Ready for Christmas

The cards are made and all sent out. The house is decorated and the stockings all hung. Cookies are baked and a little fudge too. Christmas gifts are wrapped, even one for the dog. Now we're just chillin' and waiting for Santa Claus.

Merry Christmas to all!!!

Glass Memory Frame Ornament

As seen on Off-The-Deep-End.Net, posted December 16:  Christmas is getting closer.  Have you checked your Advent calendar? My son checks his every day. He loves the Advent calendar I made for him.  Although his love and adoration has nothing to do with the fact that I painstakingly cut out a million (okay, not a million, but a whole LOT) little felt pieces and hand-stitched them to 24 little pockets and then stitched the entire thing together.  (And for the record, sewing is not my thing.)  Instead, it's for what he perceives as his 24-day pass for a little chocolate before or after breakfast.

If you're feeling a little pressed for time and realize you need a few more gifts.  You may like this quick and easy ornament.

Start by making your own sheet music.  If you like an antique look and you don't have parchment paper, you can make your own. 

1. 
(1.) Randomly stamp cream cardstock with Adirondack Dye Ink in Sandal using a background stamp.  The one I used is part of set from Innovative Stamp Creations called ATC Elements.

2.  
(2.) Find sheet music or clipart online, size it to fit several times on 8 1/2" x 11" stamped cardstock, and print.


3.

(3.)  Gather your supplies.  Here's what you'll need:
2 - 2" x 2" Memory Glass
1- 2" x 2" Silver Memory Frame
Sheet Music (You just made it!)
Holiday Cut-Out
White Rub-Ons

(4.) Next, cut your music paper to fit between the two pieces of 2" x 2" glass.  (You can use the glass as your guide.)

Advent Calendars

It's a little late to be sharing how to make an Advent Calendar, unless, of course, you're done with your holiday madness and are just sitting around looking for something to do in preparation for Christmas 2012. Not!

Instead, let me just share with you a calendar I made for my son in 2003 and one I made this year for my nephew. Shortly after I lost my job due to a WFR (that's Work Force Reduction) and decided to be that stay-at-home Mom I had considered three years earlier, I was like white-lightning. I struck hard and fast. The Pottery Barn catalog had caught my eye and in it was this wonderful felt Advent calendar. I was too late to buy it for Christmas 2002, but just as soon as I packed up the holiday I decorations, I headed to Joann Fabrics on a mission. Not to make just one of those calendars, but to make seven of them. (Yes, you read that correctly, count them, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7!!!)

Before my trip to Joann's, I had already drawn my plan. I came up the size of the calendar and each of its pockets. I came up with a list of 24 Christmas motifs and set out to draw each and every one of them. Then I came up with a list of colors of felt I needed and an approximation of the amount. I also factored in the embroidery thread colors and hand-selected the perfect color background felt for my son, Levi, and each of my nieces and nephews that would receive one as a 2003 Christmas gift. I spent hours and hours and hours and hours cutting pieces of felt and stitching each of those pieces, but it was worth.

Until my sister mentioned to me last year how she would like Remington to have his own Advent calendar for Christmas. Now Remington is actually my grand-nephew, so a hand-stitched Advent Calendar wasn't on my radar. I was white-lightning in 2003. In 2011 I'm more like that hurricane lingering out over the ocean that decides not to come inland. For months I have been struggling what to make this kid and then I saw the perfect item. Kaiser Craft! Kaiser Craft has this great Advent Calendar and it's right up my alley, because I can use what I love...pretty holiday papers!!!

And I got to use my new Cricut Expression to make the little house. Too cool, right?

Don't look Remington! It's coming to you soon. I hope.

License Plate & Bottlecap Ornaments

As seen published on Off-The-Deep-End.Net, December 7, 2011: Through the years I have been told that I am very organized and that I have a great attention to detail. Two qualities I have been quite proud to possess. The truth is that if it was not for lists, I would never stand a chance at being organized. But, lately, there seems to be a trend taking place. I lose my lists. I write a reminder to myself on a little scrap of paper only to throw it away. I write a note on a full sheet of paper, only for it to get lost in a stack of mail, school papers, and other stuff.

To help me get back on track, I made myself a nice collection of big and small notebooks to keep my notes organized. I have a special book just for Off The Deep End. And yet, I received notice from my OTDE editor reminding me I have a post on Wednesday. Say what? Where's my note? I know I wrote it down. On a scrap of paper. Maybe in my special OTDE notebook. Where is that pretty little book anyway?

Today's ornament is reprised from an ornament a made a couple years ago for a blog I participated in called Ornament Thursday.

That's me! At age 11 months.

It's always fun to take something made for one purpose and use it for different one. We're going to do that a couple times with this ornament.

To start, let's prep the bottlecap. We're going to use a flatten bottlecap. You may be able to find flatten bottlecaps in your craft store, but more than likely you will find the regular ones. They are easy to flatten and can be done various ways. Some people use their die cutting machines, but I'm going to show you the old school way. This way, if you don't have a craft room full of nifty tools, you still can flatten your bottlecap with things you have around the house.

Please note: the bottlecaps from soda and beer are made of a stronger metal than those sold in craft stores. This make them very difficult to flatten and look nice.

When you flatten them, you take the fluted edges and make them curl back down on itself. This gives you a flatter surface and a pretty edge.

1. 2. 3.

4. 5.

1. Here is a regular bottlecap, a flatten bottlecap, and a flatten bottlecap with the seal removed.

2. To flatten your bottlecap, lay it ridge side down (how it looks on a bottle) on a hard, flat, smooth surface like a sidewalk or cement floor. Place a block of wood on top of it and hammer it.

3. Take a heat tool and heat the seal enough to soften it and remove it with a needle tool. (Be careful, metal will be hot.)

4. If you do not have a heat tool, you can boil some water, place your bottlecap in the sink, pour the water over it, and immediately remove the seal with a needle tool or something similar. This will make the metal hot too, so be careful.

5. Last, use a nail and hammer a hole into the edge.

6. 7.

8. 9.

6. Get a 1" circle punch and print a photo to 1" x 1". You could also use a full size photo with distance images or a piece of clip art.

7. Flip your punch over, and place the photo in it so you can see how the image will look before you punch it.

8. Now you have your flatten bottlecap, a 1" circle punched picture, and extra large round epoxy stickers. Glue the photo into the bottlecap and place the epoxy sticker on top of it.

9. Gather your supplies and arrange them. The license plate is a metal sticker by Karen Foster Designs made for scrapbooking.

10. Take some light weight wire and wire everything together. There's no plan, just have fun wrapping the wire around everything. Just make sure you twist the ends together when you're done. Trim off any excess wire. You may want to tape your ends to the back of the ornament to avoid any scrapes.

How many repurposed items did you find? Do you know what the pretty little sunbursts charms really are?

Simple, but elegant Revisited

When I posted last time, I had every intention to post a Christmas version of that card the following day.  I am thankful I didn't tell you that in the post.  What I knew would be true when I started this blog in 2006 still holds true today -- my art is always interrupted, hence Art-Interrupted. 

Twelve days have passed since that post and I am almost embarrassed to tell you how fast I made this card.  Five minutes.  Yes, five minutes.  Using the same techniques as the flower, I used Adirondack Dye Ink Pads in Willow and Lettuce and inked the trees.  I spritzed it with a misting of water and stamped.  This time I cheated and instead of cutting out my own letters/saying, I used a sticker by Dazzle.  I trimmed the image, lightly inked the edges with black ink, mounted it to a dry embossed white panel, and then onto a white card.  Done!

 Simple, but elegant!  

This card was one I created for Ranger for the 2011 CHA summer show.  The flower is a stamp from Purple Onion Designs.  It was inked with Adirondack ink pads, spritzed it with water, and stamped onto a 3 3/4" x 5" white cardstock.  "Thanks" was cut out of Metal Foil Tape using a die (Olivia's Alphabet)  from Provo Craft.  Tie a ribbon onto panel and mount it to a 4" x 5.25" pink cardstock panel, and then mount onto a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" side-folded white card.  Simple, right?