Golden Walnuts

Hey look! One of my Christmas ornament craft projects actually worked out this year! This is such an exciting and proud moment for me. Since I finished these last night, I've been using every excuse in the book to slowly walk by the tree just to stare at these lovelies, and poor Idle Husband had to hear me go on and on about them when he got home. I get excited about strange things.

I got the idea over on Design Sponge all the way back in October, and I just kept it up in my head until I could work on it. I've looked at a lot of do-it-yourself Christmas decoration tutorials this year, but I think this one is by far the best (even though it's technically a Thanksgiving decoration tutorial). Anyway, why do I even need to convince you? I'm talkin' 'bout walnuts. Spray painted gold. How can you resist that, crazy?

I didn't really follow the directions that much. I mean, honestly. Who really needs directions to do this? Show me the picture, I'll figure it out on my own, I'm not blind. Anyway, now that I've read the instructions again, I guess the only thing I really changed was the wiring part. For this little project I wasn't about to go and buy heavy gauge wire when we had an entire box of paperclips just sitting around doing nothing (who's using paperclips? I've never understood their purpose. But sometime in the past, Idle Husband felt the need to buy a huge 1000 count paperclip box with about 5 different sizes of paperclips. For all and any possible paperclipping needs, I guess). All I had to do was cut the paperclips apart (keeping the bend if I could), then I held one side with pliers, as I used another pair of pliers to twist the ends together. Easy!

This project took so little time, I'm kinda thinking about making 10 more (afterall, about half of these are going to be given as part of my present decorations). The hot glue dries pretty well the moment it leaves the gun so that's nothing. The longest wait time was spent in between coats of paint. I could have given these another shot of gold spray paint, too, but then I kinda liked some of the nut wispily showing. It's barely noticeable. I don't know how other colours would look (I did NOT like the red they used), but the gold really shows the pattern in the nut and highlights it's natural beauty -- omg! Where once I really hated gold, I think...I think I love gold!

Anyway, if you're looking for a nice gift or something interesting for your tree, make these!