Craft Tutorial: Clove-Studded Orange Sign

I remember the third grade being a very crafty year…my teachers introduced us to a lot of new skills, including hand embroidery! During the holidays it was craft central in our class, and the one that stands out in my memory is clove-studded oranges.

You need just a few materials:

• Oranges (I used Navel and Clementine)
• Whole cloves
• Washable Pen 
• Push pin

Write the letters onto each orange. I just free-handed it.

Use a pushpin to create a hole for your clove

Start pushing in the cloves (you might not always need the pushpin). Smells SOOO good already!

I used about half of a one-ounce bottle of cloves.

And it took me about half an hour, so it’s a quick project. This also a perishable project, so I’ll probably use the other half of my cloves closer to Thanksgiving.

Thanks to Martha for the inspiration for the letters and tips (Martha Stewart Living, October 2010, page 42 …this is a photo of my own magazine).

As mentioned, I first did this craft when I was in the third grade, so it’s definitely a kid-friendly project. However, even with the pushpins it does take a bit of oomph to push in the cloves sometimes, so for now I didn’t have my girls help me with that part. Instead, they helped in their own ways, as usual:

Sarah was my staging assistant:

And Sophie was the official orange and clove smeller. “Snnniifffffff…AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.”

Linking: Setting of Four Thanksgiving Linky