Sparkley Christmas ATC Tutorial

Today I am sharing the ATC cards I made for the November Swap at Your Paper Pantry, Enjoy!

Step 1)  I cut my patterned paper down to size (3.5"x2.5")  This is from a DCVW stack from 2 xmases ago.

Step 2) I inked over the whole paper piece with Festive Berries Distress Ink from the Winter 2011 Limited Release.  The polka dots on this paper have a glitter coating that worked as a great resist.

Step 3)  I misted the whole piece with Pearl Glimmer Mist.

Step 4)  I inked some small pieces of white card stock with Forest Moss Distress Ink.  I did this before cutting my shape b.c of how delicate the die cut is.

Step 5)  Here you can see the die cut.  I used Sizzix sizzlets Christmas Tree #5.  After they were cut, I misted them with Evergreen Chalkboard Glimmer Mist.

 Step 6)  I covered the little star on top with Silver Stickles.

Step 7)  I adhered my paper to light weight chipboard bases for stability.  Then I used my 1/4" corner chomper on all four corners.

Step 8)  Seems I missed taking a few photos, oops!  I cut white card stock using Spellbinders Labels 18.  Then I used a Silver Ranger Dabber to paint the whole shape with two coats. 
Step 9)  I used Staz-On in Jet Black to stamp a sentiment from Inkadinkado's Warm Holiday Wishes. 

Step 10)  Here are all the pieces so far adhered together.

Step 11)  The corner needed a little something, so I stamped these holly leaves on white card stock in Memento Tuxedo Black.  The stamp is from a $ bin set at Michaels.  I colored the leaves with Copic BG78 and the berries with R27.

Step 12)  I stamped Perfect Medium all over the entire piece of paper and dusted on Perfect Pearls in Pearl.  Don't forget to set them with water like I almost did :)

Step 13)  I cut out each little leaf set and adhered it with dimensional adhesives to the corner.  Tip:  I like to run the marker I used around the shape after cutting out to sharpen the edges.

Step 14)  I still wanted some more glitter so I used white glue all around the edges and dipped them into some chunky silver glitter.

Step 15)  I still needed a bit more sparkle so I randomly adhered some rhinestones to the trees.

Have a great day!!

Gingerbread Village @ Turning Stone

Here are the pictures of the life-size gingerbread village I promised earlier this week.

This village took 16,000 pieces of gingerbread, 1,050 lbs dough, 350 lbs icing, and over 1,000 hours.

left to right:  aunt, MIL, Hubby, Me

I also saw this bottle of maple syrup in the gift shop and I thought the label was too cute!!

Craftaholics Anonymous Christmas Swap

Linda @ Craftaholics Anonymous hosted a wonderful Gift Exchange for Christmas. Everyone got paired with both a sender and receiver.

I sent out one of my reindeer ornaments to Angela @ Comfie Country Crafts - you can see what she got on this post.

 

Ashley @ Ashley's Crafts and BOWutiful Bows sent me two of the cutest headbands I've ever seen.  One is a very demure green and white - perfect for the holidays and the other is a super girly purple and lavender with flowers!

I debuted the green and white for our road trip yesterday to Turning Stone Casino and Resort in New York.  Omigosh, they have the most incredible gingerbread house display in the lobby.  I'lll be taking pictures after I finish this post so stay tuned.

Here is the purple headband.  My sister-in-law is 12 and I know she will love this!!  {that's right she is 12 - my brother-in-law is 7!!}

Ashley, thank you so much!! The headbands are gorgeous - you do incredible designs!!

Door Decor

I've always loved the decadence of ornament wreaths and when I finally caught on to the super easy "Eddie Ross" method this year, I was super excited to give it a try.

I haven't bought any new Christmas decorations this year - I just enjoyed unpacking all my goodies from last year. As I was setting up my mini tree, I realized I had too many ornaments on it and it kept falling over! So I thought I would try to make a mini wreath with my mini bulbs.

Well, I didn't have enough to make a wreath, but I did make a ball. I started with a wire hanger, but there was too much left uncovered, so I took a length of floral wire from a Martha Stewart crepe paper flower kit that was a bust.

Isn't it cute?

Then it took me forever to find some ribbon to hang it with {I didn't make any trips to a Christmas or craft store, but I thought for sure the grocery store or CVS would have it - they did not}

but... Hooray for office freebies! My dept. received one of those wine country gift baskets and it was wrapped in the perfect red wired ribbon. I also grabbed a pine cone pick, a little green platter and a cheese spreader.

And here it finally is on my front door.

Reindeer Ornaments

After making Reindeer Plaques for my family, I started to make Reindeer Ornaments for my friends. It was a very similar process, so let's get started.

I found these garden stakes at the Target Dollar Spot when it was the Quarter spot. 6 pieces for a quarter? That means they were four cents each, score!

After snapping off the stakes {pretty easy}, I knew that I needed to remove the letters and paint, but I soon realized I didn't know how. Sanding didn't work, my dremel dug in to deep, and then I thought of nail polish remover. It seemed to be working, albeit pretty slowly. So I had the great idea to soak them in the remover. Didn't work so great and it made a huge mess!!

So then, I took a scraper thing {i don't know what to call it} to scrape the paint off. It worked for the most part, but I couldn't remove all the paint. However,  I did get all kinds of paint stuck under my nails for days.

Finally, all the hard work was over! They all got the same metallic pearl paint as the plaques on the front, and the same red and green on the sides and backs.  I spilled some of the green paint on the carpet, so painting night turned into a fun few hours of paint, clean brushes, blot up the resolve, reapply soaking towel, repeat.  Happy to report that the stain came out fairly well, but if you stare you can see a faint green circle.

I cut the same reindeer from my cricut, just a lot smaller. The hooves were so tiny, I couldn't glue the little yellow pieces on, so I colored them in with a sharpie.  Mod-podge, blah, blah, blah...

Here are all nine reindeer, with a special Rudolph the Red-Nosed ReinPig, for the pig loving boss.

I had some really cute wired ribbon from Michael's with a candy cane stripe that I used to turn the squares into ornaments.

And the final touch, a stamp of "Christmas 2009" on the back.

I used a similar technique to wrap the ornaments. I found smaller cellophane bags in the candy making aisle that have an hourglass like shape. I stuffed them with tinsel, added the ornaments, and tied with curling ribbon. I also made name tags like the ones for the christmas plaques, just smaller. Here are the bags prepped for wrapping.

And all ready to go.

These came in at a whopping $1.12 a peice!!

I'll be joining these parties: DIY Day @ Kimba's, Ornament Party @ CentsationalGirl, BCD Show and Tell and more to come!

Monday Snacktime

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting - Yum!

have one,

or two!

the recipe is published in both the MS Cupcake Cookbook and the Holiday Sweets special edition that is on newstands now! I can't find the recipe on her site, so I will post it later tonight.

Did you know?  After I finished baking these I decided to run the self-clean on my oven, and I found out that you can't use the range while the oven is cleaning.  I also learned that you shouldn't leave your butter dish out during this process - I lifted the cover and had a lovely pool of butter.  But I do have a nice clean oven :)

Merry Christmas