Christmas Tree

I bought a little 2 foot tree to decorate and take to the hospital and decided all the ornaments should be non-breakable and handmade, everything but the string of beads met that criteria. All the ornaments I made are recycled paper and needle felt.




I played with some colour blending for these ornaments and used cookie cutters for the heart and star shapes. Most of the paper ornaments were cut with a Spellbinders die.

Christmas Art

Here's what I've gotten done so far today, 1 more Christmas card and 3 ATCs. The card is very simple and uses the Lace Tree Cuttlebug embossing folder on white cardstock, mounted on a reddish brown cardstock then onto a cream card blank with a ribbon bow for embellishment.
The ATCs are rubber stamped tree and flourishes, coloured with Vintage Photo, Fired Brick and Tea Dye distress inks. The words are computer generated and the photo is from an old family photo. I added ribbons, beads and bells.

Christmas Projects

Yesterdays open house at Cherish The Thought was very fun and I met some of the people that trade ATC at the Grind every month. We made 4 very lovely projects. The first was this Christmas Card which used sugar beads on the Santa image. The next station we went to was for this cute little ornament. We chose the image and frame we wanted to use, fit it to the back of the frame, trimmed and added the lace. We punched 2 new holes for the ribbon and covered the original hole with flat back pearls. The ribbon was added to the top and a tiny jungle bell was tied on with the bow. The third project was a postcard sized hanging. For this one we used a poinsettia die cut and ran the petals through a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The background paper was added, trimmed and edged with brown ink. The petals were also inked on the edges then glued on with double sided tape and green rhinestones placed in the centre. I added the family photo at home. The last but not least project was a postcard from a vintage postcard kit. We selected the image and embellishment to use. The image was cut to fit the postcard and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. All the pieces are edged with brown ink. We used copper wire for the hanger and tied the embellishment to a loop in the wire again adding a bell with the ribbon.

Vintage Christmas 2

Vintage Christmas 2
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This my interpretation of the Vintage Christmas Card I made at Cherish The Thought. The background is burgundy cardstock run through the textile Cuttlebug embossing folder and white pigment ink rubbed over the high points. 2.5 inch lace is added near the bottom of the background. I used an old family photo printed in sepia and edged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I don't have the snowflake die, so I rubber stamped the snowflake on white cardstock with Vintage Photo ink and embossed with pearl white translucent embossing powder, the cut out the shape. This was also rubbed with vintage photo ink and a rhinestone added to the centre. The Quietfire Design quote is stamped on cream cardstock with Vintage Photo distress ink and the edges are rubbed with the same ink, and burgundy ribbon is tied around the piece. The snowflake and quote are mounted with foam tape.

Christmas Card 4

Christmas Card 4
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This card uses the whole Lace Tree Cuttlebug embossing folder, white pigment ink rubbed over the high points and embossed with Winter Wonderland embossing powder. The words are from 2 Quietfire Design quote stamps, "When this Christmas" and "Follow your dreams", stamped on white cardstock and cut with the scalloped oval Nestabilities die. There is a strip of silver ribbon down each side applied with Sookwang tape.

More Christmas Cards

I've been playing with some of the elements I used in the first card I made with the "Snowflakes" Quietfire Design stamp. I used the Lace Tree Cuttlebug embossing folder as a background element on 2 cards and on the purple area of the fairy image on one card. All have white pigment ink rubbed on the high points and embossed with Winter Wonderland embossing powder. I used a sponge to add purple dye based ink on areas of the embossed background. Two of these have a snowflake stamped and embossed with the Winter Wonderland embossing powder. The quote is stamped on white cardstock with purple dye based ink, then edged with the purple ink. All the quotes are mounted with pop dots. I've also used ribbon on each of the cards.

Vintage Christmas ATC Swap

Vintage Christmas ATC Swap
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

This is for a one for one ATC swap on PDA with the theme of vintage Christmas. I called my card "Christmas Dreams" for the work stamps I added to the ATC. The background is scrapbook paper run through the Textile Cuttlebug embossing folder and white ink rubbed over the high points. The tree is stamped on grunge board and embossed with Emerald green embossing powder. The edges are rubbed with Fired Brick Distress Ink. The hand and photo are from Dover and the sewing machine is a photo of my toy sewing machine.

The Last Group of Journal Gifts

These are more of the felt knit journals for the 12 Days of Christmas swap. Judy, Louise and mine are fastened to the o-wires of the Zutter journal with half hitch cords with shell buttons on the spine. Judy's has a garter clip fastener, Louise's is tied with ribbon ties, Wendy's is a crochet cord held in place with a button and wrapped around the journal and mine is also a crochet cord with a button that the cord is wrapped around to hold it closed. For fastening Wendy's felt cover to the journal, I let my rebellious muse out again and did free-form crochet chain loops. This is the first time I have done felt knitting and it was a fun adventure. The first part of the journal has some of my artwork and favourite quotes and the last half is blank or background pages for the recipients to add in some of their own favourites. I will show some of the pages in my next post and maybe some of the covers under the felt which are all done with handmade papers.

More of the Journals

This is the next group of the journals I made for the 12 Days of Christmas Gift swap and this time I had four finished at one time and was able to photograph the stack. Usually the gifts were mailed at different times in order to get to the most distant destinations on time. The journals for Linda T., Jane, Nicolette and Carolyn are more felt knit covers with half hitch cords or lace ribbon to hold the felt covers to the Zutter bound books. most have shell buttons on the spine, two have ribbon ties, 1 has a garter clip and one has a sleeve clip for a closure. I didn't keep track of which one was sent to each of them, so I hope these ladies will leave a comment to let me know. The last group will be posted in a while.

My Gifts For The 12 Days of Christmas Swap

Now that my day 9 gifts have been opened I can show you the 13 books I made. The ones for Melanie, Beth, Linda C. and Kristy are knit with various wool yarns then felted in the washing machine with hot water wash and cold water rinse. I used ties, lace ribbon or half hitch knots to fasten the felted covers to the Zutter Bind-it-all books. To fasten the covers closed I used garters or sleeve clips. The cover for our hostess, Mary-Beth was the only one made differently. For hers I used a piece of felt I made a long time ago and recently found in my stash. This piece was made by laying wool roving in the brown and white pattern, basting it between fine netting and felting in the washing machine with hot water wash and cold rinse. I cut the felt to size and let my rebellious muse out to couch yarn leftover from one of the other knit covers in a random design. Although i usually like things finished neatly, I left the ends hanging out of the edges, and used a garter clip for the closure. I'll continue with the rest of the books in a new posts in a little while.

Silk Ribbon Embroidery Christmas Stocking

Silk Ribbon Embroidery Christmas Stocking
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

Whatever way you celebrate, I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday. In keeping with the season I just dug another project out of my PNE and IPE entries bin. This is crazy quilt with silk ribbon embroidery, charms and buttons. My entry won Best in Class for Christmas Stocking at the PNE in 1997 and first place for silk ribbon embroidery at the IPE in 1998.

Monthly ATC Swaps for December

On Sat and Sun I completed 27 ATCs, now I will select some to send to Yogi for her Byhand Artists monthly swap and take the rest to the monthly swap at the Grind in Vancouvernext Sunday. The last 2 groups "Starry Night" series are white or burgandy organza on blue or pink cardstock. All the images are from the Ten Two Studio Christmas Countdown. I used various charms, fibres and peel-offs to embellish.
The first group "Winter Wishes: series started with a background painted on watercolour paper. I coated the paper with matt medium and painted Vancouver Grey, African Violet and Paper Bag acrylic paint on while the gel medium was still wet, blending some of the colours and wiping some of the colour off in areas. When dry I stamped with a flower and flourish foam stamps with Spotlight acrylic paint. This was scanned and reduced in size for the background of the ATC, printed on acrylic paper. I also stamped and embossed snowflakes and then embellished.

12 Days of Christmas Gift Swap

I am part of the byhandartists Yahoo group 12 days of Christmas gift swap and the plan is to make 12 gifts and send one to each of the other 12 members of the group. Each gift is labeled with the day number it is to be opened, with day 13 being opened on your own day. My day is Day 9, so on day 9 when all the others are opening my gift I will be opening day 13 gift. This must be ooh and awed over without revealing what it is. The rest of the gifts can be talked about to our hearts content on the day they are opened. All the gifts have been sent and received and so now we wait until Dec. 13 to start opening Day 1 gift, hey that's tomorrow, oh goodie. In the meantime I have been collecting the gifts in this basket and admiring the lovely packages every time I walk by. Don't forget to check my previous post or the sidebar for a Blog Giveaway and a great sale at Artella.

Stocking

Stocking
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I haven't had much time for creating lately but while I was cleaning I came across some photos of past projects, so I'm sharing a bit of my history today. This PNE second place winning stocking is a lace sampler knit with worsted weight yarn with a cotton lace edging added below the ribbing. Burgandy and white flowers and ribbons trim the back. This was made for a niece and there was a bit of a panic when I went to pick up my entries and it was missing. It was soon found with a group entry and all ended well.

Christmas ATC

On the Byhand Artists Yahoo group we have a monthly ATC swap, and since one of the themes for Dec. is Christmas, I started with a spice themed tissue box for my background. The gingerbread came from an ad pamphlet and I glued it to cardstock cut it out and mounted it with foam tape. I stamped the word Peace (a Funkadellic stamp) with copper pigment ink and embossed with pirates gold ep.I thought the dotted ribbon I used for the little bow went well with the spices.