25 Days of Christmas - Day 9 - It's MINE!!

Woo Hoo!! Day #9 is here and it features MY gifties . I am so excited to share my creations, FINALLY!! I made Vintage style paper ornaments. They feature ancestor pics from my family. They were created with many steps and in 5 shapes. I found the inspiration for them in one of my fave books Pretty Little Felts.


The ornaments were packaged in "Genie Bags" made from brown paper bags, recycled Christmas Card fronts and scrapbook papers with numbered tags cut with my Cricut.

Here are the basic steps:

1) shapes were cut out by hand, 2 per ornie on cardstock covered with vintage dictionary pages, which were then adhered together.
2) the edges of the frames were painted with cream acrylic paint.
3) frames were traced and cut out from cream colored felt.
4) pics were scanned, scaled, printed and cut out.
5) felt frames were brushed with Elmer's Glue-All and covered with Martha Stewart Glitter and Mica Flakes and allowed to dry overnight
6) Sheets of glitter shapes were made and punched.
7) pieces of plastic packaging were cut to make the "glass" for the frames.
8) pics were glued down, followed by the "glass" and topped with the glitter frames.
9) glitter shapes were adhered.
10) pieces of vintage trims and laces were added.
11) holes were punched in the top and a stain ribbon hanger was added.

Whew!! Seems like a lot when I write it all out!! :) And to think I made 35 of them!! I hope the recipients enjoy them!! They were a joy to make and share!! I shared a few here, as each one was different. Please click on the pics if you wish to appreciate the sparkly details!!

Stay tuned for tomorrow and another giftie!! :)

Make your own Glitter Dots and Shapes Tutorial

I am working on a project for a 25 Days of Christmas swap (I'll be able to share that later on December 9th!!) One of the embellishments I am using are Glitter Dots. It is a very cool and effective embellishment to use on your ART. I learned about them from the book Pretty Little Felts. From there I of course tweaked the idea to make it my own. I not only made Dots but other Shapes as well.

You need to assemble:

• Fine glitter (I used Martha Stewart antique silver and antique gold
• Glue (I used Regular Elmer's Glue-all)
• White cardstock
• Hole and Shape Punches
• Old Credit card or stiff piece of card stock
• Wax Paper (Not pictured)
• Acrylic Sealer (Optional)
• Glitter Tray (Optional)
  

Place your cardstock on a sheet of wax paper; squirt with glue

Spread your cardstock with an even layer of glue using the credit card or the cardboard.

Sprinkle liberally with the glitter(s).
I used each glitter separately and also did one piece that was a blend of the two.

Let dry completely!!

I learned the hard way (by being impatient) that this is an important step. Leave it alone overnight and your glitter will stick much better!!

Tap off the excess glitter.


Now to use them......punch out your glitter dots or shapes and glue to your ART!!

I'm not sure if you can tell or not but the top half of each sheet above was sprayed with the sealer, while the bottom half was left untouched. If you click the pic you can probably see the difference.

Ta-Da.....cheap, quick and easy glittery embellishments!! :::Smiles:::

Now, for the Acrylic Sealer.....all I had handy was matte finish. It did keep the glitter from shedding as much but also dulled it down. Depends on the look you are going for. I'm thinking that gloss sealer might be the best of both worlds. I will try that on the next batch I just made tomorrow when they are dry. I also have a batch currently drying on a copper colored paper to see if I like that better!! :)

I did run them through my Xyron sticker maker and that worked great!!

Glitter disclaimer.....you will have glitter in your hair, guaranteed when you are done with this project!! :::Smiles::: But that makes it a good day, don't you think??

2 dozen Christmas Cards from 3 sheets of scrapbook paper

Impossible you say?? Nope. I beg to differ. Today I will show you how I turned 3 printed Scrapbook papers, some cardstock, a bit of adhesive, a handful of rubber stamps and a Versamark and Jet Black Stazon ink pads into 24 Christmas Cards, size 6 x 4 1/4 inches. I began with 3 coordinated papers from this stack from Joann's.

Since I am sharing so many pics I left them at medium size. Please click on them to view larger!!


Here are the 3 sheets I choose. It is important to choose papers with lots of focal images and stripes.

First thing I did was cut each paper into segments and sections and set aside.

I designed them to fit in these ready made envies from Walmart. While I simply adore handmade envies, due to the sheer number of cards I will need for this Christmas I will be jazzing these up with some rubber stamping instead.

I grabbed some coordinating cardstock and made up the cards. To give them a bit of pizazz, I used a snowflakes background stamp and my Versamark pad on all of the card fronts.

This is how little waste I had left from cutting up the three sheets of scrapbook paper.

These are the images that were still left over after making 24 cards!! :)

Drum roll..........and here they are in sections of four. All are similar, yet different. I used Jet Black Stazon ink and a few stamps to give each one a little greeting on the fonts.

I hope this inspires you to find the time to make yourself some cards for this Christmas!! Remember, there are only 65 days left!!

Repurposed and Recycled bowling ball to gazing ball using blue willow plates

Hubs has been asking for a blue gazing ball for the garden......He found this blue stand at a sale which is where this project began. Okie dokie......so what to use? I had just bought this bag of blue willow transfer ware oriental dishes at a yard sale. Sounds good to me. Have Rubber Mallet....can smash dishes!! LOL

Here are some step by steps and the finished product!! :)

safety glasses, tile nippers and adhesive

Rubber mallet and plate

Oh, so pretty whole

whole no more

half way there , holes were filled with caulk

half way there still, flip side

finished and grouted (sorry, hubs was sneaky and grouted when I didn't know)....so no pics of that step. We used white non-sanded grout.

close up

In the garden