Christmas Crafts

Last year I showed you some hand-painted ornaments I made in THIS POST.  This year, I have some new ones to show you because my bestie gave me more!  My son gave me the first batch for Christmas one year, and I found out I really enjoyed painting them.  Then this year, my bestie's granddaughter received some as a gift, but neither she nor her granddaughter were interested in painting them, so she gave them to me.  I will give her one I painted back as a thank you gift.

I always forget to take a "before" photo, but you can find the ornaments on Amazon.  They come in all different shapes:  circles, stars, trees, snowflakes, and this year my bestie gave me two new shapes:  a reindeer (which I loved) and a stocking.

Here are the circle ornaments I painted this year.  I tried to not repeat the same designs, although I did do another snowman (but a different one from last year) and I did the same winter scene on accident.

This is the new reindeer shape I received from my bestie.  I love this one! I decided to keep it realistic and paint it in shades of brown.

Last year I painted my ornaments after Christmas so I had all winter to work on them.  I ended up with more detailed paintings.  This year, I wanted them done before Christmas so I kept them simple.  I used  stamps for the image then I simply colored them in.

This one was the only one I didn't use a stamp on, and it's my favorite of the round ornaments.  I just hand drew the image then flecked a toothbrush full of white paint on it.

These were the new stocking shapes my bestie gave me.  I hand painted them a variety of red, green, and white and then I hand wrote my grandchildren's names on them.  The stars are a stamp but the dots were just done with the tip of a brush.

And here is what I did with all these hand painted ornaments:  I put them on my little sled trees in my family room.  If you read Sunday's Post, you will find out I didn't put up a big tree this year and why, and this is what I chose to do instead.  And, to my grateful surprise, all the presents fit in this corner perfectly.  Of course, when my daughter comes she will have even more gifts, so then we might see more spillage into the room, but I think this looks great for what I have to live with for the week before they arrive.

I think the little trees are the perfect place to display all these hand painted ornaments.

Finally I'd like to show you my one and only Christmas Card which I gave to my bestie.  I stopped sending Christmas Cards out a few years ago because it was so much work, and honestly, I wasn't getting many back in return.  I think with Facebook and email, not many people send out Christmas Cards through snail mail anymore.  But, I do still send Christmas Cards out to anyone who sends me one.  Usually it's just a store-bought card, but I made this one specifically for my bestie because she really seems to appreciate my hand made cards more than anyone.

I made the card using Spellbinder's Die "Winter Welcome Sled" and their Embossing Folder "Ski Lodge".  Dies are an easy way for non-creative people to create beautiful cards.  All they require is to cut and assemble, although the cutting and assembling part can be cumbersome.  

To make this card I just cut all the pieces out and glued them together.  The background was dry embossed then swiped with a white ink pad to bring out the detail.  Then I just stamped and cut out a sentiment with a postage edge die and wa-la,  I have a beautiful Christmas Card!

 I hope you enjoyed my Christmas Crafts!

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

Handmade Christmas Cards and My 2020 Christmas Cards

On Sunday I shared my home decorated for Christmas.  Be sure to check it out HERE if you missed it. In that post I discussed how I wrapped my presents all in white Kraft paper and used teal/minty bows to bring out the teal color in the tree.  I also mentioned that I made my own tags to match the tree and that I would back to give you more details on the tags.  Well here I am to explain how I made the tags and also to show my 2020 Christmas Cards.

To make my tags I used my Cricut Machine, glitter and plain white paper, and gel pens.  Now I realize not everyone has a Circuit Machine, but I feel you can still make snowflakes without one by either tracing a snowflake image off the internet onto glitter paper and hand cutting it out, or by using the old Kindergarten method of folding a piece of paper and hand-cutting multiple times (see this great tutorial HERE).

I luckily had a three varieties of blue and green glitter paper already in my stash, so I didn't have to buy anything for this project.  I cut two layers of snowflakes, one in white and one in glitter paper.  I did this so I could write the name of the recipient on the white center part of the tag.  The cartridge I used for this project had the option of having the center of the snowflake left in place or not;  so I removed the center of the glitter snowflakes but left it in place for the white snowflake.  When the two snowflakes were put together, I had a nice open white space to write a name using a gel pen.

I purchased three different varieties of blue and teal ribbon from Hobby Lobby.  I was shocked that they didn't have hardly any ribbon left in this color.  I was hoping to get more to add to my tree, but no such luck.  Only one of the three ribbons matches the mint in my tree, but that's ok, because the three together provide a nice blend.

All the bows were made using wired ribbon and my Bowdabra,

And here is my tree with all the pretty presents underneath waiting to be opened by little munchkins.

Next, I'd like to show you my Christmas Cards that I sent out this year.  I actually stopped making handmade Christmas Cards years ago.  I found them too time consuming and the cost of postage too high, so I switched to just sending out a photo card with a year-in-review message printed on back.  This year, I decided not to do that.  I just didn't think I could bring myself to write a review of the year because, well you all know, we've all had a difficult year.  I didn't want my annual Christmas Card to be all about Covid, because then Satan gets the glory instead of Jesus.  So I decided not to send out Christmas photo cards at all.  But then the Lord reminded me of several friends and family that had a tough year.  We've lost so many loved ones this year;  none of the losses were due to Covid but to other diseases like cancer, heart disease, and dementia.  I thought those people really needed to be reminded how much we are thinking of them and how much God loves them.  I also had a few friends that I haven't been able to spend time with (once again Covid is to blame) so I wanted to send them a Christmas Card too,  so I ended up making ten cards. I usually send out forty cards, but this year I narrowed it down to ten.

When designing my cards, I wanted to keep them as mail-friendly as possible so no extra postage was required.  I also wanted to keep them as simple as possible since I was mass producing them (I failed on that one).  But most of all, I wanted the cards to remind everyone about the real meaning of Christmas.  This is what I came up with:  each card is slightly different, so I will walk you through the differences of each set. 

Because I wanted to keep the cards mail-friendly I aimed for a one layer card.  That idea failed quickly because the stamp/coloring bleeds onto the back of the card stock.  So then I decided to use glitter paper for my background, and attach that to the white card base.  Then I stamped my ornaments onto a metallic card stock and gold heat embossed the sentiments.  All the nativity images were hand colored in using Copic Markers.  I used the thinnest, flattest metallic ribbon I had to "hang the ornaments" and topped each with a small bow.  Not very mail-friendly I know.  I still only put a regular postage stamp on the envelope, so we will see if the cards make it to their destination.

In the picture below, the card on the right was the first card I made and the most mail-friendly.  The ornaments are stamped directly on the card stock, and colored in.  Then I hand drew a line.  This was all done on a separate piece of card stock to prevent bleed through.  I then adhered this main panel to a card base so it is technically a two layer card.  To give it some sparkle, I hand stamped a snowflake background and sprinkled it with glitter.

But because I wasn't happy with the original card design, I "added more".  The card on the left is how most of the cards ended up.  I used small dimensionals to "Pop" the ornaments up a bit from the glitter paper.

In the card on the left (close up underneath this picture), I was still exploring how to make my cards "special" while still being mail-friendly.  So here I tried stamping on colored card stock, then just gluing the ornament to the glitter panel.  

I put yellow glitter glue on the center of each star.

I used all different kinds of glitter paper backgrounds.  I never could decide which glitter paper I liked the most.  Which one is your favorite?

I know the dimensionals did not make the cards mail-friendly, but I really preferred the cards made with them and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that make it ok to their destination.

With the exception of the first card, all the ornaments were hand cut.  It was the hand cutting plus the coloring of the nativity scene that was the most time consuming.

If you're wondering about the stamp set, it's an old set from a company that is no longer in business called "Crafty Secrets".  You can still find some of their sets for sale on Etsy, Ebay or Amazon.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!