Tutorial: Berry Basket Christmas-in-July Tree Ornament

Hi.

How are you doing? Well, I hope.

I've got a quiet little tutorial for you today. My yearly Christmas-in-July offering, hee hee. Here she is now...

And then make a few more...

Easy breezy beautiful?
I say.
Merry Christmas-in-July to you!

♥M

View my other Christmas ornaments right HERE!

Thank you Kate Pitner!

"Being in the Nutcracker Ballet has always been a dream of Trixie Lou's, and now it's finally happening! Getting the role of dancing as one of the flowers with the Rose Queen is absolutely beyond thrilling for her. She especially loves her beautiful dress!" [Kate Pitner]

The above note came with Trixie Lou, the gorgeous handmade ballerina Christmas ornament by Kate Pitner. I discovered her in my mailbox yesterday. I received her as part of Blu Penny's Annual Handmade Ornament Exchange. I'm as pleased as punch with every precious detail of her. Isn't she a dancing delight? Thank you so much Kate! And thank you Cindy Ann for organizing this brilliant exchange. Hugs to you both from across the ether!

Learn more about Kate and her work HERE. And Cindy Ann and her work HERE.

♥M

On a TP Roll!

I've been a busy little bee making a whack of toilet paper roll wreath Christmas ornaments (as per this tutorial here)!



These will be sold at a craft fair to raise money for two of my nieces' educational trips. I've never sold my crafts in this way before. It's a bit of an experiment... But fingers crossed that they go like dag-gum hotcakes!

♥M

Christmas Ornament Overview Update

It may be that I have come down with a teensy Christmas ornament fixation. I can't be sure, but over the last three years of this blog I've made quite a few, haven't I? Last year for ease of retrieval and perusal, I gathered them all in one handy post. Since then t'would appear I've made even more, shockingly. So, for convenience sake, I've updated and revamped the whole thing.

Do note that the bulk of these ornament tutorials are free, but a few are available for purchase as PDF downloads in the Michele Made Me Shop.

Here are the freebies:

1. Egg Carton Snowflake Ornament 
2. Juice Container Gift Box Ornament

3. Denim Disc Tree Ornament
4. TP Roll Wreath Ornament

5. Spiral Notebook Binding Wreath Ornament
6. Plastic Bottle Ornament
7. Twiggy Christmas Tree Ornament
8. Plastic Greenhouse Ornament

9.  Twig 'n Bead Tree Ornament
10. TP Roll Flower Ornament
11. Twiggy Skate Ornament
12. Heart House Ornament

13. Petite Purse Ornament
14. Dusty Miller Snowflake Ornament
15. Puzzle Piece Angel Ornament
16. Twiggy Snowman Ornament

17. The Boy's Tree Ornament
18. Hexagon Junkmail Snowflake Ornament
19. Origami Sun Ornament

And the following are available for purchase in The Shop:

20. TP Roll Thistle Ornament
21. A Dozen Egg Carton Folk Ornaments
22. Juice Cap Ornament

Oh, and here's another freebie:

23. Berry Basket Christmas Tree Ornament


There you have it! That ought to do it until next year I would imagine... Or, at the very least, until next week, eh? Hee hee.

♥M

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Ornament #5

And with that, I believe I've reached the end of the 2012 "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Ornament" Series! Previous installments in the series live here, here, here, and here. I really really enjoy the brainstorming and the mad crafting marathons that never fail to ensue my decisions to do these series. Making ornaments is probably one of my favourite activities in the whole wide world wide web. I hope you've shared in my fun. I'm so touched by your kind attention and all your lovely comments. They certainly do warm this girl's cockles (which, by the way, is a very good thing)!

♥M

P.S. Almost forgot... You can download free printable hexagon grid paper right HERE. Terribly handy! I used a hexagon size of 0.3 inches, just so you know.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Ornament #4

The above two tree ornaments come to you courtesy of The Boy. He designed and made them on Friday, and I just had to include them in the ornament series! I'm big-time in love with them. They're so simple, beautiful, innocent. It's the kid thing. Those little fingers do magic, I tell you.

He made them from a cereal box, paint, pistachio nutshells, junkmail confetti, string, scissors and glue.

The pistachio shells, I'd painted a while back, so when it came time to decorate his trees, the shells were there for the taking. In fact, if you plan to do a collage craft like this with your kids, it's a very good idea to prepare all the decorative bits ahead of time. That way, there's no waiting and they can dig right in!

The shells need a generous amount of glue if they are to stay put. He applied a goodly blob to each before attaching them to the trees. Those little guys are there for the duration, methinks.

The confetti was punched from Christmas-flavoured junkmail, a favourite in these parts.

But who am I kidding? There was no way I was going to let him have all the fun. Nuh-huh, I just could not do it. I had to make one of my own too, right? Here's mine below.

And here's the tree-some...

I'm thinking of asking The Boy to make me a whole grove of them. Wouldn't that be great? I wonder if he'd go for it... Do you think?

♥M

Previous installments in this little ornament series: here, here and here.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Ornament #3

♥M

Previous installments in this series: here and here.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas Ornament #2

Today's ornament story began a while ago, back here in February, when I received several puzzle pieces in a package from my bloggy friend Melissa. I'm fairly certain it was a bit of an unspoken crafty challenge on her part, eh Melissa? Like: "What can you make with these, Michele?" Well, I finally took the bait, 9 months hence, and here's the concoction I mixed up...

Tutorial ❉ Puzzle Piece Angel Ornaments

You will need:  old large-ish puzzle pieces, fine grit sandpaper (I used 220), large sewing needle, pencil, fine tip marker, liquid acrylic paints, small paintbrush, gold dimensional paint (optional for halos), small piece of cardboard, glue, pair of scissors, pretty string for hangers.

The puzzle pieces I used are the ideal size for ornaments at about 3 inches by 3 inches square (7.5cm x 7.5cm). Out of the pieces Melissa sent, I chose some that resembled little people: with heads, arms and legs.

To start, I sanded the fronts of the pieces with fine-grit sandpaper (220 grit). I sanded lightly to remove only the ink and not the layer of paper underneath. The sanding gives your puzzle pieces a lovely distressed look but, more importantly, the slightly roughed-up surface will hold on to paint and marker famously.

Then I used a large needle to pierce a hole in all their heads. I know that sounds slightly horrific and everything, but they are angels after all...

So once I did that... um, I took out my pencil and very lightly drew the angelic details on each piece. I drew on hair, eyes, a dress with collar, wings, skinny arms, and a halo. Once I was happy with my design, I re-traced the pencil lines with a fine tip Sharpie (a.k.a. a marker).

Then I took out my liquid acrylics and painted the other-worldly hair, dresses and collars. While I waited for the paint to dry, I made some little stars out of cereal box cardboard, and gave each a gold finish in liquid acrylic.

The stars, once dry, were then glued to the "hands", and a halo of gold dimensional paint dots was added to each head. And lastly, I added the hangers.

 Hark!... Is that singing I hear?

Why I think it is! A choir of Puzzle Piece Angels... How very sweet of them to sing for us like that. And they don't even have mouths! Now THAT is what I call talent.

♥M

Find the first installment in the "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas Ornament Series" here!

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Ornament #1

Hi.

Can't believe it. But here we are almost HALF-way through November. Which can only mean one thing: Christmas ORNAMENTS!!!

As evidenced by the last two years' ornament series (found HERE on the Series page), it appears I can't be happy making one style of ornament per year. No no. Once I get going, it's a pretty much an out-and-out rampage. But it's a tradition, see? So, let this be the beginning of the 2012 ornament series, okay? I'm starting with one of my favourite holiday motifs. The snowflake!

Tutorial ❆ Dusty Miller Snowflake Ornament

You will need:  dusty miller leaves, iron, plate, microwave oven (optional), paper, compass, pair of scissors, glue, pretty string

Are you familiar with Dusty Miller? It's a very popular bedding plant here in Canada. It has these lovely, sculptural, fuzzy, silvery-grey leaves. I don't have any in my garden but, seventeen of my neighbours do, so that's where I got my leaves. The plants are fairly hardy and some in my neighbourhood are still alive despite the cooler weather. But as soon as we have a few nights of frost in a row, these little guys'll be toast. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a few recently dead ones from the neighbour's garden... Thank you neighbour!

Prepare The Leaves:

To get the leaves ready for this craft, they need to be pressed and dried. Don't worry it's quick! Here's what you do.

Pick a few Dusty Miller plants. Alive, or recently dead, it doesn't matter. Snip off several pretty leaves. You'll need 6 similar-sized leaves per snowflake. Iron the leaves without stream. That's right, grab your dry iron and press the leaves flat. You may want to put something between your iron and the leaves. But I didn't. I just went for it! Now to dry them out, you could let the leaves air-dry for several days. Or you could do what I did. I put my pressed leaves on a plate and nuked them in the microwave on HIGH for 30 seconds. And if they were not quite dry after the first 30 seconds, I put them in for an additional 30 seconds. And if you find that the tips of the leaves have curled a bit during microwaving, just give them another quick press with the iron. And now you are ready to make snowflakes!

Make Snowflakes:

Find 6 similar-sized leaves. Trim them all to about the same height. Get your compass and open it to a width slightly taller than your leaves. Set aside.

Take out a piece of white printer paper. Smoosh it up real good. Like, real good.

Flatten your paper again and press it with a dry iron. Draw a circle on the paper using your prepared compass. Cut out the circle.

Now to fold the circle in preparation for snowflake-making. Start by folding the circle in half. And fold it in half again but only to crease the center.

Open it up again and from that creased center point, fold the right side two-thirds up to the left across the circle as below. Now, fold the left-hand third up to the right.

Fold the whole in half again. Now, along the upper part of that final fold and along the outer edge, cut out some small shapes from the paper. Do not cut into the apex or bottom half of the circle. Little triangles and rectangles are easiest to cut out.

Unfurl your snowflake and press it flat with a dry iron. Notice the center of the snowflake is not cut up. Okay now get out your six Dusty Miller leaves.

Glue the leaves flat side down onto your snowflake shape. Make a bunch of different-sized snowflakes. Attach pretty string hangers.

And hang 'em up!

Oh, the easy elegance of Dusty Miller snowflake ornaments...

So very pretty.

♥M