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confetti ornament

Christmas Advent 2015 – Day 6 Confetti Ornament

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It has been a nice, quiet Sunday around here today. A positively beautiful day that my dogs are thoroughly enjoying.

We are now at day six and I have a really awesome ornament for you today. I have this bag of plastic snowflake confetti that I have been using for various projects and I made up this confetti ornament last night.

confetti ornament

Materials:

  • 3″ Styrofoam ball
  • Confetti snowflakes
  • Sequin pins
  • Small piece of wire
  • Super glue
  • Ribbon
  • Nail set (not necessary, but I found this very helpful)

I took my small piece of wire and made a loop that I stuck into the top of the ball and super glued. This gave me my loop for the tree hook. This appears to to be the start of all my Styrofoam ornaments.

I bent up the snowflake arms of the confetti to give my ball a 3-D appearance. Next, I started pinning the bent snowflakes to the foam ball with the sequin pins. I pinned these in circles around the ball. I snugged them all together so they the bent snowflake arms are all intertwined and there is very little of the foam ball showing.

start of confetti ball

I used the 1/32″ Nail Set to push the pins in all the way so I would not bend up the confetti snowflakes. The nail set is a simple tool from the hardware store, used to inset nails in trim and such. You can see it in the photos below. It worked great for this project. It even had a small cup on the end so the pin doesn’t slide around as you push the pin into the ball.

materials used for confetti ball

AlmostDone

After starting this ornament, I thought that it might be very pretty to have painted the ball before adding the snowflakes. I wanted a very white ornament to contrast to the green tree, so I left mine white. I made a small ribbon bow and attached it to the top of the ball with the tree hook.

I do not recommend dropping this ball on the floor if you have carpet and pets. I have a lot of dog fur on my floor no matter how many times I sweep and I was terrified that I would drop the ball and end up with it covered in fur. The bent arms of the confetti snowflakes make them almost velcro-like in its ability to pick up lint and fur. I didn’t drop it, but I just wanted to forewarn anyone else who made this.

Happy Crafting,

Kristin

Paper Punch Ornament

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Okay, I am 2 days late with this post, but you will have to forgive me, between class, a major migraine, and a massive snowstorm, I have been a little bogged down.

In my last post, I used this wonderful paper punch and I just have not been able to resist using it again. This time, I used gift-wrap for the paper cut-outs. I have discussed before my one-time hobby of making temari balls. I have massive amounts of supplies left over from this hobby and I raid it regularly for other projects. For this project, I nabbed a wrapped ball that I had already made. I use stuffing and wrap it with loads of sewing thread. I was a little more proactive this time and added my hanger before I got started adding the paper punch-outs.

Paper ornament with paper punches

I cut out loads of the paper punch-outs and used beading pins and sequins to attach them to the ball. I started at the bottom of the ball and went around in a spiral adding paper punch-outs as I went around and up the ball.

Paper ornament close up

It is a really easy ornament to make and only took me about a 1/2 hour. This does not include the time it took me years ago to make the thread-wrapped ball, but that only took me about 20 minutes at most. You could also use a foam ball for your base as well.

I am really happy with how the ornament turned out.

Happy Crafting!

Kristin

Small photo of paper ornament.

 

Side view of wreath

2013 Christmas Advent: Paper Wreath

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Happy Holidays!

Hello, and yes we are still alive. We are doing our annual Christmas Advent. This year we are covering Christmas Decorations. I decided to to do a Christmas wreath and have been playing with paper lately and thus my Christmas Paper Wreath was made.

Finished paper wreath

For supplies:

Foam wreath shape, burlap ribbon, scrapbook paper (paper cutter optional), pins, sequins, paper punch (twine and bells optional)

Supplies needed for paper wreath

The paper punch I chose cuts out a 2 1/2″ shape, so I cut my scrapbook paper into 3″ swathes. This I then ran through my paper punch and cut out my florets.

Paper punch

Once I had all my florets, I wrapped the foam wreath with the burlap ribbon. I used pins to hold the burlap in place (I was trying to keep my supplies to a minimum, but you could use hot glue here if you preferred).

Burlap wrapped foam wreath

I attached the hanger and bells at the very end, but realistically, this would have been the best time. It worked just fine adding these at the end of the project, but I could have hidden them better had I tied them around the wreath before adding the florets.

Next, I started attaching the florets. I have to tell you about my error now. I bought large head beading pins for this project and thought they would be large enough that they would hold the florets by themselves. However, once I tried to hold the florets in place with the pins I discovered that I was wrong. I needed something to go between the pinheads and the florets. You could use just about anything, I chose to use silver sequins. I imagine that small beads would also have been lovely.

Once you put the pin through the floret, use your fingers to bend the floret up into a flower cup shape. This is what gives the florets three dimensions.

Attaching florets to wreath

Just keep pinning the florets to the wreath all the way around, being sure to cover the inside and outside of the wreath.  I made sure that none of the florets were flat on the wreath. I would pull up the edges of the nearby florets so that the edges were all up and none were flat.

Here you can see the burlap ribbon under the florets, but once the wreath is complete, you cannot see the burlap from a regular distance away.

Paper Wreath Close Up with Burlap2

I love the way it turned out. It looks great hanging on my front door.

Side view of wreath

Finished paper wreath

Happy crafting!

Kristin

Paper Wreath Close Up CG

Felt Christmas Tree ornament

Ornament Advent: Day 7 Felt Tree and Wreath

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Today’s ornament was a massive lesson in frustration. Or rather, the ornament that you don’t see was. My original idea for an ornament failed spectacularly. My craft table is covered with parts, bits, and pieces. Around 10:00pm I realized that it was never going to work. Then began the frantic search. I dug through all of my supplies in the hope for a lightning strike. I didn’t get one until I was texting my sister that I was ready to give up. Right after I hit send, it hit me.

Felt Christmas Tree ornament

I love felt and I had a lot of fun last year with the pins and sequins ornament I made, so why not combine the two. The base of this ornament is a ball I made for temari. Temari is a Japanese art form that I played with a few years ago and kept all my supplies (go figure). You make the ball by taking a very large handful of stuffing and wrapping it with thread (one way to make the ball anyway). A lot of thread. You keep winding the thread around and around and around the stuffing until you get a round ball. This particular ball was my attempt to create a flattened ball to showcase a design on the front and back. I never did get around to completing the temari, but it gave me an excellent form to create my Christmas ornament.

Felt wreath side of the ornament

Next, I cut strips of felt around 1/2″ to 3/4″ wide and started cutting these strips into triangle pieces. Then I took my piles of pins and sequins and pinned the triangles to the ball to make the images of the wreath and tree. I used some fuzzy white thread to make a sort of frame to separate the two images by sewing it around and around the ball. I made a quick hook and voila! I was finished.

Side view of Christmas ornament
Here you can see the fuzzy white thread.

I really like the effect of the multiple colors of green for the Christmas tree and the stars in the wreath really make it pop. You could use anything for the form of the ornament, Styrofoam would be very easy. I imagine a Santa Claus/reindeer ornament would be very cute. Anyone want to try it? Send us your picture and we will post it! I would love to see someone else’s version.

Christmas tree side of ornament

Just goes to show that necessity really is the mother of invention.

Happy Crafting!

Kristin

Christmas Ornament Countdown: Sequins and Pins

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I just barely made it under the deadline for my ornament in our countdown. Cheri’s paper snowflakes were amazing!

This particular ornament is for me a sort of homage to some ornaments of my stepfather’s.They were popular in the 70’s to make. We have hung them on our Christmas tree for years and I have always loved them. Here is my version:

Red thread wrapped ornament with sequins and pins.

I have tons of styrofoam shapes from another craft project  that I used to do, temari balls (more on that one later), and used a 6″ egg as my base. I wrapped it in yards and yards of red thread and stitched the thread under other threads to end it. I then followed the steps for marking temari balls. The process is here, under How To, and then Dividing Hints and Help.and is a very easy process to do. This ensures that your pins are all the same distance apart from north to south.

Top view of red thread wrapped ornament with sequins and pins.

I did have a lot of fun purchasing the sequins and pins. I have never had a project that needed sequins, so now I have a selection if I ever need them in the future. The seed beads were already in my collection.

Bottom view of red thread wrapped ornament with sequins and pins.

Happy Holidays from Kristin!