Sugar Cones
In Germany (and some parts of neighboring countries) it is customary to "sweeten" children's first day at school by presenting them with a large cardboard cone stuffed with sweets and small presents -- so called "schultüten".
School, sweet school
Since Jonas now participates in the local fire brigade's youth department, it was obvious that the schultüte he got for his first day in school in 2017 should be decorated with fire brigade motifs.
I used colored paper and cardboard for decorating the (ready-made) cones. By stacking partially overlapping layers of paper/cardboard it was even possible to apply some sort of three-dimensional look to the decoration items. In fact, I relied primarily on this effect in order to express the objects' composition; only in rare cases I used a black marker for drawing some supporting edge lines.
The markings on the fire fighters' uniforms were first drawn using an opaque white felt-tip pen and then highlighted using a yellow highlighter.
Twice As Nice
Of course, the twins too got schultüten when they entered school in 2015. Hannes wanted his schultüte being decorated with police stuff, while Niklas went for a nautical theme.
Each cone took me about 4 hours to make.