I'm about 2/3rd's of the way finished with my Christmas shopping. If only time and money were no issue, right? But, I'm so blessed and I refuse to let stress dampen my holiday spirit this year. Life is GOOD and I am so thankful for my overabundance of blessings.
Now onto the crafty stuffs ;)
If you haven't seen it already, you can see my altered wooden monogram here --->> Wooden monogram
In addition to that project, I have also been working on a couple other things as well.
Several years ago I decided it would be cute to make some mittens from chipboard (just a thick cardboard) and decorate one for each person in our family to display at Christmas time. I loved the mittens and couldn't wait to get them out each year and those chipboard mittens I made on a whim are still one of my favorite holiday decorations. As our family has grown I've had to add mittens and this year I had to add FOUR! While they aren't difficult to make, they can be time consuming. I just freehanded the mitten shape and tweaked it with sand paper to get it smooth and I'm still using the same pattern so all the mittens remain uniform in shape and size.
So the first thing I want to share with you today are the newest additions to our "mitten collection". And if you have any questions on how to make these then absolutely let me know and I'll be happy to tell you! I could probably even be persuaded to share my "pattern" but you really don't need one.
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| Like most projects, this one is really so much prettier in person. All the swirls are stickled in Crystal Stickles and it's very sparkly. For the top of this one I used a circle punch and an old shiny red gift bag I had saved in my stash from who knows how long ago, lol. |
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| For the top of Lilly's mitten I used Flock from Doodlebug Designs. If you aren't familiar with flocking, it's a powdery crushed velvet type substance. You apply it much the same as you would glitter. And it feels soft, almost like velvet when it's dry. |
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| A medium granule type glitter for this one...it has an iridescent look and it's perfect for Cadence's mitten...I love it! |
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| I've added this photo and the next of the same mitten just to show how sparkly it actually is as the camera flash really detracts from it in the next photo. |
And this next photo is actually a picture of the clock that I have the mittens displayed on. I just wrap it in some greenery and each mitten is attached with a small clothes pin on the back...it works out perfectly and looks so festive and fun!
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| I hate that there's a glare on a couple of the mittens so that it's difficult to see all the details and you can't see the full effect but maybe you can see from the photo just why this is one of my favorite decorations...perhaps it's because some of the people I love most in the world are represented right here :) |
CHRISTMAS MITTEN VIDEO <<<<CLICK HERE to watch the video!!
With the mitten project completed for this year I wanted to paint a canvas to display on the side/entry table. I have so much traditional Christmas things displayed and I really wanted to go more a Christian route with the canvas but as I've said in previous posts, I'm not an artist by any stretch and I struggle with even drawing stick figures lol. And trust me, you never want to be my Pictionary partner haha.
So, that being said, I kind of cheated with my canvas panel. I got a 3 pack of 16x20 canvas panels from Walmart for $7.99 rather than using some actual canvas I already had simply because I wasn't confident in my artistic ability and didn't want to destroy a perfectly good canvas lol.
I used my Cricut Expression and my SCAL2 software and the akaDora font, for the lettering and images on the canvas.
I used:
acrylic paint, also from Walmart to paint my "night sky" background. I used 2 colors of blue, black and a yellow for the "stars". I also used some fine silver glitter and modpodge to seal and protect. Really, I know I say this too often, but the pictures really don't do this canvas justice...the hint of glitter was a great addition which was added at the last minute to the still wet mod podge (I added a second coat after that one dried)
The most difficult part of this project was getting the letters lined up well enough to look decent without touching or overlapping any more than necessary. But, I sat in the living room floor and did that while watching some of my favorite Christmas cartoons (Rudolph and Frosty, in case you were wondering lol).
And without further ado, here is the finished canvas panel. I love how it turned out!
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| Here is the first photo WITH FLASH |
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| And a second photo with NO FLASH...which is a little better representation of the actual colors but harder to see the details. |
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| And a 3rd photo just to show more detail in the painting. It's not nearly as pronounced in person as it appears in this picture. |
We had so much fun working on these last weekend...my daughter in law, Danielle, her daughter, Chris and myself. Later on, Justin painted an ornament as well and I'll try to get a picture of that one on here as well.
These were SO super easy to do. I let Lilly pick which shapes we'd be working with--Christmas trees, basic ornament shape, hearts and starts. I cut them out on the Expression and used the trusty old hole punch to make the ribbon hole. Then all we did was paint and decorate them however we wanted and when they were completely dry I covered both sides with glossy mod podge. (Mod Podge should be paying me LOL). Once the MP dried completed, I tied the ribbon through the hole and voila, gorgeous ornaments for our trees!
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| Lilly made this one for me and it's my favorite of the entire day :) It says "nana" |
Although the month is half over, I still have projects to get started and finished so I thank you SO much for stopping by. And as always, please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions about any projects I've posted. I'm always happy to answer questions.
Be sure and check back soon to see what's new in my world!
Rhonda
That canvas is such a beauty! Love the ornaments as well. It's always fun remembering about them as you put them out each year!
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