Christmas Houses

It's that time of the year: let's ramp up that Christmas crafting! Using a Tall House Shelf set from Alpha Stamps, I made a couple of holiday houses. One, a gingerbread house with happy kids, and one a retro looking house using my favorite color combo of turquoise and red (plus pink!). Each house is 6" tall with a 3" by 1" base.

The gingerbread house features two happy kids, laden with sweets. The ground, window sill and roof are all covered with an icy layer of glitter, and then encrusted in candies. How cute is that little girl's gingerbread house hat?

 

The tree is decorated with festive holiday lights; these kids are ready for the big day. Both of the trees used in these projects were a little wide for the bases, so I trimmed their backs flat so they sit flush against the houses.

 

 

The occupants of the retro house have used the same lights to decorate their roof line. I separated the lights from their strand, and attached them with an epoxy glue that sets instantly with UV light. It's my first time using a glue like that, and I love it! I used an old kit that my husband had, but if you're interested, I did find several different brands when I searched online for "epoxy glue UV light". I highly recommend adding this to your selection of glues.

 

Don't you just love this pink tree? It's decorated with colored beads. And who's that peaking out the window at Santa? Looks like someone's wrapping up more gifts. Santa is outside, ready to deliver the goodies he's packed in his bag. Ho ho ho, merry Christmas!

 

The houses were super easy to make and decorate. The backs and sides of each were painted to match the paper used to cover the fronts; the windows, icy roofs, and bases were all painted white and covered with glitter. White glue was used to decorate the trees and add the embellishments like the snowflake on the Santa house, and the candies on the gingerbread house. (Yes, the base is blue in this photo; I repainted it when I decided to glitter it to look like snow.)

 

Here's how the figures stand in front of the houses: I held each cutout where I wanted it to be place, and used a pencil to mark the spot where each foot hit the ground. I inserted a straight pin into the base at each mark, and then snipped the pins down to size. White glue was used to attach the pins to the backs of the legs of each figure.  Below, the pins are glued, waiting for Santa. You'll need to hold him in place while the glue dries, but it just takes a couple of minutes. Once your figure is set on the pins, you might want to remove them from the base and put a little drop of glue on the pins before you reinsert them. Now your figures are able to stand away from the house without the use of foam tape. 

 

For a list of supplies, click here!

2020 Tree Ornament

2020 has definitely been a year, and I felt the need to commemorate it with a Christmas ornament. Using a wooden ornament from Alpha Stamps, I made this. This will be the perfect reminder of such an imperfect year.

"Our first pandemic. So sweet. That pretty much says it all, yeah? Here's the back.

I love these vintage snowpeople. They have the prettiest smiles. Of course you can't see them, though, as they are wearing their masks. To give this ornament a chalkboard look, I used a white colored pencil for the lettering.

I hope this ornament makes us laugh next year, when we are able to get together again with friends and family. Until then, we'll stay safe at home. For a list of supplies used for this project, click here!

Otis Brings Home the Tree

No one can say that Otis doesn't have the Christmas spirit! He decorated his truck up big time for the season and has gone out and found the perfect Christmas tree.  I cut the hook off of two Vintage Truck Ornaments from Alpha Stamps, and using a Truck Bed Bagatelle Box, made a Christmas truck. Here's Otis, heading home.

I'm not one to decorate my car in real life, but I enjoyed decorating this car with Otis. He's a fun loving snowman that enjoys peppermint candy and snow, and the hubcaps and the garlands on his car reflect that. Even the door handles look like candy canes! The Hello Christmas Polymer Clay Slice Mix contains lots of fun shapes, including peppermints, snowflakes, and snowmen, all of which I used to decorate the car. 

The front of his car features a wooden bumper and a bright silver snowflake; flat backed crystals made the perfect headlights. The Santa hat is made with red felt and a cotton ball.

I think my favorite part of the car is the back view, from the "ho ho ho!" license plate to the glittery bow on the tree, to the "family stickers". Looks like Otis has a wife and child at home eagerly awaiting this tree. To make the snowman kiddo, I used an x-acto knife to make his hat a little smaller, trim his sides up a little, and make him shorter. The polymer clay is easy to cut.

Here's how this all started: the first step was painting the truck and wooden tires a nice Midnight Blue. It almost reads black, but you can see on the tires where they're sanded down that the blue really comes out. I trimmed the paper to fit the back part of the truck, and then glued it down before trimming the front and windows. Pictured below is the paper in place, ready to be trimmed around the front of the truck.

Once the paper is cut out and ready to go, it's time to assemble. I used tacky glue to put my truck together. Spread out all the glue so the entire surface is covered! Clothespins are great for holding everything together while the glue dries.

Details on the side of the car were made using a Stabilo pencil. I love this pencil so much I included a photo, should you want to get one. It draws a nice dark line, and you can take a brush with water to add a little shading with it. I used it to outline the doors and hood, and to stripe the sides of the car a little.

It appears that Otis has stopped on his way home to admire the starry night. Can't say I blame him. For a list of Alpha Stamps supplies used for this project, click here!

Vintage Santa Altered Tin

Three years ago, I found a bunch of delightfully creepy vintage Santas at a flea market. They had a whole bowl of them available, but I thought they were a little pricey at $5 apiece. Now of course, I wish I had taken them all. But, I picked out two of the best (worst?) ones to use in craft projects. One, I used immediately, and the other has been hanging around on my desk since. Until now. I finally realized that all he really needed was an Altoids tin.

His outfit probably used to be bright red, but it has really faded out through the years. I was glad I had some Christmas papers with muted colors.

I didn't want to permanently attach him in any way, so I stuck a pin through the background paper and he's just impaled there, much like the way you would display a bug. A little tart tin makes a great base for this piece.

I'm glad I finally gave him a home. He seems happier now. As for his buddy, he still enjoys ringing Christmas in every year on his sleigh.

Quick and Easy Ornaments, with quick and easy tutorials

Need more ornaments? These wood ornaments from Alpha Stamps are so quick and easy to decorate! I'm going to use mine for gift tags, so it will be like giving two gifts in one!

For the first snowman couple, paint the ornament holder silver, then cover the circular part with scrapbook paper and an image from the Silly Snowman collage sheet. Layer on a "Merry Christmas" greeting from the same collage sheet. Glue a beaded trim around the edge. Add some holly, some tiny snowflakes, and a pretty ribbon, and you're done!

The second snowman couple is made in the same way, just using a bit of a different palette.  Its Christmas greeting came from the Small Retro Xmas Tags & Labels collage sheet.

I love this mitten! Covered it with a patterned scrapbook paper, with red paper at the top and bottom. Use a grey Copic marker to draw ribbing around the cuff. Glue on a loop of pretty red ribbon and a paper rose, and you're done. Easy peasy!

For a complete list of supplies, click here!

The Jolly Christmas Houses of Jingle Lane

Now that Halloween has passed, it's time for (you guessed it!) Christmas crafts. I love these new houses from Alpha Stamps; they are so easy to put together, and really fun to decorate. Using 8x8 papers from Authentique, I made a couple of jolly Christmas houses. In this post, I'll show you three fun ways to use them during the holidays. First up: a little Christmas scene. Add a few bottle brush trees and a tiny Santa, and ho, ho, ho- let's visit Jingle Lane!

Here's number 24. Green and red striped candy canes flank the front entrance, and Christmas lights adorn the roof. The doors and windows have tissue paper behind them, so the houses look lovely with a small battery operated tea light inside.

Number 25 Jingle Lane has a beaded swag outlining their roof and a cookie cutter star for decoration. Candy pieces look like flowers under the windows.

Another fun thing about this house is that the roof opens up. I decorated a 2" cube box (perfect for holding jewelry, sweets, or other tiny gift items). It fits perfectly in the house. Two gifts in one!

The ribbon is tied under the flap of the gift box, so it doesn't need to be untied to open the box. This is great for people like me, who love to reuse pretty boxes.

Here's a third option for displaying the houses: tie a long ribbon to the clip, and hang them. They're so pretty with the lights inside. I'll talk a bit about the doors and windows and how that glow is achieved below.

Festive!

Here are a few tips on assembling and altering these sweet houses. Below you can see the walls of the house are covered with scrapbook paper, and the roofs have not been covered. Before I covered them, I folded down the overhang part of the roof and glued it with white glue. Clip it closed while drying. If you are looking at the outside of your house (below), you would put your glue on the other side of the overhang to make the flap.

The houses have windows cut into the front and back already, but I wanted to use some Mini House Doors and Windows because they're so fun. Some of these have different sized openings than the windows that are already cut into the house, so here's how to make those work:  cover all the sides of the house with paper, then place the door and windows where you want them. Don't glue them down yet! First, lightly trace around the opening inside the windows on the new windows or door, then using an x-acto knife, cut a little outside the pencil lines. In the photo below, I have just peeled off the paper, so you can see the where precut window is. I then cut through and removed the cardboard before finally gluing down the door.

Once the new windows are cut out, take some tissue paper and glue it around the opening, so the candle light will diffuse. This is the inside of the house, so no need to be too neat with the paper. In the photo below, the new windows and door have already been glued on the outside, so you do see the mullions in the windows.

Assemble the house, glue it up, and you've got some jolly Christmas houses to help celebrate the season. Enjoy!

For a complete list of supplies, click here!

"He Sees You When You're Drinking"

I'm so in love with some of the tags on the new Alpha Stamps "Snarky Christmas Tags", that I finally quit procrastinating on altering a vintage ornament box I've had for a couple of years. A turquoise background of happy Santas from the "Jingle" 6"x6" paper pad was the perfect background for the last of my turquoise plastic deer.

I couldn't help but put a tiny wine bottle up in that left hand corner and add a lovely Cosmopolitan inside the box, for that deer. He no doubt needs a little warmth, standing on that snow covered ground.

A thin line of Stickles (glitter in a tube) sets off the opening of the box. It wasn't hard to make that Cosmo using a miniature cocktail glass, a polymer clay lime cane, and a sugar rim made from glitter. A tiny log makes the perfect table. If you are in need of a tiny Cosmo in your life, click here for a post that contains a tutorial.

One more photo for scale. I have to wonder: just how many of these boxes of ornaments did one have to buy to decorate their tree? No matter, I'm in love with their tiny selves. I have one more left to alter. No telling when I'll finally get around to that!

For a complete list of supplies, click here.

Snowy Day

The Alpha Stamps December kit is titled "Christmas Nostalgia", and oh boy, do I have some nostalgic artwork for you today: using the 2" by 3" Mini Shadowbox and lid, I made the sweetest little winter scene. It reminds me of a vintage Christmas card. A swag of tiny holly leaves frame the inside of the opening, some Stickles (glitter in a tube) frame the outside, and glittery snowflakes finish off the top.

I used two copies of the same image to achieve a 3D look inside. I glittered up the background of the full image, and then cut out the girl and her dog and glittered only the snow. I attached the figures on top with foam tape so they stand out from the cold and snowy background. Aren't they the sweetest?

I used a stripey paper for the sides of the box on the inside, and there's some cream colored rick rack trim around the outer sides of the box.

Sides and back, with a little contrasting paper for fun.

So much glitter and sweetness in such a small box! Here's a little better idea of how small it really is.

 

A very merry Christmas. For a list of supplies, click here.

"A Visit From Santa" Altered Tin

Tim Holtz has a line of tins that are not only deeper than Altoids tins, they're holiday themed! Of course I had to get my hands on the Christmas set. The outside of the tin was so perfect and retro looking that I toyed with the idea of just leaving it "as is", but at the end of the day, I couldn't help but add just a few silver snowflakes.

On the inside, I used images from the "Christmas Trees" collage sheet (from Alpha Stamps) to create a sweet little scene. I used foam tape to give the scene dimension, and added a couple of tiny wrapped packages (tutorial here). Silver tinsel frames the scene nicely.

The images on the left of the tin came from separate collage sheets, which are included in the supply list below. Ho ho ho, little girl- better get back to bed if you want Santa to leave something under that tree!

For a complete list of supplies, click here.

A Matchless Christmas

What looks like it holds matches, but is even better? Christmas matchbook and matchboxes that contain art! I have definitely caught the Christmas crafting bug, and here are two fairly quick projects I just completed.

The first is a Peaked Roof Matchbox. This little house shape is so cute! I toyed with the idea of covering the outside with scrapbook paper, but the color of the cardboard was just the same shade as gingerbread, so I decided to make a gingerbread house using dimensional paint to mimic frosting, and some polymer clay canes that look like candy. I used the paint to hold the "candy" on, just as one would decorate with frosting.

Imagine how sweet this roof would be if this were a real gingerbread house!

Just for fun, there are a couple of gingerbread cookies on the back side.

When you slide out the matchbox drawer instead of matches, there's a little Christmas scene inside. I love that teeny vintage plastic Santa! The bottle brush tree is decorated with seed beads.

 

For a list of supplies to make the gingerbread matchbox, click here. 

The second project is a little matchbook.

Back:

Like the gingerbread matchbox, this matchbook does not contain matches. Instead, it houses a little folding book.

Wouldn't these be great stocking stuffers?

For a list of supplies to make the Santa matchbook, click here. For the gingerbread house, click here.