How To Tuesday: Ornament Wreaths and Banners

Happy Tuesday! I've been wanting to make an ornament wreath for a long time. They're all over pinterest (hey, follow me!) and look so delicate and gorgeous. There's never anything wrong with too many wreaths in one house! I was able to use ALL items from crap around my house so this project cost me $0, I'll take it.
WARNING: I made three projects this morning, so get ready for some pictures

left over mini ornaments

 This year our tree is decorated mostly bright teals, pinks, and greens. So this entire collection of ornaments wasn't going to get any play this holiday season.

step 1 - get a wreath!

Step 1: You need an empty wreath. I had this crappy thing from last year, so I just ripped it all apart until it basically left me with a circle frame. (you can buy a mini wreath at Michaels for 79cents)

step 2 - glue ornaments

Step 2: use a hot glue gun to stick your ornaments around the wreath base. I did one layer, then would add in between layers where I thought a space needed to be filled. Towards the end you're basically just gluing the ornaments to one another, not necessarily onto the wreath base.

Step 3 - fill in with berries and HANG!

Step 3: fill in any of your gaps with some stuff from the floral department. I had these little fake berries from last year so I cut them up and stuffed them into the funny spaces so it didn't look so gap-toothed. Then hang it and you're finished!

omg another ornament wreath!

Another one! I just used my hot glue gun to attach the larger ornaments right to one another. It was quick. I don't like it. But I had to give it a shot. Win some, lose some :)

you totally saw this coming

Ok LAST ORNAMENT PROJECT! While I'm sitting there burning my fingers off with all this hot glue, an idea popped into my brain. Why don't I just string these babies on a ribbon and call it a day? Well I did. It took 2 minutes, and I have a mini little ornament banner hanging in my bathroom window. (bathrooms need holiday spirit, too)

Three ornament projects in one morning! Everything was left over from decorations last year. You just need some ornaments, a wreath vine, ribbon, and a hot glue gun. Have fun!

<3 Rachel w k

Linking this post to "Pinterest: I tried it" over at bythebookpaper on December 1.

Fleas Navidad and Turkey Photos!

Happy Thanksgiving recovery weekend! I wanted nothing to do with shopping on Black Friday, but wouldn't you know it... my phone picked a great day to self implode! I had to make a trip to the Verizon store and order a new one, and I was so happily surprised I didn't even have to wait a single minute for help! Yay! We also had to visit Target just for some Christmas lights, I was determined to get our tree up last night! We survived. And our tree has white and purple lights... perfection

Sharing a quick winter card I made with Paper Smooches "Santa Paws" set. I will enter this into the Dog Day challenge at Moxie Fab. The doggy was colored with watercolor pencils, some icicle stickles added to his santa hat, and two shades of blue twine. Easy peasy!

Fleas Navidad

Now some obligatory Thanksgiving food photos...

Matty the Master Carver

Turkey, Smashed Potatoes, and Baked Mac n Cheese Muffins!

We were nice n full and I seriously had a great nap afterwards. And I wanted a picture with my littlest piggy, Pumpkin, because we had matching outfits on...

Me and Pumpkin!

How has your weekend been? Have you successfully avoided the mall, or did you snag some great deals? I just bought 10 items on joanns.com for $35... I'll consider that a deal ;)

<3 Rachel w k

I Pine for You

I am so so excited for Thanksgiving, I feel like a kid at Christmas.. I just can't control my excitement! I made my hubs a cute little Thanksgiving card for three challenges today. Both the photos I thought had a very similar theme/inspiration. (between you and me, I'm getting a little tired of brown/red/gold photo inspirations... I'm hoping this is the last one for a bit!)

Lawnscaping Challenge #22

Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger

Mojo Monday Sketch #216

With both photos I was inspired by: the natural wood and deep red colors, with a pop of orange. The wicker baskets. The feeling that both of these scenes take place somewhere in the middle of the forest.

 

I used stamps from Lawn Fawn "Critters in the Forest" to keep with a woodland theme. It's hard to see in the photo, but the brown vertical paper is woodprint pattern. I texture embossed it, sand papered it, and rubbed Tea Dye Distress ink to make it a richer brown. I also rubbed the brown ink over the white circles to make them look a little dirtier. Colored the stamps with color pencils, of course added Icicle Stickles to the shroomies, and faux stitched with my white gel pen. Hope the hubby enjoys it :)

This card is made for these challenges: Lawnscaping #22, Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger, and Mojo Monday #216.

Have you sorted out your Thanksgiving menu?? What are you cooking for the big food fest?!

<3 Rachel w k

Thanksgiving Postcards - Don't eat me!

I got so caught up in making Christmas cards for my shop, I completely forgot that I need to make AND mail out Thanksgiving cards! Where did this month go???

I used my favorite Paper Smooches stamp set "My Peeps" and mixed a couple of phrases from their "Sentiment Sampler" set as well. I was up quite late last night with my colored pencils and inks, and I made a couple Turkey postcards...

And I wish the sun didn't start going down at 1 o'clock in the afternoon so I could get some good pictures! Anyways. I stamped the turkey body, then stamped three of the feathers, colored in with my beloved color pencils. Then I stamped, colored, and cut out two other feathers to layer on top. And I knew he was missing something, so I went back and stamped him a little pilgrim hat. Such a sweetie!

I made another one that's just a slight variation. I also made these for the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger. I thought the autumn colors were great, and this pattern paper from Colorbok has touches of aqua just like the photo!

Moxie Fab Trigger

 

I couldn't pick which one I liked better, so you get both. I think the strip of super glittery orange ribbon adds the perfect amount of bling :)

Have a great weekend before Thanksgiving! Get that grocery shopping finished ;)

<3 Rachel w k

A Quick Quickie

Where the hell have I been?!!? I've been nowhere, just home with my pup pup. I'm working on a lot of new holiday cards that are all just half-way finished, so I don't have anything to show yet :(

This is a simple set of cards I sent off to my parents to use this season. I used a huge Martha Stewart Christmas tree stamp (at TJ Maxx for $2!!) and just added a couple red stickles. I'm also pimping this set out in my etsy shop.

I made another set of cards for my parents that is definitely more on the cute side. I used the fireplace and 'to santa' from Lawn Fawn "cozy Christmas" and the mouse, cheese, and sentiment are from Paper Smooches "Santa Paws"

 

I think that's all I've finished this week! I want to leave you with a picture of my baby Meeko... he was really trying to get ideas from the Holiday issue of Papercrafts Magazine :)

 

Can you believe Thanksgiving is only one week away?!?? I am so excited, I think this is my favorite holiday of the year :) If anybody had good appetizer ideas, send them my way!

<3 Rachel w k

Time to Celebrate!

The first cold of the season has hit me this morning, woohoo! I've got my tissue box handy at all times. Today I have cards that I made for the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge and this week's Lawnscaping challenge

PS Sparks challenge

I made this card for my dear bloggy friend Kristen, who just had a baby girl last week! I wasn't suppose to put the card on the blog until she'd received it in the mail, but I honestly just couldn't wait to share it with yall! I. Love. This. Card. I used the Paper Smooches set "My Peeps" and "Sentiment Sampler".  I stamped the birdy in black and colored him in with blue and orange Artist Loft markers. The music notes and 'celebrate' are also stamped with these markers. Add some matching twine and that's it!

Sparks photo inspiration

Next I made a card for the Lawnscaping Challenge, which is to make a Thank You card using your Lawn Fawn stamps.

lawnscaping challenge

I made a simple card with a die cut window (scallop fiskers paper punch) so the little foxy from Lawn Fawn "Critters in the Forest" could be peeking through. I distressed the edges with pink and maroon inks, added two pink bling circles, and the 'thanks so much' sentiment is an SRM Sticker that the lovely Virginia sent to me... I love it :)

Have a great weekend! Happy Veteran's Day!

<3 Rachel w k

Hero Arts Christmas Tags

Have I ever mentioned how much I just adore the Hero Arts Flickr group?? I have met such amazing women in this group and their talent always blows me away. I never expect to win any of these challenges, because I just cannot top the skills these ladies have, but it's fun to play along anyway...

The November challenge with Hero Arts includes making holiday gift tags, and also make something filled with bling (I can handle that one!). Yesterday I got my exclusive not-sold-in-stores Hero Arts stamp set (SD405) that I won from SimonSaysStamp.com and I used it immediately for the gift tags!

what I won from simonsaystamp :)

All of these tags use that big ticket looking stamp, and various combinations of the Christmas phrases included on here.

 

"Merriest Wishes" winter themed tag. I distressed the steel blue paper with white ink, and stamped the phrase in blue. I added lots of blue rhinestones, and many of the dots also have silver or blue Stickles, a blue brad and lots of shiny ribbon!

I am not a 'traditional' Christmas decor kinda girl, but I looove how these tags came out! I went totally out of my comfort zone and I am pleased with the results. Striped paper is Me and My Big Ideas (found it at TJ Maxx for $3!). I distressed the white cardstock with basic red ink on the top one, and Tim Holtz tea dye on the bottom. I used my Artist Loft markers (cheapo Michaels brand) to color the phrases in alternating red and green. Add some twine, add a button, done-zo. easy peasey!

Have you started Christmas cards yet?? It's coming up sooner than you think! ;)

<3 Rachel w k

Our Story - CD Case Mini Album

It seems lately there have been a lot of sudden tragedies in many people's lives. Life is so short, and nothing is certain, please make sure to let those you love know how much you appreciate them. One of my biggest fears is losing someone I love, and I especially freak at the thought of ever being without my husband. We were talking about this last night, how I never want to lose him, so today I made him a little CD jewel case mini album filled with some of the biggest events we've shared together...

cd mini album

Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week is to upcycle/recycle something. I loooove upcycling all those old CD Jewel Cases into scrapbooks, but I haven't made one in so long. I definitely jumped at this opportunity.

Inside title: "the best days of my life"

The inside of the cd case is basically a big accordian folded album. Each page has an important date with a picture...

high school!

The first pages! I kinda hit the high school picture jackpot this morning while going through an old photo box. I found so many of those little photo booth pictures of us together.

Our puppy addition to our family, and a little engagement photo shoot we did ourselves with the timer button on the camera :)

We graduated college and got married right away! If you'd like to be a snoopy and browse some more of my wedding photos, visit an old post here.

 

The last page... (so far.) We moved just a couple weeks after our wedding. Then we added a couple more little fur babies to the fam since ;)

I loved the paper used in this album. The front and back cover is perfect, with sayings like "love" "reminisce" "our story" all over it. I had to keep the embellishments on the light side, so the cd case could actually close together. Just some twine and a few little rhinestones did just fine. Papers are DCWV Mainstreet stack (I think it might be a new favorite stack of mine!) and Colorbok patterns.

Thanks for glancing at my recycled cd scrapbook! Do you think hubs will like it? Even if it is a little cheese ballish?? :)

<3 Rachel w k

Mini Wreath Trio

I am so super excited to share my mini wreath trio with you all! They have been finished for a few days, but I just couldn't figure out the best way to hang them. Once that light bulb popped on, I was back in business!

wreath trio

I love love love them! I want to decorate the house in teals and reds for Christmas this year, but I also don't want to look insane having Christmas decor up the first week of November. So by using a deeper rich red in the middle wreath, this becomes a great "transitional" autumn into winter set! I get the best of both holidays :)

Since they're so nice and small, they fit great together on one doorway. I ended up finding these great little 3M sticky hangers, that are very small and so not noticeable at all. I hung them in a lop-sided, uneven way with the ribbon just to give each wreath its own special space

wreath #1

Wreath #1 Closeup

That is the first wreath! I love the papers (all DCWV) and I got funky with some of the edging on my paper rosettes, or paper medallions, whatever you like to call them. It's a good mix of teals and winter blues, I thought.

Wreath #2

Wreath #2 close up

The middle wreath is my favorite! Probably because I used my favorite DCWV paper stack of all time, Colorful Life, for all of the reds on this wreath. I love that paper so much I hardly use it because it's so pretty. This huge painting I made a long time ago (remember this?) was actually inspired by the artwork in these papers.

It's hard to tell how mini those mini rosettes are, but they are MINI. This caused a lot of hot glue gun burns, just because there wasn't any room for my fingers to hold the little guys together. Totally worth it, I love the little ones the most... just wanna pinch their little cheeks!

Wreath #3

Wreath #3 close up

The third wreath is the most 'winter' wreath, all the papers are snowflake prints. I even messed with the edging on one to try to make it look like its own snowflake. I had all the rosettes lean on the right side of the wreath, to balance out Wreath #1 which has its rosettes on the left side. And the red one in the middle has rosettes on both sides!

I hope you like my mini wreath trio! I am so happy to have it finally hanging on our living room door! If you want to make rosettes yourself, I have a great easy tutorial you can find right here

I'll be entering this into a Moxie Fab challenge, which is to use rosettes, my favorite... how could I pass that up?!

<3 Rachel w k