Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Is It Too Early?

Hey everyone! I have been seeing some really great Christmas decorations, cards and tags lately. I keep telling myself *it's not too early to 'make' Christmas themed items, as long as I don't display them until after Thanksgiving.
So here is my first Christmas themed project for the season:

This is a wall hanging/wreath type decoration. I was inspired by the ornament made by Lolly (she gives an amazing tutorial for it HERE) Lolly's is ornament sized but I made mine slightly larger using 3" squares for the cones and a 5" circle for the center(which I sprayed with Snow Queen glimmer mist, one of the new winter colors) . The completed size of it is about 9". For the entire project I used only 3 sheets of double sided paper, 2 of the "Snow Day" and 1 "Winter Wisp" Both available at Your Memories Here with lots of other fabulous double sided papers.
I used thick chipboard letters to spell out the word "JOY". I painted the edges of each letter with purple acrylic paint first, then glued the patterned paper to the front. I added a coating of Mod Podge to each letter to make sure the paper doesn't lift up. Then I inked all the edges in dusty concord distress ink and added some icicle Stickles around all the edges too for a frosty ice look.

The letter "J" is embellished with some tiny jingle bells strung on light blue fibers, wrapped around the letter. I used a little dab of hot glue to keep each little bell in place.

The letter "O" has a few purple and aqua rhinestones embellishing it.

And finally for the letter "Y" I used some snowflake shaped brads, cut the prongs off then I smooshed (yes, that's a technical term) them into an embossing ink pad to get them well coated and sprinkled them with a light purple (Thistle from American Crafts) embossing powder and heated carefully with my heat gun. I used some hot glue to attach each one.

To attach the letters to my cone wreath base, I used the hot glue again. It seems to be holding up pretty good. Since the letters are made of chipboard they're pretty lightweight.

When it was all finished I proudly showed Kevin and he asked "Is that for someone named Joy?" Gosh he can be such a smart arse sometimes!

I hope to be back later this week with some Fall themed projects that I've been working on in my head :) I just got to get them out and onto paper!



8 comments:

LollyChops said...

I totally LOVE this!!! You ROCK!

Marlene said...

Saw this on the other site...and LOVE IT. The colors ROCK and totally make me smile!

creativelyfabulous said...

That is soooo cute!!

Brenda said...

ohhh Joy love this Kristina!!!
hugs
Brenda

flowerdisco said...

guys, huh? duh!

i am liking it very much for my purple room. tfs! and for all the love ;)

Crystal said...

oh kristina i just love this project! i think it is soooo beautiful & i can't wait to try some of my own! the colors you used are gorgeous girl! big hugs!

LisiB said...

Wow! Love how this turned out. I have to check out the tutorial on the borders. It looks GREAT"

Julie Ranae said...

Kristina....so happy to have you peek inside The Open Window! I appreciate your kind comments and am glad to have found your blog as well!
Your work is lovely and colorful. I would LOVE to personally invite you over to play with us at The Play Date Cafe...your style would really be a wonderful addition to our gallery there! Nice to meet you!