Sunflowers & Dragonflies

Tutorial Tuesday: Beaded Christmas Paper

Many of us are in need of a quick and cost-effective way to decorate our Christmas cards.  Today I will show you how easy it is to spruce up Christmas paper. Oh, The Ornaments paper by Flair is a good choice to stretch your dollar because one sheet of paper has 13 useable ornaments.  That’s 13 cards with one sheet of paper.  It doesn’t get better than this!  The only thing left is to pair a sentiment with the ornament, and for that I chose one of the many sentiments from Odd Bird Planet.

Supplies:  Beads and Paper

Cut out the ornament.  Sew beads onto the ornament.

Finished beaded ornament.  As I said earlier, this card is quick.  I got 13 ornaments beaded in under one hour.

Stay tuned for another tutorial using this paper later this week.

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Hand Delivered From Santa’s Elves

Looks like Santa’s elves are already busy delivering presents.  Don’t forget to mail your letter to Santa.

This week’s OCC sketch was pretty tempting so I decided to try it out Sunday afternoon.  In case you haven’t noticed, I enjoy using non-traditional colours on my cards, especially lime green, pink, and turquoise.

Here is the sketch so you can play along.

Image was watercoloured with Tombow markers and painted with Twinkling H2O’s.

Stamp:  Sunshine Designs by Stamp Barn; Paper, The Christmas Glitter Maststack by DCWV; Ribbon, Michael’s; Flower, source unknown; Leaves punched with Martha Stewart punch

What colours do you like to use on your Christmas cards?

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Christmas Baking and Cards

Hurray for Friday!  Having just worked the past two weekends, I get this weekend off, and guess what I’m going to do?  Christmas baking and cards.  Have you started yours yet?  Do you have baking or cooking traditions?  Every year I HAVE to make cherry balls, melting moments, decorated shortbreads, peanut brittle, and rice crispie balls.  Most go back to my childhood days.  Tell me what you like to bake and cook.

Stamp:  Shineshine Designs, The Stamp Barn; Designer Paper:  DCWV fat pack; Cardstock:  Green Gable; Image watercoloured with Tombow markers and painted with Twinkling H2O’s; Accessories:  Michael’s Ribbon; Martha Stewart punch; Flowers:  unknown source; White dots added with Sakura pen

Happy Holidays!

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More Christmas Ornaments on a Budget

To create this three-day tutorial for you, I glued tissue paper to several ornaments at one sitting, so all I would have to do is add new embellishments without the fuss.

Take off the top of the ornament.  Tear tissue paper into small pieces and glue onto ornament with modge podge or gel medium.

Attach glue dots around the top of the ornament and adhere dollar store yarn.

Adhere a dollar store Christmas embellishment.

Don’t forget to

stop back tomorrow for another ornament tutorial

Did you know there is a page listing my tutorials?  Click the tutorial tab up top and then click on the tutorial of choice.

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Tutorial Tuesday: Christmas Ornaments on a Budget

On a tight budget and in need of Christmas gift ideas for your girlfriend, or do you want to add interest to your own tree?  If you answered yes, this is the tutorial for you.  You will be amazed at what you can do after a trip to the dollar store. Do you recognize the Christmas ribbon?  How about the piece of chipboard I had stashed away in my drawer, or the tissue paper I had laying around?  Unleash your creativity and see what you can come up with.  Link me up and I will post your creations on my blog for everyone to see.  Come on, I want to see your ornament! (did you know you can see my tutorial index by clicking on the tutorial tab at the top of my blog?)

Supplies:  Christmas Ornament, Modge Podge (or Gel medium), Tissue Paper, Christmas Ribbon and Chipboard and Beading Wire

Take off the top piece of the ornament.  Tear tissue paper into small pieces and glue in place with gel medium or modge podge.  Add a second layer after the first one has dried completely.

Cut a long piece of wire and curl one end.

Loop a piece of chipboard around the curled end of the wire.

Dry brush gold Lumiere paint onto dry ornament, or use acrylic paint in a coordinating colour.  Dry brushing means to dip your brush into the paint and then you wipe most of the paint off the brush so a minimal amount of paint transfers to the ornament.

Put the ornament top back on.

Place glue dots around the top of the ornament and adhere Christmas ribbon.

Have fun unleashing your creativity!

Come back tomorrow for another tutorial on homemade ornaments.

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Tobogganing, eh!

What’s more Canadian than tobogganing and EH!  When I asked my young nephew, from Atlanta, if he wanted to go tobogganing his reply was, “what’s tobogganing.”  Funny, eh?!

If you follow my blog you probably know how much I love Sunshine Design images from The Stamp Barn. The elves are my favourite.  I took a  Tombow marker watercolour class with Krista, the artist of Sunshine Designs, and instantly fell in love with the designs.  The images stamp out so crisp and clean and there are colour charts that come with many of her stamps.

This week’s inspiration came from Taylor’s sketch challenge.

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