Festive Upcycling...

... of a piece of Ikea furniture that kept on giving...

We bought a chair, and the chair is very nice.. but I think I was just as happy with the BIG cardboard box it came in as with the chair itself.. & we put the cardboard to good use...

* ... I made festive little trees form the very small off-cuts - little squares increasing in size cut from the cardboard, edged in glitter and glued together with matte medium (is there anything that can't be stuck together with Matte Medium?!):

Here they are in a little scene I made with bits and pieces.  The 'Noel' blocks were originally a hanging ornament but I prefer them horizontal.. a bit more versatile

Here is a close up and you can see the 'trees' on either side of the group - I think I want to add a star or 'something' to each of them....

*...  I created the solution to the 'we don't have anywhere to put christmas cards now that we don't have a mantelpiece or window ledges in the lounge anymore' problem (windows were replaced by doors, so no more ledges - I miss those useful ledges!).  I made a tree!!
I cut the cardboard into 10cm deep lengths, laid them out and cut them progressively longer to create a tree shape, and added a pot.

I attached them all together using a length of hessian 'ribbon', I used this rather than a strip of cardboard so the tree is flexible - I need to allow movement so that I could get behind each panel to staple the cards onto the tree....

Ta daaaaa:

A really simple tree - all we needed - to staple/paperclip cards to! Easy, lightweight & hung onto the door with a length of hessian rope, I decorated it with die cut stars, snowflakes and circles to pretty it up before the cards were attached.. (and hanging it on the door also stops people using the door - which is good as there a christmas tree on the other side! lol)

*... and finally - we cut the box up and made the prototypes for a shelving unit we're planning for the reconfigured lounge (next to the chair that started it all off):

That's our contribution to recycling/upcycling for the holiday season..  I hope its made you look at cardboard boxes in a new light :o)

x

Deck the Halls...

... with festive bunting!!

This project was created for a class at That's Crafty in Romford.

It's made from greyboard, painted, stenciled and stamped with touches of glitter and sparkle ...  all very festive.

Pennants were given a frosty look with snowflakes (JM07) stamped in Metallic Glaze - I like how the snowflakes are only visible when the pennant catches the light. (The spotty background was created with the That's Crafty 'Bubbles' stencil)

Twiggy took centre stage against a snowy stenciled background (That's Crafty 'Snowflakes'), The tags on either side of him and text along the top of the pennant are from Emma Godfey's EEG12.

Round tags were decorated with stars from JOFY39, all the tags were stamped and painted on both sides just in case they turned around when hung.

This bunting was a lot of fun to create.  I really like the pieces as a length of pennants but the designs and layouts could easily transfer to cards or a canvas (I have an example that to show you in the next day or so)- or they could be tied as individual pennants onto a christmas tree.

ho ho ho

x

Countdown to Christmas: Day 14

Our christmas tree has all kinds of baubles and decorations including four I made/decorated... I bought lovely clear baubles just crying out to be filled with 'stuff' (bought from Panduro).. festive stuff that can easily be removed and changed if next years christmas colour scheme is different...

This year I filled the baubles with natural tones to match the tree...

They are really simple to fill - just remove the hanging cap and drop things in!

A while ago I'd bought some cheap necklaces from a 'market' shop in my local town - the shop has now closed down, sad because it was a great place to buy jewelry with a view to taking it apart, 'upcycling' and using on other projects..

This bauble was a long strand of brown pearls - I left them connected so that they stayed as a clump in the bauble.

In this bauble I created layers of colour by adding strands of beads one at a time..

I added a strand of brown beads to this bauble and then some fine twigs (twisted willow) - I like the contrast between the natural twigs and the shine of the pearls... but then I had a 'what if...' moment and added some fine glitter... The glitter sits in the bottom, and sticks to the sides (static?) - and gives a lovely frosted effect..

Creating this last bauble has given me a new found respect for people who put ships in bottles! lol  I wanted to put a banner of text around the inside of the bauble - how to get it into the bauble?  how to keep it up upright?  how to stop it falling to bottom??

The answer to those questions is:
1. how to get it into the bauble?  Roll it around a pencil so it is a coil, hold onto one end with tweezers..
2 & 3:  how to keep it upright and how to stop it falling to the bottom:  I weighed down one end with a button & gems and attached the other end to the top of the bauble (under the hanging cap) - and the effect is a curl of paper showing the words 'happy christmas'.
The effect is like a filament in a lightbulb - love it.  I dropped in some additional pretty buttons for interest.

ho ho ho

x

Deck the halls....

... it was time to decorate our home - festive tunes on the stereo and a glass (or 2) of bubbly stuff and the decorating was go, go, go

This year the tree is the right way up (!)

I love decorating the tree- getting the decorations out each year and choosing what colour scheme to go with- this year I chose a really simple scheme- White...

I've wanted to make a garland of pompoms for a few years but the thought of making enough pompoms to go around the tree (ours is 7ft high) was daunting but then I found out a shop was selling bags of white pompoms as 'snowballs'... LIGHTBULB moment! So I bought 3 bags & strung approximately 100 (yes, I counted them lol) onto a length of cotton yarn... LOVE how it looks - the tree is so pretty (even if I say so myself!)... And I managed to decorate the tree this year without injuring myself at all! (if you want to know what happened last year and what an upside down christmas tree looks like go here)

I've also created a wreath for the front door - something I haven't done for a while:

I'm really happy with this- love the combination of the colours - & I can't tell you how excited/pleased I was to find those black sparkly snowflakes when I was looking for something in our boxes of decorations...

The wreath is a combination of lots of my favourite things - kraft card, glitter (black glitter - v glam!), buttons, calico, my stamps - love it - would it be wrong to hang it all year?? (inside, not outside!)

Happy to use my stamps on the wreath too - a lovely fun contrast to the darkness of the snowflakes, and the Kraft tones down the blinginess of the baubles. The pieces are all attached by hot glue... gotta love a hot glue gun!

Sometimes I buy decorations to alter them (which I'm sure some of you do too) - buying them in the sales or when they're on offer like these:

..and I alter them- not because I didn't like them but because they suit an idea that's in my head or I can see how they can be altered:

This is the back and front of the same decoration.... Fresco Finish (great coverage!), buttons, die-cuts, and vintage book text.. :o)

I hope your festive plans are coming along nicely..

I've noticed (from being on both sides of the counter) that the shopping 'frenzy' has begun - good luck out there!

Take care..