Friday, December 16, 2011

Sparkle-y Christmas Ornaments!

What would the Holiday's be like without a new ornament or two!

I've always loved making ornaments since I was a young child and after seeing a clever idea on Pinterest for making some awesome glitter ornaments I was determined to make some with my precious Granddaughter B!


As I mentioned, I found this on Pinterest and the "Pin" led to the blog Everyday Cricut.

Here is the link to the tutorial which includes a good video.

You can also access the video directly from YouTube here.

In the video it shows them using some vinyl letters cut from the cricut machine, but as you will notice, we chose not to use the cricut this time, we just wrote the names and year on the ornaments using a Krylon Gold Leafing Pen.

Here is a picture of some of the supplies we used for this project:



(Sorry about the sloppy composition of the photograph...I had planned on taking a more organized photo at the end, when I knew all the supplies and tools that we used, but I forgot, so I was left with this mess!)

I also forgot to include the plastic wrap in the photo, but the video and tutorial at Everyday Cricut shows everything you will need.

These ornaments were easy to make and came out so pretty!

Even my 4 year old Granddaughter was able to perform most of the steps with just a little help from Grandma!

She picked out all the colors for her cousins and her Mom, Dad & Sister and the ribbon accents also.

She has really become my crafty little clone lately and we have so much fun!

Here are some photos of her doing some of the steps:


(NOTE: Be sure to follow the video referenced above for specific instructions, because I didn't get all the steps photographed here.)

Sweet Little B was mighty proud of the final product!



Grandma added a few final touches (the bows) which were a bit too tedious for tiny hands:




We experimented a little with the glitter, as the tutorial called for fine glitter, but just for kicks I made one ornament using regular coarse type glitter that is used for school projects and such, just to see if it would look okay and here are the results:


It still looked pretty and shiny, and really...from far away on the tree, you can't even tell the difference!

Just something to remember if you are on a budget, because the coarse glitter was much cheaper than the fine glitter, (at least cheaper than the kind that is used for scrapbooking and card projects).

I did find a multi-pack of fine glitter at Michaels (Creatology Brand) that wasn't too pricey, but the amount you get of each color was so small, you wouldn't be able to do many ornaments with it. 

Here are a few handy tips that I learned along the way while doing this project:

1. Go easy and slow pouring in the floor solution into the balls and don't squeeze the bottle, (even though you will be tempted to because of the type bottle it is), because it will go all over the place quickly!

2. If you have small funnels, use them, they are a big help in minimizing the mess, especially if you are working with a young child. (Getting the glitter in that small hole in the ornament is not as easy as it would seem!)

3. Keep a wet/damp rag handy in case some floor solution gets on the outside of the ball, you can wipe it off easily if you do it right away.

4. If you are making the these ornaments with small children, use the plastic balls instead of the glass one's called for in the tutorial, that way if little hands slip, the balls won't break and possibly injure them. (I wasn't sure if the procedure would work the same with plastic, but I tried it anyway and you can't tell the difference.  Four of the one's I made here are plastic and the rest are glass, so you tell me...can you tell which is which??!)

5. Save condiment cups and pizza box toppers (even if your Hubby makes fun of you and calls you a hoarder! LOL!). They REALLY came in handy here with this project. The condiment cups were perfect size to hold the balls while pouring in the floor solution and the pizza box toppers worked great to display the balls for photographing.

6. If you make a mistake on writing the names with the Gold Leaf Pen, don't fret...a little bit of rubbing alcohol on a Q-tip will erase the mistake and allow you to fix it! (Boy was I relieved to discover that...because I accidentally wrote the wrong name on one of the ornaments and when little B found out, she was a bit upset that I had written someone else's name on the special color ornament she had picked out for cousin "J"! I was frantic at first, because we didn't have any other balls left to decorate, therefore could not re-create the color with her name, I tried scratching it off at first and that was NOT the way to go, so I just thought I would try rubbing alcohol and it worked, yay! Crisis averted! Happy Little B!)

Thank-you for stopping by my blog and I hope you enjoyed the post!

:)
Lisa

This post/project is linked to the following Link-up Parties/Sites:



TutusandTeaParties



Saturday, December 3, 2011

A Christmas Tradition

I am so excited about this Holiday Season!

Christmas is my favorite time of year, even though things usually get pretty hectic around here during this time.

Now that all our children are grown, I often think back to the happy memories and traditions of Christmases past with them and one of my most memorable traditions is collecting Nutcrackers with my Daughter "B".

How fitting that this week's "My Memories" challenge is about family traditions!

I couldn't wait to get in on this challenge, as just last Christmas, my precious Granddaughter "B" also became very interested in the story of the "Nutcracker" after seeing a Barbie Holiday Movie "Barbie in The Nutcracker"


I was excited to share this tradition with her and immediately got out all of the old Nutcrackers that me and her Aunt had collected when she was a child.

I snapped a few photos of precious little "B" playing with the Nutcrackers and hugging them like dolls!

I even bought her one of her very own Nutcracker's for Christmas, to get her started on her own collection.

Here is the layout I created for this challenge:



(Note: if you click on the layout, you can see a larger version)

I made it using the My Memories Suite (v.3) and it was so much fun and so easy!

I just love all the options it provides and how quickly a page can be completed.

I have SO many photos and just don't have enough time to do them all in the traditional scrapbooking method everytime.

It's nice to be able to do some "digital" scrapbooking as well and get some memories documented quickly, before the photos get put on the back burner and left behind.

As you can see, these photos are a year old and I hadn't yet gotten to them to scrap in a book.

Another great thing about the My Memories Suite is that you can have your pages/albums printed professionally, so that you can have them handy to show-off to others just as you would with your traditional paper scrapbook!

If you don't yet have this awesome Digital Scrapbooking Software, you can get it for $10.00 off by clicking on the blinkie below or on the ad in my sidebar and using the discount code that is below it.



CODE: STMMMS91285

It comes with lots of great templates, backgrounds, embellishments, etc. as well as options to add other digital content.

Their site contains lots of "freebies" too and other templates and quick pages that you can buy for a very reasonable price!

The options are limitless with this software and you can create other items too, like cards and calendars.

I do need to add a disclaimer here:
I was fortunate enough to have been given a copy of this software earlier in the year to review it for the company, but I can honestly tell you that I love it and would not promote it here if I did not think it was a wonderful product!
I am amazed at what it can do for such a reasonable price and it's much easier to use than the more complicated and expensive programs such as Photoshop.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my Nutcracker Tradition and looking at my layout!

So happy you stopped by and I'd love it if you'd like to leave a comment and let me know what you think!

XOXO
Lisa