handmade holiday | cherry ornaments

So it seems that I like food-themed ornaments. Last year, I made a tomato, a mushroom, an avocado, and a bunch of asparagus to adorn our tree. This year: more mushrooms. (Though I think they look more like poisonous toadstools. Or Super Mario mushrooms). And now: cherries. I guess adorning my tree with food makes sense, considering how much I like to cook. And eat. (Related: This makes me think that I need a CAAAAAKE ornament!)

So cherry ornaments: These were one of those "use what you have" projects as yes, I did have all these supplies lying around my studio (because I am an art supply hoarder). I had planned on painting wooden beads for jewelry when I realized red beads would make perfect cherries.

Materials | wood beads, red acrylic paint, pipe cleaners, green yarn, felt, thread, glue
Equipment | paintbrush, scissors, needle

Instructions:
1. Paint the wood beads. (The beads I used are about 7/8" diameter.) An easy way to paint multiple beads is to thread them onto a pipe cleaner. Then you can hold and rotate the pipe cleaner as you paint and also hang the beads to dry.
2. Cut a pipe cleaner to your desired length. Wrap the yarn around the pipe cleaner applying glue to the pipe cleaner as you go. (Some of the pipe cleaner fuzz will show through so use yarn and pipe cleaners that are similar in color.) Leave about 3/4" from the ends of each pipe cleaner unwrapped.
3. Apply glue to the un-yarned ends of the pipe cleaner. Thread the bead onto the pipe cleaner, squirt some more glue into the hole (from the bottom - really there's no way to explain this step without some sort of dirty joke popping into my head, but I think you get what I'm going for here) and allow to dry.
4. Optional: Cut two leaf shapes out of felt and stitch them together. Glue the leaves to the stem. Done.