Papered Ornaments

Hello!

How's your week going?  We've been busy here- we decorated our tree and put our lights up outside.  It's so fun getting all the Christmas stuff out- I only wish I had more! :)  I love decorating for the holidays.  Every year I make a few ornaments for our tree I thought I'd share a few that I've made this year.  I've been using a paper-mache' technique I learned in a Stephanie Ackerman class I took last year- it is so much fun and really easy to do.  Here are my ornaments:

Merry and Bright

Mr. Foxy

Can you guess what song I had stuck in my head?  Hee!

Cocoa

I added a little glitter to the inside of the cup.

Snowflake

This one is actually more aqua then green... 

The base is a glass ornament.  Then I paper-mached torn book print over the top.  Once that was done, I tore, cut, or punched different shapes from inked book print and added them.  Next is the shadowing and then I added some embellishments.

It's such a joy to see fun handmade ornaments on my tree!  The girls have been busy making some, too but I'll share them another day...

Hope you have a great afternoon!

-tessa

A Gift Card Card

Hi!  I'm back home again after a wonderful retreat weekend with my favorite local shop Scrapdoodles!  I go twice a year and stay at this beautiful historic hotel:

We scrap from 7am till 3am along with 110 other ladies who love paper crafting as much as I do!  It's so much fun and we always the best time!  I am already looking forward to the next one! :)

I created a bunch of fun cards while I was away and thought it would be fun to share one of my favorites today!  My good friend Kristen and I hit Starbucks early on Saturday morning and were excited to see red cups!!  You know what that means- gingerbread lattes!  Hee!  I might like them even better than pumpkin spice!  Along with their holiday drinks, Starbucks was already displaying some fun holiday gift cards and the mini red cut ornament one was to-die-for cute!!  Of course I needed it for a card- won't this be cute to give to someone over the holidays?

The gift card slides out of the miniature cup cozy for easy access to the code on back.  It's so cute!  I mixed some patterned papers from Bazzill and Little Yellow Bicycle with some Lawn Fawn stamps to complete this look.

I will definitely be picking up some more of these cute gift cards- I'm planning to make a bunch for my girls' teachers this year!  I just love them! :)

Well, hope you are having a great Monday!  I'm trying to get back into the swing of things after being away... guess I better start unpacking! Hee!

-tessa

A Homemade Christmas

Hello!
I thought I would share some of the Christmas gifts I made this year.  I didn't make as many as I usually do but the ones I did make, I really tried to put my heart into!

The first one is a canvas I made for my Dad.  He has always talked about building a barn.  He likes farms.  So I made him some barn art:

The whole thing is collaged using book prints from dictionaries and other old books.  I learned how to collage like this from Stephanie Ackerman.  Her work is beautiful and so inspirational!  I was lucky enough to travel up to Groves in Huntingdon, PA with my friend Kristen for the class in the fall.  If you ever have a chance to take a class with Stephanie, don't hesitate!  She is great!

The next gift I made was a blanket.  It is the first I've attempted and it took me about a week to get the first row done. :)  Once I got the hang of it, the crocheting wasn't too bad!  I might even make another one for my family!  Here it is:

This was for my brother-in-law who is hard to shop for.  He is a huge University of Alabama football fan so I used Crimson Tide colors. I followed the ripple pattern tutorial from Attic24.

My daughters and I also made quite a few homemade ornaments.  The girls used Perler beads for theirs.  Here is my favorite that Natalie, my five year old made:

She followed a pattern for the snowman and came up with the taalll hat herself!  Cute!

The ornaments I made used wine corks, beads, and charms:

Sorry about the picture... I used the recipients favorite wine's corks.  The original idea came from the Lavender Clouds blog.

The last gifts I made were for the girls' teachers.  I made them simple cups with the schools name and mascot on them.  I added a gift card inside, too:

Since the cups were not flat all the way around the bottom, I had to keep my design on the top portion.  I used vinyl and my Cameo to make these.

I really enjoyed making each of these gifts!  If I had more time, I would have made even more!  Giving gifts is one of my favorite things and something homemade feels even better to give.  Did you make any of your gifts this year?

-tessa

Making Cash More Fun to Give...

Hello!

I hope you are all enjoying the last few days leading up to Christmas! We still have two more days of school and work to get through until our vacation starts but boy are we ready for it!

I wanted to share what I made for my nephews this year. They are older boys so every Christmas I send them money that they can take to the store and buy what they really want with. And, every year I try to come up with a different, fun way to give it to them. I mean, really, how much fun is it to open an envelope? Hee! I think I was pretty clever this year- I came up with this:

Fun, right? I hid the money inside the soap! I love that they'll have to use it to get their money out. Hee! Knowing my nephews though, I'm sure one will figure out a quicker way.

I bought some soap making supplies at Michaels- clear glycerin soap, green dye, and the mold. It was so easy to make- you melt the soap in the microwave, add your dye and stir. Then fill your molds half way and drop in your rolled up money. Let it set for 10 minutes and then fill the rest of the mold over the money. To keep the money safe, I rolled it tightly and put it into a tiny treat baggie and rolled it around the bills. I used a little scotch tape to hold it together but I wish it wasn't so obvious.

To decorate my little money soaps, I picked out these great whistling Santas from this years Cosmo Cricket holiday line- aren't they just perfect for this project? That is where I came up with the name, too- he just looked like he was hiding something! Hee! I punched them out and paired them with the my favorite red patterned paper from Bazzill Basics. I added the cherry cobbler baker's twine and a little tag stamped with holly and each boys' initial; all from Stampin' Up!

These were so fun to make and I hope that my nephews get as much joy out of them as I did! Now to think of something clever for next year...

Have a great day and thank you for visiting my blog!

-tessa