Yup, I wore a hastily made clip-on felt Gryffindor tie to the premier of Harry Potter this year. This officially makes me a crafty dork, but it also means I had an uncontrollable urge to try making a Golden Snitch ornament for my tree. They turned out really nicely and I thought there might be one or two other crafty Potter fans out there who would like to know how to make one too.
First, draw an actual size sketch of how you want your snitch wings to look on a scrap piece of paper. Use this as a guide to shape thin craft wire into your wing shape. Close the shape by twisting the wire around the other one 3 or 4 times to make a tight coil. Snip the wire close to the coil. Make 2 (I made 4 as I am giving another Snitch away to my lovely sister).
Coat wires with glue and lay a sheet of tissue paper over top of wires. Use a clean dry brush to push down on the paper, sticking it down to the wires all around each wing. Let dry, then cut out, leaving a few millimeters of paper as a border. Apply glue to border and roll over edges of wire all around the wing. Coat wings on each side with white glue and apply light gold glitter. Let dry.
I used a mixture of brown and gold acrylic paint to paint the swirly 'snitchy' markings on the golden ornaments. I did this mostly from memory and they don't look like movie replicas, but I am okay with that. It occurred to me that if you had a fine-point brown sharpie and one of those gold paint pens, you might be able to achieve real greatness here. I chose to use glass ornaments, because I had them already, although plastic might prove easier to attach the wings to.
Use a small dab of hot glue on the wire coils to make a surface for attaching to the ball. I held each of them vertically against a piece of parchment paper. They don't stick to the parchment (or the glass balls, I tried this first), so just hold each one until the glue cools and a flat surface has formed on the bottom.
I tried a bunch of glues to get the wings to stick to the glass balls. Hot glue pops right off, white glue takes too long to set, even Super Glue didn't work. Finally I tried my trusty Fabri-tac, a glue which I only recently discovered (that I cannot live without), which is like a very strong type of rubber cement, and success! Hold each wing until the glue sets (about a minute or so), then cover glue with gold paint. Tadaa! Go hang it on your tree and get yourself a cookie, you deserve it :)
I have always loved the beautiful vintage cardboard houses in Christmas villages. Unfortunately, in The Tiny Apartment, there is no mantle piece, no empty bookshelf or spare side table on which to set up a village for the Christmas season. But this year, I have come up with a great solution so that even tiny apartments like mine can have a little snowy village complete with lights and mini trees. It takes up just 9 inches square of wall space, and who can't spare that?
I made my village over 2 evenings, with a little time spent hunting down the supplies first. If you want to make your own village there are some special supplies you will need: a 9" square, deep shadow box frame, plaster of paris, small square dowels, mini trees, small sheet yellow vellum, glitter card stock, white fiberfill or other fake "snow", small rectangle of thin white acrylic batting and a short string of battery powered miniature LED's (much smaller than regular tree mini lights). You might be able to find the lights where Christmas village sets are sold. I found mine for 5$ at Michaels. Basic craft supplies you probably already have include some old cereal boxes, assorted glitters, hot glue gun, white glue, old paint brushes, craft knife and scissors, heavy background paper, craft wire and wire cutters and any other decorations you want. 
First make your little houses. If you are lucky enough to own some real vintage houses, you can skip ahead and use this project as a great way to display them! I cut my houses out of thin cardboard from cereal boxes. I also made a fence to go in front of the houses out of a double layer of cardboard, cut to fit the interior width of my frame. Remember to glue vellum down inside windows and door opening before gluing houses together with glue gun. Cut a hole in the back of each house just big enough to accommodate a single light. If you need help designing your houses, Twelve22 has a great free printable house pattern here to get you started. Remember that everything gets coated in glitter and plaster so if you make any mistakes they will not be visible later.
Coat sides of houses with white glue and then glitter. Mix up plaster of paris according to directions on box, it should be smooth and about as runny as pancake batter. Use an old paint brush to apply to roof, window and door frames, the top of the chimney and the fence. I added another layer of plaster to the houses once they started to set. Sprinkle a little extra silver glitter on the roof after plastering. I also dipped some really cheap green fake trees in the plaster, and then dusted with white glitter to make snowy trees, which turned out great! I found them in a dollar bin at a model railway store, much cheaper than the trees sold with other Christmas decorations. Set everything aside to dry overnight.
