Christmas in August- Dala Polymer Ornament.

Yes Christmas in July has spilled over into August this year. Remember that Dala craftalong I made a quilled card for a few weeks back? Well here's another dala project I just finished.

Pam, from Gingerbread Snowflakes (and a co-host of the dala craftalong) was sweet enough to send me a giant dala cookie cutter AND give me free rein on what to do with it!

I love to make ornaments using cookies cutters and polymer clay. I think Christmas cookie style ornaments look adorable hanging from a tree. And once I saw pictures of real dala horses I thought polymer clay would be another great medium to showcase all that intricate detail.

For this horse I used a gingerbread colored base and added some snowflakes in honor of Pam's blog (coincidentally gingerbread and snowflakes are two of my favorite things, if I could pick any blog name to have instead of my own it would be Pam's). I kept the finish rustic (not worrying about the edges or the surface being too smooth). I felt it was keeping with both the carved wood on a real dala as well as the "cookie look" I was going for.

A note on safety: If you are going to use a cookie cutter with polymer clay do not use it for food again. I have cutters I use only for food and a set that I use only for crafting.

Occasionally I get a cutter that's special and/or a hard to find shape (like this one) so if I want to use it for crafting but keep the possibility open that I could use it for food I trace the shape out onto card stock...

and use that template to cutout my clay form using a craft knife.

Happy Christmas in July... well really August, and THANK YOU Pam for such a wonderful gift!