Fairy Door Christmas Tree Ornament

Oh my goodness, I just love these wooden fairy door toppers from Hobbycraft (pack of 4 for £1), when I saw them I knew I just had to have them and what I was going to do with them.

https://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/fairy-door-wooden-topper-4-pack/649157-1000.

As soon as they arrived I took one of the craft stick houses Marc and I had made during my recent stay with him in Worcester (of which more in the coming weeks, as I gradually complete the projects we started together).

I added Aleene’s Glitter Snow on the edges of the roof and the “shelf”, then added the door where I put a scrap of yellow paper behind the window, to give the appearance of a light being on.

I also accentuated the bars on the door and letter box, added a red door knob and a tiny punch piece of holly with red gem holly berries on the heart.

When the snow was dry I added a tiny snowman, also made during my visit to Marc (some of the others we put in equally tiny bottles …..watch this space) and a bottle brush Christmas tree. 

I cut the bristles off the back of the tree to flatten it out in order to stick it to the house.  I also changed the original base for a smaller red bead to fit better on the shelf.  The tree was then decorated with small flat back gems in red, gold and silver and topped with a gold star.

I was pretty chuffed with my first attempt, it came out pretty much as it had looked in my head, another Christmas 2020 tree fairing idea potentially in the bag …….. but then I got to thinking, if I coloured the house red (in this instance with a red Sharpie pen), it would help to accentuate/bring the door out more to the fore. Colouring the roof green, also made it look more Christmassy, especially when I then swopped the star for a snowflake ………. I am almost there, the roof perhaps needs to be a lighter shade of green or simply completely covered in snow? I think there are a few more tweaks to be made, but hopefully I will get there, so watch this space for a completed update ………..

Memory Glass Christmas Tree Decoration.

I am not 100% with this decoration, but it was an interesting experiment after thrashing out ideas with Marc on ways to attach a hanger to a memory glass project without resorting to glue, which has never been aesthetically successful.

Finally, we hit upon using gold glitter Fimo to seal an embellished, patterned paper between 2 x 2ins glass squares. In making the frame I sank and secured a gold jump ring into the clay that would hopefully work as a hanger.

I used small, self adhesive letters for the sentiment, cutting them everso slightly to fit the glass.

When it all went it in the oven I wasn’t sure if the heat would crack the glass, but it held out.

This first very basic attempt is a bit rough and ready round the edges … leaving the back as it was……..

……….. but I can see how it could be dolled up if/when I have another go.

On the front I added a wooden Christmas tree (Hobbycrafts Xmas 2019)  with a generous layer of  Ranger Glossy Accents and a scattering of flat back gems, including the red star on the top. I also added three snowflake sequins also with a gem to the front of the glass to finish the look.

Everything needs fine tuning, the Fimo needs to be smoother and thinner round the edges, however I can see how being as thick could work if you wanted to create a little scene, i.e. white Fimo around a snowman in the snow…… I also think the lettering is a tad too big, but the hanger, the whole point of Marc’s and my original conversation, worked well, although I think I should now look to using a much smaller one …… so watch this space ……..

Let It Snow Christmas Tree Decorations

There has been an awful lot of fiddle fart in putting this idea together …….. so for now, this post is more about the experimentation rather any finished articles.

It started with me finally finding these Craft for Christmas metal Christmas trees  (below) again after several years of searching.

I’d had a couple of packets a few years ago and used them on microscope slide decorations, but once I’d used them up that was it, until they popped up on eBay, and yes, I bought in bulk, as I now realise their potential for all manner of projects.

I started off with a wooden child’s domino piece as a base, adding the snowy background using scraps of blue paper and white glitter card, before securing the tree with my glue gun. The legend, “Let It Snow” was made using small, self adhesive, slightly trimmed alphabet stickers with snowflake sequins and stars added to fill in any gaps, and then the whole thing was covered with a generous dose of Ranger Glossy Accents.

It was the sides that I was finding difficult, I tried dipping the edges in melted, ultra thick, white Utee in my Melt Pot, (above) but the effect was a little too heavy and lumpy for me. It was also fiddly with little margin for error. I then had a go at using white embossing powder and my heat gun, but for the time and effort that went into it, the overall effect just wasn’t worth it.

Painting the edges with white Match-Pot paint (above) was OK, but not as “professional” looking as I would have liked.

In the end, although I don’t really like having both gold and silver together on the same project, I decided to try edging the sides with narrow, silver, adhesive foil tape, before edging the front with Ranger Glossy Enamels, with a silver eye screw in the top, I think it works, despite my misgivings, so that is the idea I am going to work with when I eventually organise myself to make more.

I also prefer the dead plain, blue paper (to the right, below) as a background, the more muted linen design paper is perhaps a little too subtle, although there really isn’t a great deal between them.

I am hoping to get at least twenty more of these decorations done, I think the design should work well with the red and green trees, but I might not use the gold, because of my “gold/silver thing”, we shall see.  I’ll post a couple more pictures when I’m done, so watch this space.

Christmas Embellished Patchwork Aperture Photo Frame

Forgive me, it doesn’t happen very often, but I am revisiting a Christmas project from two year ago, to wit my Christmas patchwork aperture photo frames.

I need to, as I have another ten frames taking up space under the bed from the 2019 Poundland sale where they were reduced to just 25p each, well, it would have been rude not to buy one or two, but they are serving no purpose unless I actually use them.

So, the plan is, after making this first one to reacquaint myself as to how I put the last lot together for Christmas 2018, to set aside a whole weekend to get them all done and dusted …….. and I have been organised, in preparation I have sorted out all the embellishments I already had, that were all roughly the right proportion for the frame and each other.

I also decided, rather than spend hours hunting for suitably matching papers in my boxes, I would instead limit myself to using papers from the Origami stacks I got from The Works (£5 each).  They have a more modern feel/colour way to them and in that respect the frames should be a little different from the 2018 originals.

I will use the completed frame above as a guide, but as I don’t think I have enough embellishments to make nine identical frames there will need to be some variation ………

…….. so rather than do all the backgrounds all in one go I will probably work on just two or three frames at a time so I can even out the embellishments and adjust the backgrounds if/when I need to use something new, if you see what I mean.

Once all the background with the embellishments are done, I will then be able to add all the time consuming frou frou, i.e the googly eyes, flat back gems, stars and faux stitching ……. that’s the plan anyway!

Before I went mad, I put two frames aside so that I can make something similar for Iris and Bertie for their rooms, but that can be on display all the year round.

NB: I remove and throw away all the glass before I start any work on the frames.

Snowman – Let It Snow - Christmas Tree Decoration

Isn’t it funny how some ideas just come together ……..

This Christmas tree decoration idea started with a picture (below) on Pinterest.  https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/81487074495686801/

It was the top hat that did it after I had bought 50 of the little blighters from Amazon after they randomly appeared on my feed, I thought snowmen straight away, but I got them purely on a whim.

With the picture in my head I started to wonder I could put two different sized wooden, children’s domino pieces, that I already had, together to create a sort of shelf on which to put a little snowman in order to make a Christmas scene tree decoration.

They did, so I immediately painted them with white emulsion Match Pot paint to cover up the pictures, however if I make anything like this again I think I will leave them to leave a part of their history with them.

When the paint was dry, I faux stitched round the painted side (the back) with a black biro, leaving the rest blank, thinking that I may sign and date the decorations when I give them as Advent fairing gifts in place of a Christmas card.

On the unpainted side I glued a piece of subtle snowy paper, again faux stitching round the edges and then I glued on the “shelf”, it was getting exciting, as I knew exactly where I was going with the idea.

The next step was to make the snowman using air dry dough, trying to get them in proportion to the top hat.  The noses are made using tiny pieces of Fimo. I made a small hole in the middle of their faces so that said noses would have a firm anchor once glued into position. 

The eyes and buttons are black flat back gems, the scarves a narrow strip of red felt, the arms are real twigs (pushed into the dough with a dab of PVA before the dough dried through) plus a tiny sprig of holly was made using a punch and three equally tiny red gems.

When the dominos were finally dry, I was able to add the “Let it Snow” using blue tape in my Dymo label maker and a few snowflake sequins to create the background.

Then the exciting part, putting the snowmen in place, to see if the whole thing would look like it had done in my head ….. it did, I was so chuffed.

Again, there was a bit of a waiting game for the snowmen to dry in position ……

……… before building up several layers of Aleene’s Glitter Snow and adding some tiny, iridescent polystyrene balls (Poundland) to look like snowballs.

The last thing was to fix a tiny, silver screw eye into the top decoration to put the hanging thread through. 

Voila ……… I have made ten so far, but think after counting on my fingers I need to make at least another ten.  My stash of wooden dominoes pieces had gone down rapidly, so as soon as the charity shops open again I am on a mission to find some more.  I have looked in to buying ready cut rectangles but toy dominoes work out an awful lot cheaper, how daft is that?

Twig Christmas Tree

This is the “Christmas Tree” I put together on the spur of the moment for my “festive” landing.

The branches used to belong to a small, shaped box tree that we had at the front of the house which seemed to die very slowly, no matter what we did to it, and to be honest in the end I just left it abandoned in its pot for months at the bottom of the garden until I had a final tidy up in the autumn, but something made me keep what was left of the, by then bleached branches, all be it in the garage shoved into a piece of oasis.

But about a week before Christmas, I saw some packs of twelve small gold/silver vintage style baubles, reduced from £12 to £2.80 in House of Fraser, and  I got to thinking about the branches again, deciding to spray them with an off white coloured paint and while the paint was still wet, sprinkled it all over with diamond dust micro glitter.

When dry, I arranged them as best as I could into a Christmas tree shape, putting them back into the oasis, placed in an off white pot, with ornamental blue glass chippings (Ikea) sprinkled over the oasis to hid it.

It took two packs of the vintage baubles and a box of twenty tiny, clear baubles I got in a HobbyCraft sale a few years back to cover it, before adding a string of Poundshop battery operated LED lights ….. which I realised I should have put on before the baubles!!!! The lights look blue in the picture, but they are actually white.

If I say so myself,  it did look very pretty, delicate and ethereal sitting on my landing windowsill ….. and has now been put away very carefully to come out for next year as well. 

Snowman Pendant Tray Christmas Tree Decorations

Can’t believe how into Christmas I am, but I am hoping to do a couple of craft fayres (something I have never done) in November/December of this year, and I want to build up a stock very slowly and without last minute panic making.
So I took a one inch pendant tray and lined it with a scrap of Christmas patterned paper.

And then made the snowman heads, using orange and white Fimo. Before baking I attached the noses slightly sideways and prayed they would stick firmly together, they did.  When cool I glued tiny, round, black stickers for the eyes and mouths.  I could have used black Fimo, but one black smudge and the white Fimo would be ruined, and I am not the neatest worker.

Using a head as a size guide I added snowman's shoulders to the tray, and then red scarves using scraps of card (sorry no pictures, I was concentrating so hard, I forgot)

With the scarves in place I added the finished heads gluing them with E6000 glue as once set they would be unlikely to budge. I also added a few tiny gold stars in the background.

When the E6000 was set I filled the trays with two layers of  Aleene’s Jewellery Pendant Gel (letting the first layer set first), the second layer filled the tray to the top and added extra depth.  I also painted the snowman's face with the gel to add a glazed look to it.

The final touch was adding the gingham ribbon to hang the decoration, but I am a little undecided, I am not sure about the bow ….. I am a huge advocate of less is more, but if I were to put these on a craft stall do the bows add a little something else????