Epsom Salt and Glitter Crushed Peppermint Ornament

I love all the things you can do with clear ornaments but my favorite ones are the flat ones. I’m sure there’s a name for them but they’re the round ones that look like you took a ball an flattened it.

I needed something I could make multiples of without breaking the bank so thank you Michaels for having these 50% off. Picked up a few packs of these (4 for $2.50) along with some of these glittered snowflake ornaments  by Darice ( $1.99 for a package of 12).

Glued a snowflake on one side and cut out white vinyl snowflakes using my Cricut Expression (Damask Décor cart) and stuck one on the other side.

Got out some tinsel glitter and Epsom salt, and spooned a little Epsom salt, silver, and red glitter into my ornament. Finished with a bow from red with silver polka dot ribbon.

I think it looks like crushed peppermint.

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Embossed and Glittered Oak Leaf Banner

Today I'm sharing a project I did for a guest post over at A Glimpse Inside last week. It was actually this project that started me off on my glittery Thanksgiving frenzy!

In case I haven't mentioned that it's exactly ONE WEEK til my son comes home from college, I want to make this year extra special since it will be a first Thanksgiving of sorts. It finally hit me that it's been almost four months since we've seen him. I know. I'm a WIMP.  He won’t care about the decorations but I think he will care that I wanted to make it extra special. Today I’m sharing a banner I made for our dining room.

I love all things paper ( OK really, what craft supply don't I love?!) and got the idea to do an oak leaf banner.  I cut the leaves on my Cricut Expression but decided they needed some texture. I grabbed a textured stamp from my stamp supply, inked it up with clear embossing ink and  covered them with detailed silver embossing powder:

I also knew I wanted this to have some sparkle and needed an excuse, er um a compelling reason to play with tinsel glitter. The beginning of the end! I'm hooked.

I cut out more leaf shapes, and covered them with champagne tinsel glitter. I used Recollections brand from Michaels.

But what are oak leaves without acorns? Using the same Cricut cartridge ( Doodlecharms) , I cut acorns from metallic gold paper and then went over the caps with copper glitter glue:

The final piece of my banner was this organza tulle I found at JoAnn’s in their 2 for $5 section. Oh my they have got several gorgeous colors, many of  which I may or may not have bought. Just sayin'

To put it all together, I took a couple of the embossed leaves, a plain leaf, and a tinsel glittered leaf and formed a “clump” of leaves. I covered clothes pins ( my favorite way to hang banners) with some glittered paper scraps and then put my acorns on top using a foam dot.

I twisted two colors of the organza tulle together and draped over two framed prints in our dining room and then clipped my oak clusters on. Photos aren't great. One of my 2012 goals is to get better at photographing things where glare is involved. 

I think this will really twinkle in the candlelight of our Thanksgiving meal, along with some of the other glittery Thanksgiving decor.

One week. From TODAY! Not that I'm counting.

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Fall Décor: Canvas Corp Chalkboard Paper and Canvas

I had the chance to play with some more of the pieces from the wonderful giveaway I won from Canvas Corp. Included in my goodies were these:

A 10x10 canvas and a 12x12 sheet of chalkboard paper. I’m itching to get some Thanksgiving décor up. Not that I don’t love Halloween but I think sometimes as artsy craftsy decoratsy peeps, we get ahead of the season and by the time the actual holiday rolls around we’re on to the next.

I wasn’t really sure where I was going with this. Sometimes I know. Sometimes I don’t.  But I decided that I wanted these two to go together. Here’s where I ended up:

I used extra strong double sided tape to stick the chalkboard paper to the canvas. Then I got the idea to frame the edges with leaves so I cut a bunch of oak leaves on my Cricut from metallic silver cardstock.

If you can’t take a straight picture, tilt it in Windows Live Writer!
Looked around for something to add and my eyes fell upon my jute twine. Made some spirals and ran the twine around the edges. I’m going for a sparkly Thanksgiving and am in love with tinsel glitter so I covered more leaves with “Champagne” tinsel glitter by Recollections  (Michaels).  Finished up with some rolled paper roses made from a chocolate brown metallic paper and went around those lightly with chocolate brown glitter glue.

Wrote the year in the middle with a chalkboard marker so I can update it again in the years to come.

Not a great pic, but you can see the glitter glue sparkling on the edges of the flower.

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