PLEASE NOTE: Oranges that are not completely covered with cloves are slower to dry out and risk molding rather quickly. To lessen the chance of your pomanders getting mold, you can add make your clove design, then place the orange in a paper bag to dry out for several days. Once the orange has dried you can then add ribbon and hang up.

#4 – Decorative design orange pomander

For this orange pomander idea, you will make a pattern over the surface of the orange using cloves. You can make a freehand design or if you like a bit more of a plan, try using a pencil to lightly map out your design on the surface of the orange peel.

what you will need

• Firm, ripe orange, clementine or other citrus fruit
• Awl, needle or sharp instrument for making holes
• Whole cloves
• Pencil for marking

Step 1. Map out your design idea. Swirling patterns look particularly nice, though radiating straight lines can look just as lovely! You can use a pencil to lightly mark the design or gently scratch the surface of the peel using a needle.

Step 2. Begin punching holes along your pattern lines and placing cloves in the holes. You can space the cloves either close together or further apart, depending the look you’re after.

Display your pretty patterned orange in a wintry mug or bowl with other festive elements such as pine branch bits, boxwood, berries and anise.

PLEASE NOTE: Oranges that are not completely covered with cloves are slower to dry out and risk molding rather quickly. To lessen the chance of your pomanders getting mold, you can add make your clove design, then place the orange in a paper bag to dry out for several days. Once the orange has dried you can then add ribbon and hang up.