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 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