Ornament explosion!

A variety of interesting on-line tutorials have been tickling my creative self lately--I keep pinning holiday crafts on my Pinterest board and going to Michael's to the point where I just couldn't stand it. So, despite the fact that we have a full supply of perfectly acceptable Christmas tree ornaments already (that I would never part with, of course), I told my daughter last week: "let's make all new ornaments for the tree this year! And let's have a color theme! And let's do it tomorrow!" She instantly saw the brilliance of my suggestion and so the next day we shopped at Target and Michael's and got our supplies. We decided on a cool silvery blue and aqua color theme.

First the lights. New LED lights from Target were strung on the tree. We chose "cool white", and they really do have a an icy blue-white color. Just right for our theme.

Four strings was enough to do the trick. Actually, just the lights were very pretty on the tree all by themselves. But we were pretty psyched about the ornaments so the next day we eagerly set up our decoration station on the kitchen table.

Here's our set-up: several boxes of clear ornaments in several diffeent sizes, floor wax (!), glitter (both coarse and fine) and some odds and ends to include inside the ornaments. [Note the newspaper on the table--the first step that I always insist upon.] You might also notice a couple of plastic cups from the recycle bin. Not pictured are some gloves and mini funnels made out of taped 3" x 5" index cards.

First step: remove the tops of the ornaments and set aside. Squirt some floor wax into an ornament. Swirl it around evenly coating all of the interior. Try not to create any bubbles. Pour the excess wax into one of the plastic cups and save for the next ornament.

Add a bunch of glitter and shake the ornament vigorously. The glitter will adhere and get stuck to the floor wax, which, of course, dries clear.

Here's the finished product! Nice, huh?

Here's a whole batch. Some have multiple glitters in different textures and different colors. We tried to cover all combinations at least once.

We let the floor wax dry for a good 20 minutes or more before replacing the tops of the ornaments.

We also made some ornaments with larger inclusions. No adhesive necessary for these. Here are some clipped leaves from a sparkly garland that was on sale.

Loose glitter and larger cutouts are featured in this ornament.

And here's a whole tray of the inclusions ornaments.











Stay tuned for more and to see the final decorated tree!

Christmas Card fail and then subsequent redemption

Well, it almost never happens, but this year's original Christmas card was a failure. :(  I liked the design and the finished card looked pretty darn good but production of 60 cards was just not to be.

See how nice they turned out?

sigh

Unfortunately, all of that lovely fine glitter clogged up the acetate stencil that I had cut and it became a constant battle of cleaning out the stencil every second or third spraying. If I didn't do it that often the glitter started filling in the narrow lines of the letters, dammit. So I did that, starting to grumble. But then when the stencil started to break/tear at some of the narrow places, I saw the handwriting on the wall.

It was just not going to happen. 20 cards? yeah, I would have toughed it out. But 60? no way.
Time to regroup. Remember: "its not a mistake, its a design opportunity". Right? Right!

Ok. Well, I already had a stack of pre-sprayed background cards so it had to involve them. I did not wish to go back to the drawing board and spend an excessive amount of time conceptualizing so I (guiltily) rehashed a designed from a few years ago with a textured paper star. An added plus: I still had some of that textured paper and was happy to use it up.

Here's my nice fat star template--I like him!

And here is my stack of textured stars. You can barely make it out, but they, too, have been sprayed with the gold glitter spray from Lowe's. Holding the spray can at a sharp angle while spraying allowed the glitter to get in the closer crevasses and not in the away crevasses, making for a nice effect. (You'll have to take my word for it; I know it doesn't really show up here).

A sheet of foam that I had saved from some shipment or other gave its life to make some little rectangles.
(extra points for recycling and keeping a piece foam out of the landfill)

And then out comes the glue gun and attaches all of that foam to the stars....

and then the stars to the cards!














And that is it. Whew--I'm done. Crisis averted. Yay!

 Time to start addressing those cards now...