It’s Throwback Thursday and wether your cards are done or not this post is for you! Although it is ‘Not a card’ it certainly wouldn’t take much to make it one! Enjoy this post from November 2014—
Told ya’ll I’d be back soon!! Happy Sunday to my friends in the U.S.!! Happy December 1st to my International friends!! I’m here today with my first official blog post as an Eclectic Ellapu Design Team Member–WOOT WOOT!! I’m stoked!! I’m a member of the EE Purple Team and teammate PurpleCinn (aka Tabatha) chose the December theme and challenges us to create something for Christmas-But not a card!
OK–I’ve got something!! I was inspired by Wendy Vecchi to try my hand at making my own home-made Christmas ornaments after reading her post at her own blog-Here and over at the Ranger blog, too-Here.
This is a proto-type ornament, of sorts. I want to have a creative activity to share with my Mom-in-Law when she visits for Christmas, so I assembled a chipboard ornament and went to Christmas-town on it!!
This is how my ornament started out. I cut out lots of 3″ circles (this was before I learned, from Wendy herself, that the wooden ornaments are 4″) and fashioned the toppers from a bunch of rectangles that I fussy cut and scalloped punched. As I am a cheap frugal crafter, I save the boxes from dry cereal and reuse as my ‘chipboard’. Each ornament has 3 layers of chipboard glued together and the toppers are just two layers.
I’m going to start by rubbing a layer of Picket Fence DP over the front and back of my ornament.
I really like the whitewash effect the Picket Fence DP gave the chipboard. It’s a great first layer of color!
My next layer is Salty Ocean DS that I rubbed onto my craft sheet then finger painted onto the painted chipboard. I love how the color settled into the painted surface of the ornament. It’s uneven and rough and super cool!!
I used my Harlequin LS with Chipped Sapphire DI to stencil dark diamonds onto the front of the ornament. I quickly covered with Sticky EP and applied heat until just shiny.
I quickly covered the melted Sticky EP with Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter and let cool.
Aren’t those glittery diamonds fun? I was hoping they’d be a bit darker so that they’d stand out more, but I can fix that later on.
Here’s the back of the ornament–basically an unembellished version of the front! But even this looks pretty good on its own😉
For the topper, I rubbed Distress Embossing Ink over the front and back surfaces and then dipped into my little tub of Silver EP and heat set. DONE!!🙂
Then, I added some stamping through the Harlequin LS and I outlined the diamonds with a fine tip black gel pen. I did splatter more Picket Fence DP over the surface and you can see in some places, it made the black gel pen run. I LIKE it!! I rubbed Chipped Sapphire DI over the edge of the ornament with my ink blending tool and heat set everything.
These layered snowflakes were cut from my Cricut machine with the Christmas Cheer cartridge. I used a piece of silver embossed card stock and vellum and I layered those with painted rounds of tulle. They were blinged out with little blue rhinestones and glued to the ornament with matte gel.
I made the word banners from white card stock stamped with a sentiment from my Sunny Holiday Messages set from Hero Arts. I inked the edges with Chipped Sapphire DI and adhered with matte gel. I’m making sure nothing is falling off!!
I finished by stringing color coordinated glass beads onto silver cord and tying onto the topper to form a hanger. Not too bad for my very first, homemade chipboard ornament! And this is versatile, too–It can serve as a special Christmas gift tag or even as a nice way to send a note, because of the bare backside! I love my backsides for note writing!!😉
I hope this homemade chipboard ornament has inspired you to make something for Christmas-That’s not a card! Come on over with whatever you make-that’s not a card for Christmas, and join in with the Eclectic Ellapu Purple Team challenge. It’s running from December 1st through January 31st. Our first challenge in 2015 will be introduced on February 1, 2015.
Thank You sooo much for joining me today!! I hope you enjoyed todays post as much as I enjoyed making this ornament!! I hope to see you over at Eclectic Ellapu!! Until next time–Stay Artsy Fartsy!!
SUPPLIES I USED:
- Surfaces: Chipboard (cereal boxes); White Card Stock (Papertrey Ink); Vellum; Tulle
- Distress Paint, Stain, Embossing Ink & Ink (Tim Holtz/Ranger); Archival Ink (Ranger); Silver Embossing Powder
- Stamps: Sunny Holiday Messages (Hero Arts); Background Basics-Text Style (Papertrey Ink)
- Cricut Machine (Provo Craft); Christmas Cheer Cartridge (Provo Craft)
- Matte Gel (Liquitex); Foam Dot; Scallop Edge Punch (EK Success); Detail Scissors (Fiskars); Craft Sheet (Ranger); Flat Paint Brush
- Glass Beads; Blue Rhinestones; Silver Cord
