Paper Christmas Tree

This year I decided I wanted to create my own Christmas Village made entirely of scrapbook paper for the table that I display all the Christmas cards we receive on.  While my shopping spree on Black Friday I bought three Styrofoam trees in varying sizes.  I then chose the paper I wished to use which was Basic Grey's Jovial Collection; I just loved all the colors!  Then using my Cricut Design Studio, I created an entire sheet (12x12) of one inch hearts.  I then ran this through my Cricut for every pattern I choose, which I think was about eleven.  After I had all of my hearts cut out and stacked by pattern in the order I wanted to apply them, I got to work on layering one by one.  I would take a heart, curl the wide end around the end of my paper piercer so that it would flip up, apply a little bit of Fabric Tac to the point of the heart and then place and hold onto the Styrofoam.  Continue all the way around and then start on the next row.  I did about three to five rows and then set it aside to let it dry.  I found this necessary as I would keep bumping lower rows that were wet and knocking the hearts out of place if I didn't.  I tried the glue gun but found it way to bulky and I liked the play the Fabric Tac gave me so that I could make minor adjustments if my row was a little crooked.   I worked all my way to the top and then covered the top by placing three heart points together on the top with glue, allowed it to dry, and then folded the overhanging part down and curled it with my paper piercer.  I am now on the look out to find some stars that will work perfectly for tops. 

I was hoping to at least get one house finished as well, but the tree took a lot more time than I anticipated so it doesn't look like the houses will be ready this year.  If anyone would like the cut file for the hearts let me know and I will email it to you.

This will be it for me until the new year as I am off to Jamaica for a week!  I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and prosperous 2011!

Blog Hop Winner!

Thank you everyone for your kind comments on my blog hop post.  It was so much fun!  As promised, I have done a random draw for a little Christmas RAK and the lucky winner is .....

Congratulations Steff! Please send your mailing info to me at jenniferdewolfe@gmail.com and I will get your RAK out to you right away.

Thanks again, everyone and come back again!

Holiday Candle & Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to my first ever blog hop I am so excited to participate and would like to Thank Amanda for letting me join! I am the last stop on the blog hop and you should of arrived here from Laurie's Blog, but if you didn't you can go back to the begining and start here at Amanda's Blog .

With the holidays almost here, it's inevitable that at the last moment I will realize I forgot to get a gift for someone.  I've done this too many times to count. Well today I want to show you a quick and easy gift you can make with supplied you probably already have in your stash.

You will need a candle, patterned paper, ribbon, a marker in any color doesn't matter, liquid glue, glue gun and some embellishments.  First thing you need to do is cut the strips of patterned paper that you will roll into tubes.  Measure the height of your candle and this will be how high you will need your tubes to be, my candle was just shy of 4 inches so I cut at 4 inches.  Be careful when making this cut that the pattern paper is facing the right direction other wise when you roll the tubes your pattern might go the wrong way.  Now you will need to take this cut piece  and cut it into 2 inch strips.  Now how many strips you will need will depend on how big around your candle is and how small you make your tubes.  This candle used 29 tubes.  I used various pieces of Basic Grey's Eskimo Kisses collection which made co-ordination a breeze.  So now that you have your strips cut, starts the fun part.  Take one of your strips and lay it face down in front of you and take a marker out of collection.  I used a Zig maker which the 2 inches wrapped around just perfectly, if your marker is different in size you might have to adjust for that.  Roll the strip around the marker, not too tight or you might have a hard time sliding off.  One thing to be careful of is if your marker is tapered and if it is you will have to play with this to make sure the roll is as even as possible.  At the edge apply some liquid glue and hold around the marker until the adhesive is set.  I used glossy accents and it took about 20 seconds to set.  Repeat this with all your strips until they are all in tubes.  Arrange all the tubes in the pattern/order you want to apply them as it will make it a lot easier for work your way through.  Now take a hot glue gun and run a bead all the way down the length of the candle and quickly set your first tube in place.  Hold it there until the glue cools.  Now work your way around the candle until you have gone all the way around.  Take a piece of ribbon or tulle and tie it around the candle and embellish as you please.

Please leave a comment telling me what you thought of this post and what you might like to see in the future and I will do a random draw on Dec 20th at noon for a little Christmas RAK for one lucky winner.
Now back to the Blog Hop, along the way, you have been collecting words. The word from my blogs is IT'S. Now if you have followed the blog hop as intended you should have 8 words/phrases. Unscramble them and leave a comment on Amanda's Blog, she will draw a random winner Monday Dec 20.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the blog hop!
Merry Christmas!

Festive

Tradition is a big thing in my family, especially when it comes to Christmas. I wanted to document that. Every year we go over to my parents place to help them decorate their Christmas tree for Christmas. To me this always signals the start of the Christmas season for me.

A Christmas Tradition

Another layout about our family Christmas traditions.  I have become obsessed with border punches lately and find I am using them where ever possible.  I find it give a nice transition between patterned papers.  The bling on this layout really didn't match the look I was going for so I took a copic marker and coloured them until I achieved the colour I desired.  Of course in this picture they look kind of yellow but in real life it looks more green.

Dog Gone Christmas

I love the curve on this layout, so much so that I had to emphasize it.  I did some stitching along the one edge and then wrote my journalling over top of it.

Season's Greetings

Another round of cards complete and I think I am done except for a few I have to make for work.  I really like the colors on this card and it was real simple to make.

Happy Holidays

Another Christmas card is done!  This one I used my Nestabilities dies and some red and green felt to make my Piontsetta flower.  I really like how it turned out!