Elf Christmas wreath

Sometimes I put foot to the pedal and create something that I know will always be a one-off! This huge Elf Christmas Wreath is one of those one-offs - now hanging in my eldest daughter's home.

I decided to respond to the monthly competition in the R&R Arts and Crafts Facebook page, where we were tasked to make a Christmas embellishment using not less than 1m of ribbon.

Competition result .... I shared the FIRST prize with another contestant! 

How I made up the wreath 

Materials
Calico material for the face, ears, nose, and hands
Quilting material for the arms and legs
battery operated lights
Dark green feather boa
Small red and gold baubles
Teddybear stuffing
Two old wire clothes hangers
10m of wire (thin and thick)
I used 14m of various wide and narrow ribbons (red, gold mesh, white, green)
4m of gold cord


















Method
Open up the hangers and shape into circles
Wrap some thick wire criss-cross across these hangers so that you will have wire to fasten all the ribbon to.
Cut out head, ears, and hands from calico. I did not use any pattern, just more or less guessed the shapes and sizes.
Cut arms, legs, and shoes from quilting materials.
Sew hands to arms, and shoes to legs, then stitch up side seams, stuff and close openings.
Attach the arms and legs onto the frame with thin wire, making sure they are firmly fastened.



Wind the light string around and through the wire frame and crossed wires, making sure that the switch on the battery is behind one of the arms so you can reach it easily.

Wind the feather boa around and through the wire hanger frame, making sure you cover most of the area.
 


Make up ALL the ribbon bows and cords and bind with thin wire, then fasten randomly onto the hanger frame.
 

Head: stitch ears and stuff, and sew onto head. Make a small nose and stuff. Stitch a mouth using embroidery thread. I made the eyes using two small pompoms which I glued in place. I also glued some stuffing onto the hat brim.
Fasten head securely to the wire frame and fluff the feather boa around it.
 

So, a little madness, many hours of labour, but I love the end result - and so does my daughter!

Christmas is coming!

It is exactly 16 weeks from today (5 September) to Christmas Day!!! Where HAS this year gone? I have of course been reminded about this with all the Christmas themed card challenges at the moment, so decided to join in the fun.

This digi is available in the Digistamps4Joy shop and is called "Christmas bauble". The super thing about this dig is that it can be coloured in with any combination of colours and will always look absolutely fabulous! I went with the traditional red and green this time, and coloured two prints with my SN and Copic pens. THEN, I glued a clear transparency sheet on top of each one to give the effect of glass baubles, and smudged glitter glue on top of this to produce the sparkle. The sentiment says Wonderful Christmas Memories.

New items used - none (can you believe this?). I've been a good girl!
Old items used - DP from stash, digi, glitter glue, transparency sheet, sentiment, paper pieced tree.
I'm entering this into two challenges...
Outlawz alcohol markers - anything goes with a Christmas twist
Graph'It Markers - reds and greens

This is the last challenge for 2012 at Digistamps4Joy - Challenge #57 - 

"There's something magical about Christmas". 

I made a twisted easel card with the DS4J image called "Christmas tree 3" from the Digistamps4Joy STORE and coloured it in with SN pens, then added lots of "bling". Do pop into the DS4J BLOG and see what the other DT members have created for this challenge, and then enter YOUR creation in the InLinkz to put yourself in line for winning a prize!

Tradition scrapping

I've been doing a little scrapbooking for a change, and decided to try one of the weekly challenges at Let's Scrap. Challenge #94 was to scrap a 'tradition', and use one of the Let's Scrap sketches. This is the first time - believe it or not! - that I have used sketch for a scrapbook layout, and goodness knows why I didn't try this before! I have had a tradition since 1980 of setting up the nativity set I made, before the Christmas tree is decorated, and I have been doing this now for 31 years! In fact, the grandchildren are now setting it up around my tree. So, here's my family tradition. I used this lovely star background paper, then some super matching Christmas paper from a set I bought.

Cards made with the "wreath" digis

Here are 3 cards I made with the 3 different 'wreath' digis available at Digistamps4Joy.

 This card was made with "Christmas wreath 3". The wooden part of the wreath was coloured in with Copics (E25 + Y28 ), and the bow, leaves, and berries with Promarkers (cobalt green, sap green, cadmium red). The white cardstock was embossed with Cuttlebug folder "Swiss Dots", all the dots were glittered, and then the basic white and red shapes cut with Nestabilities.  These were layered on top of each other and then onto gold card. The swirls on the left were made using a tiny sequin that I found at the local material shop! Of course the usual bling was added to the ribbon, leaves, and some berries.

I like this card - perhaps it is the embossed (Cuttlebug 'snow dots') white card that was covered in dimensional 3D glitter that came out so nicely. The digistamps is "Christmas wreath 2".  Copics (E25 + Y28 ) were again used on the wooden part of the wreath, and the leaves and berries were coloured with Promarkers (cobalt green, sap green, cadmium red). The edges of the snowman were coloured in with a light blue watercolour pencil, and the colour was worked towards the white centres. Snowman's hat and scarf were covered with the same dimensional glitter. Circles cut with Nestabilities.

Card 3 was made with the digistamp "Christmas wreath 1"
The same Copics, Promarkers AND glitter were used.

Digistamps4Joy Challenge #6

The challenge at Digistamps4Joy for the next 2 weeks is "Inspired by Christmas / Holiday Season", and for this I have made a card that is one HUGE bling card! Unfortunately the photograph does not do the card justice. The background paper is a piece of glitter card - r-e-e-a-a-l-l-y glittery! The image - from Digistamps4Joy - was coloured in with the computer (Inkscape), and the paper ribbon strip on the side was made using a cheap little punch I found in the local shop, and thought that it would work nicely with ribbon threading. Because the glitter background is so dominant I decided to keep the card simple, and only added a gold embossed "Merry Christmas".

Hope to see your entries in this challenge, and do pop in to the blog to see what the rest of the DT has made.

The reason for the season

This stamp was designed for Digistamps4Joy, and I have made up a card from it. I found a 'book' of what initially looked like silver patterned paper, bought it, then got a wonderful surprise when I opened it at home. It was a set of velum paper, over printed with the most gorgeous silver designs! Here you can see how I layered it on top of a piece of purple cardstock. The stamp was printed onto white card, cut with a nestabilities shape, the edges stippled with light pink and purple, and the flowers coloured in with pastel gel pens. This has come out so nicely, and I think the velum gives a soft feeling to the whole card and stamp.

A card from recycled 'goodies'

The brief for the Digistamps4joy second September DT challenge was ... use something that has been recycled.  I think most of us have the habit of saving just about everything ... "just in case", and all the family are saying "oh no, not more rubbish". Anyone out there got this t-shirt? So, when I saw this challenge, my first thought was .. yay, now I can use some of the 'rubbish'! So after scratching around, I decided to make a Christmas cracker-card, using the 'flower heart’ stamp from Digistamps4joy. Apologies for the glare on the gold card, but I battled to take a photo with the flash.

The base of the heart was coloured in with a Copic (E00), while I coloured the flowers in with gel pens and glitter glue. The recycled items are:

1. Gold triangle top-and-bottom trims – from a 2009 Christmas cracker
2. Gold paper peeping out behind the heart and acetate – from a 2009 gold Christmas hat
3. Hatch pattern clear acetate (see it in the close-up photo) – believe it or not …. is from the base of the inside container of a box of Zoo Iced biscuits!

Catching up, and xmas tree ornament cards

Goodness, but time is flying! In the last 4 weeks I have spent two of them away from home - and my craft room! My sister suggested for my last week away, that I take a whole bag full of crafting goodies with to the hotel. The problem with that is, that just as you get into making something in the room, you realise you left the glue at home! So, I took another route. I printed out 10 pages of images that I wanted to make cards out of, put them, my small cutting scissors, and plastic sleeves, into a large plastic pocket. It took me exactly 3 nights, after each workshop session and dinner, to cut these out while watching the TV!! Should have printed out more, but oh well, at least some cutting was done.

What I want to share with you today is the shaker Christmas cards I made, to hang on the xmas tree.  I must credit the original idea to Maria Bell of stampininspirations.blogspot.com, where she also has a tutorial on making these ornaments. I took her idea, made a few more shapes, and changed the finished product from a tree ornament, to a christmas card. This is just me being the old practical self again. I thought if I could make the ornament big enough to be able to write a message on the back, then I could send it as a Christmas card, and the recipients could hang it on their trees. My sister then came on board, and cut out some additional shapes from the Cricut cartridges, and I ended up making 12 of these different "cards". So here are 4 of the cards I made. The candle digistamp is from www.digistamps4joy.com.
Oh, and these are ALL shaker cards!!

Celebrate His birth

This card was made with a digistamp I designed for Digistamps4joy, so head over and buy some of their stamps, they are really lovely. There's even a super freebie there! The funny yellow colour on the card is actually a gorgeous, speckled, gold foil - the photo unfortunately does not do it justice. Each of the little christmas lights were glittered as well. The background was stippled with a stamp pad and a stippling brush in 2 shades of blue.