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!

Christmas already? Time for some kitchy ornaments!

If you're a crafter, you know you have to get ahead of the holiday rush. Therefore, it's time for Christmas crafting in October/November! Here are a couple of kitchy ornaments I made with this month's Alpha Stamps kit.

First, a holly jolly snowman on sweet pastels. This fellow is the perfect size for the opening in the chipboard ornament, even if his hat does stick out a bit. I adorned him with a glittery sprig of holly, surrounded him with an assortment of snowflakes, and embellished the side with more holly and pine cones.

Metallic Dresden trim makes such a nice frame around our jolly snowman friend. It was easy to curve the trim to fit: just snip between each half circle, leaving the bottom part of the trim intact. Curve as you go! It just so happened that the trim fit this inner circle perfectly, but just in case, I started gluing at the upper right, so that if there did happen to be an awkward place where the ends met, it would be under the snowman's hat where it wouldn't show.

Check out Santa! He's looking mighty fine on this star shaped ornament. This ornament features gold tinsel, a holly wreath with bead "berries", faux Christmas lights, ribbons and a pair of jingle bells. Nothing's too festive when it comes to Santa!

Here's a little hint for making this ornament: when you're applying tinsel, it's best to cut the tinsel in smaller pieces that meet at the outer points of the star. This will give you nice sharp points. If you use one long piece of tinsel, the points will appear rounded. Tacky glue works well to adhere the tinsel.

Each of these ornaments is backed with coordinating paper. The back of Santa's ornament has a cute collage of children's wishlists.

Ho ho ho, stay tuned for more Christmas coming up. Meanwhile, for a complete list of supplies for these two ornaments, click here. Happy Christmas crafting!

Quick and Easy Placeholders/Ornaments

I always love to set the holiday table, and one thing I like to do every year is make a placeholder that can later be taken home and used as an ornament. This year, I was excited to find some adorable ceramic snowmen on sale at Michaels for only 79 cents apiece.

I used paint pens to draw in a few details, and then tied a bit of ribbon around each little guy's neck. So quick and easy! Here's a little hint for you, if you want to personalize something like this, write the name and date first, and then it's so easy to center the buttons and faces. Perfect every time!

The snowmen have rounded bottoms, so I purchased a package of little wreaths to give them some support as they sit on the table.