Reindeer Ornaments

I had gotten some "antique" woodden clothes pins about two years ago thinking I could make something with them, but couldn't think of the right thing until now. This a bit of an update on an ornament I had seen made when I was a kid. This is a fairly quick item to make - outside of the drying time of the stain and enamel paint.

The items you will need are:

1. "Antique" clothes pins (The kind that are all wood - not the two piece ones with the coil spring in the middle.)

2. Wood stain of choice (I used Minwax, Dark Walnut from another project I had.)

3. Red paint (So the "nose" was shiney I got a oil based enamel indoor/outdoor paint.)

4. Small googlie eyes (These were the tiniest I had seen!)

5. Wire for hanging (Some electrician friends were recycling some of their wire - so I knifed it!)

First - just dip the entire wooden clothepin in the stain, and pull it out. Lay the clothespin out on some papertwels so not to stain the surface you lay it on. I ended up using some stain I had from another project, it was the perfect color for what I was doing (Dark Walnut). For this project, I was thinking about Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. Let this dry for about 24 hours, unless your going to be wiping it down throughly with cloth.

Next, open the enamel paint, and just dip the round "head" of the clothespin in. I did two dunks in the paint to make sure the surface was covered. While I was making about 20 of these, I found most of the clothespins did well with the two dips. But on occasion, I had to go back in a third time becuase the flat portion of the "head" didn't take the paint as well.

Once the paint fully covers what will be the nose, let the paint drip off the head and dab the excess on the rim of the paint can. Then set aside.

Next, let the clothespin dry for about 12 hours, until the enamal is fully dry. As you can see in the second picture, from the original clothes pin, to the enamal paint, there isn't much change, but there is about a day and a half worth of time that has elapsed for drying of the stain and the paint.

The last few touches will be to glue on the eyes and add the wire. Before putting on the eyes, put the wire on. For this part, take one end of wire to the base of the space created in the clothespin. Then start wrapping the wire around both "legs". I wrapped twice around (as shown) and then slipped the wire back through the "legs" to loop under the last loop of the wire.

From the last loop on the clothes pin, cut the wire about three inches above that point. Then take the end with a pair of plyers, and create a coil, or snail shape by twirling the plyers in a circle. (You can see the same effect in the second picture with the star ornament.)

And finally, glue on the googlie eyes just at the base of the slit in the clothespin. Then hang on the tree!!