Easy Christmas Signs "Joyeux Noel"

I made these signs for a treat exchange as a little something to go with the chocolate butter cookies I brought.

For this project you will need:

• Wood Scraps ( these are from a package of scraps found at Michaels)
• Craft paint, your choice of colors. I used Martha Stewart Metallic Gold and Wedding Cake
• White glue ( Elmers or generic)
• Vinyl for lettering ( or you could stencil)
• Die Cuts
• Embellishments ( I used paper roses, washi tape and adhesive rhinestones)

Paint your wood pieces with desired base color ( mine was gold). Let dry, apply white glue and when almost dry, go over with top color ( white). If you’re impatient, use your embossing gun ( lightly) or hair dryer to speed up drying. This also helps the crackling.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out vinyl letters from green vinyl.  I like to use transfer tape to apply lettering to get it somewhat straight.

After my letters were on, I cut a branch and holly leaves using my Cuttlebug and Tim Holtz Holly Branch die:

Getting a lot of use from this die. It’s the same one I used in my wreath makeover here. Mod Podged a branch and one leaf onto my signs and outlined the branch with iridescent glitter glue, and used red rhinestones for the berries.

I’ve gone crazy for washi tape so grabbed a roll of peppermint striped tape and put a piece on just because. 

Finished by hot gluing a silver tinsel pipe cleaner to each.

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Wreath Makeover With Paper and Ribbon Scraps

I had a productive weekend getting some Christmas crafts and gifts done, including this wreath makeover  that’s going to hang next to one of my trees. Yes, I said “one of”. No, the Hoarders people are not parked outside my house. Yet.

I started off with a pressed wood wreath frame that you can find at most craft stores. I had a wreath from last Thanksgiving that I decided I no longer loved so I pulled all the stuff off of it which is what the white spots are. If people open gifts at my house, guess who hoards the scrap ribbon to re-use? I pulled out a couple of pieces and wrapped my wreath form.

The rough ends where the ribbon joined won’t matter since they’ll be covered up. The next part I thought I tool pictures of and oops. But to decorate my wreath, I used a Tim Holtz die to cut holly leaves, and branches from chipboard. Ran those through an embossing folder to give them some texture and then dabbed on some inks in metallic brown, green, and gold.  Went to my paper scraps and pulled out some black and white polka dot papers and made rolled flowers. And then to my embellishments stash and grabbed some off white paper roses.

Hot glued the leaves and flowers on over my ugly ribbon spots.

I finished the whole thing with a bright red ribbon ( another scrap) and it will hang next to my Whimsical tree that’s filled with lots of red, lime green, black and white.

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Vampire Coffin Boxes

I know a couple of people who love all things Vampire. Even though I’m not that into them, Vampires do give me an excuse to play with my signature colors: black and white. And what’s a Vampire without a little red?

Started with one of these from Michaels. Painted the sides with Martha Stewart red craft paint, over which I painted Martha's  red glitter paint.

Mod Podged a black and white patterned paper to the top and bottom and then went around the edges with some black and white washi tape.

Do your family members send you random things when they clean out their junk drawers? Mine do. The Mumster sent me a bag of keys. I don’t know that Vampires use keys but they seemed to fit. I also used some keyholes from a pack by Tim Holtz . 

Embellished the top with red rhinestones and black pearls. Vampires have to be glam right?

Since they sleep during the day, do they say “day day” instead of “night night”?

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SteampunKEY Pumpkin. More Fun With Tissue Paper and Mod Podge

I fully admit to loving cheesy puns. I had so much fun with my script Tissue Paper and Mod Podge pumpkin that I knew I wanted to make another one. Having bought this cool key themed tissue paper at the same time, the SteampunKEY pumpkin was conceived.

Follow the same steps outlined in my earlier tutorial. I left the stem bare on the first one but since I knew I wanted to add keys etc. I wrapped this stem with copper wire and black and white baker’s twine.  I looked in my stash and had some Tim Holtz gears and some little keys. My family members actually mail me the stuff they have no idea what to do with which is how I got the keys. Thanks Mumster (my mom for anyone who's new to my craziness)!

Here’s a closeup of the little copper gear I used:

And now my script paper covered pumpkin has a friend!

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Decor Craft: Numbers, Time Pieces, and Mod Podge

You can still link up to this week’s BFF Open House here.

I thought I’d share a little something I made to commemorate our Anniversary. We both love clocks, time pieces, etc. For Mother’s Day this year we went to a local flea market where I found an antique pocket watch casing but hadn’t decided what I wanted to do with it. Then this idea came to me when I picked up some of this numbers paper by Recollections at Michaels recently.

I had some  Tim Holtz time piece and gear pieces in my stash, and Mr. C gave me a couple of wood discs ( I have no idea what they are) he found in his den. Add to that an MDF plaque from stash and another piece of scrap paper.

I traced the plaque and disc on the papers and cut out. Then applied with Mod Podge and sanded the edges when dry.

I liked the design I used from the Damask Décor Cricut Cartridge on my upcycled cheese box so I cut another one out of chocolate brown vinyl.  I antiqued both the paper covered disc and the plaque with Ranger Distress  Inks:

and edged the wooden disc with some aluminum tape. Once the paper pieces were done, I glued all my watch pieces together with E-6000.

I’d debated whether to use the inside or back of the pocket watch casing and decided to go with the back. So glued the time pieces together then glued to the casing , then glued to the disc.

Me, being me, I had to add a rhinestone in the middle as the final touch! Gotta have bling!

The most expensive piece of this was the pocket watch casing…$10 which I still don’t know if that was a good deal or not, but it’s silver and it spoke to me, and so there.

The Tim Holtz sets are around $5 or $6 each ( of course I buy these w/ 40% coupons!) and you get several projects out of them. The MDF frame I got at Ben Franklin for $1.99 and the rest of the stuff I had. Oh the Recollections paper was 4 for $1 on sale at Michaels.

The 21 years of memories that this project represents? Priceless.

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