Mushroom on a Christmas tree made of cotton wool

There is very little left until the New Year, and it’s time to think about how to decorate the Christmas tree. Many of us are already tired of buying monotonous Christmas tree decorations in stores and want individuality. It’s easy to make a forest beauty unique if you remember old traditions. Our ancestors did not have the opportunity to buy glass balls, cones, icicles and made toys for the Christmas tree with their own hands. Gathering with the whole family, they used any available means, as a result of which the Christmas tree in each house was unique. Today, in a simple master class, we will show you how to make cotton toys in the simplest and most accessible way. The example of a mushroom clearly demonstrates the entire technology. Once you learn how to make simple shapes, you will be able to make more complex shapes in the future.

Will need

The following materials were used in this work::

• - cotton wool,
  
• - PVA glue,
  
• - newspaper,
  
• - food foil,
  
• - threads,
  
• - acrylic paints,
  
• - water,
  
• - brushes,
  
• - tea leaves,
  
• - leg-split,
  
• - Super glue.

Making a Christmas tree toy from cotton wool

From old newspapers we form the cap and stem of the mushroom.

We connect them together using foil, giving the mushroom the desired shape.

We take cotton wool, tear off thin strips from it and begin to wrap the figure. We pull each layer of cotton wool with a thread, trying to make the layers as dense as possible. So we apply layer by layer until the future mushroom acquires the correct proportions.

To hide the threads and finally level the shape, we use glue. We dilute PVA with water in a 1:1 ratio and cover our mushroom with the same thin strips of cotton wool. We increase the cotton mass until we cover all the threads.
Now the figurine needs to be dried. This may take several hours or even days.

It's time to color the cotton toy. You can work with watercolors, but it is better to use acrylic paints. To make the mushroom look more natural, acrylic must be diluted with PVA glue. The paint will become more transparent, like watercolor, but at the same time, due to the glue, it will give additional density to the cotton wool. We paint the hat brown, and tint the leg just a little. We again send the product to dry for about thirty minutes. When the mushroom dries, dip the stem in glue and dip it in the tea leaves.

Our cotton wool Christmas tree toy is almost ready. To hang it on the Christmas tree. You need to attach a loop to the hat. We make a loop out of twine and glue it using superglue. Now our fungus is completely ready for this. To take part in New Year's decorations