Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Wednesday Trends

Hello everyone - Melissa here with this week's Wednesday Trends post where I share with you a recent trend I've noticed out and about in Blogland.  Since we are deep in the throes of Christmas and decorating homes and trees, I've been noticing MANY handmade Christmas ornaments.  Not sure if I'd call it a "trend", per se, but it's sure a popular thing to do this time of the year.  :)

During our last Release Week, Corinna showed up how to use the dies that coordinate with the Warmest Wishes set to make some fabulous felt ornaments.  I happened to be visiting my fellow Trendsetter, Jenny Peterson, last week and we were discussing what trend I was going to focus on and we came up with an idea to use the other newly released die, Holly Jolly die, to create a Christmas ornament.  The basic idea isn't anything new but using this die makes a nice change from the basic circle.


So to start, you will need 8 (or more if you want a fuller ornament) snowflake shapes cut out of either stamped images (using the Holly Jolly stamp set) or just regular designer paper - I made one of each to show you:


Whichever way you decide to go, you might want to take this opportunity to ink the edges or glitter them up before assembly.  I tried glittering them but it was a LOT of work and made a huge mess and didn't really turn out the way I hoped, so inking it was.

Now what you need to do is score each snowflake in half - I use the scoring blade on my cutter:



Once all of the snowflakes are scored and embellished as you like, then you may start assembling the ornament adhering one snowflake to the next - back to back - until you have a nice shape that looks like this:


If you are using stamped images and/or words, PLEASE make sure that they are ALL in the same upright direction as you are gluing them together - unless you want to make the recipient "decipher" their ornament. ;)

Next step is to punch a hole through the top of the snowflake and use some twine or ribbon to make the hanger part.  You could also add beads to make it a bit more *glitzy*:


To finish my ornaments off, I tied a bitty scrap of ribbon around the twine at the top of each ornament:



These were fun to make and easy enough for the kiddies too.  You can make them simple or you can embellish like crazy - that's up to you.  :)  I hope you will give this a try - just one more way to make use of those fabulous dies TSG has for y'all.  If you do make some, please come back and link us - we'd love to check them out!

Have a great day, everyone!  I'll be back on Friday with a Dollar Find Friday post - see you then!

5 comments:

  1. Very clever, Melissa! What a fun project! :)

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  2. HOW ADORABLE!!! I just love it and my kiddos will love making cute handmade ornaments... We like to hang stuff in the windows too.. Looks super cute!

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  3. Oh, fun! Think I am going to have to try this.......with my kids, too! What a fun thing to give family members to hang on their trees!

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  4. HEY! I was justthinking....my daughter has to make something to sell at a local craft fair with her CCD class (all money earned will be donated to a homeless shelter). These are PERFECT!

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