A Very Vintage Christmas Ornament

Hi everyone!  Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you all are enjoying your holiday and time with family and friends. Barbara here with a pretty quick and easy Christmas ornament using a recycled tuna can and some Gina's Designs Lasercuts chippies to make it extra special. Dont forget, we will be changing our name to Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts December 1!

Cut away Santa's sleigh and one reindeer from the border. Save remaining border for another project.

Use Intense blocks and water brush to color Santa, his sleigh, and reindeer.

Add glitter glue to the sleigh and reindeer antlers and nose. Use silver pearl pen to add a metallic look to the bottom of the sleigh.  Set aside to dry.

Cut two circles, one larger than the printed circle, to fit inside the tuna can.

Adhere the two circles together and glue to the inside bottom of the can.

Add a bit of snowflake paste to the bottom of the can, just beneath the printed scene.

Coat bottom and part of sides with white gesso to prepare it to accept paint.  Use an awl to punch a hole in the top of the can to insert a dyed to match piece of ribbon for hanging.  (See photo of finished ornament above).

Mix the Radiant Gels together with some clear glaze medium, paint bottom and sides of can.  Paint smallest circle from the Fanciful Elements set with the same color mixture. as well as two small snowflakes.  Splatter white paint over the back of the can and the circular frame.

Distress the edges of the circular frame and snowflakes with the brown ink pad.  Stack the two snowflakes and add a small metal embellishment and diamond gem to the center of the snowflake.

 

Paint the lace border with white gesso and while wet, sprinkle stardust glitter over it.  

Cut a coordinating strip of paper from the Christmas paper collection and glue around side of can.   Adhere the lace border around the sides, aligning it with the upper lip of the can.

Run of line of glue around top lip of can and adhere the circular frame.  Then adhere Santa's sleigh and reindeer, above the scene inside the can.

 A few closeups.

Supplies used:

Gina's Designs:  Snowflake Shape Set

 Santa's Sleigh Border

 Lace Border Sticks

 Fanciful Elements

Water Color blocks

Waterbrush

ColourArte Radiant Gels: Twilight, Guatemalan Green

ColourArte Primary Elements Clear Glaze Medium

white gesso

Circle dies

Brown ink pad

Stardust glitter

Snowflake Paste

I hope you enjoyed this sweet Christmas ornament and that inspiration strikes you to try making one, or two, or three, for your own tree, or gift giving.  You could also attach it to a gift package for an extra gift.  Be sure to visit Gina's Designs for more laser cut chipboard to inspire you.

Thanks for stopping by, and once again, have a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving!

Barbara

Tutorial - Altered Tin by Betsy Skagen

As my Guest Designer time comes to an end, I want to share one of my favorite kinds of projects with you: altered tin ornaments.

I'm Betsy Skagen of Paper Calliope, and on this Thanksgiving Eve my heart is filled with gratitude for getting to spend the last month here at Gina's Designs. It has been a fun and delightful adventure.

Usually I make my altered tin ornaments with Altoids tins...but a gal can only eat so many mints. In fact, I must 'fess up to possession of quart-sized Ziploc bags of uneaten mints. Hmmm...maybe I could use them to make altered art igloos? Perhaps puree them to create faux snow? Or maybe fashion ATCs featuring Victorian ladies with dandruff?

Surely it would be better to find alternative tin sources that don't involve more mints. I recently found some  on Amazon, but didn't realize until they arrived that they are a square rather than rectangular. Thankfully, they still work just fine for ornaments.

Tutorial: How to make the Altered Tin Winter Birds Ornament

Step 1: Remove the lid and hinge from the box. Save the lid to make a second ornament.

Step 2: Trace the box base onto cardstock that features an outside holiday scene with tree branches. I printed mine from GraphicStock, which I have found to be a great resource. If interested, you can use my GraphicStock discount to subscribe.  Cut out the square you traced, trimming as necessary, to make sure it fits perfectly inside your box.

Step 3: Trace and cut a second cardstock square so it fits the outside base of the box.

Step 4: Measure the sides of the box and cut two strips (one for the outside and one for the inside) of holiday cardstock to fit it. Make the width of the outside side strip just a hair wider than the inside strip.

Step 5: Cover the inside base of the box with matte medium and adhere the holiday scene cardstock square you prepared.

Step 6: Cover the inner sides of the box with matte medium and adhere the cardstock. Place the seam where the bottom of the ornament will be to make it less conspicuous.

Step 7: Cover the entire surface with matte medium and let dry.

Step 8: Cover the outside base of the box with matte medium and adhere the second cardstock square you prepared.

Step 9: Cover the outside sides of the box with matte medium and adhere the remaining cardstock strip. Again, place the seam where the bottom of the ornament will be.

Step 10: Cover the entire surface with matte medium and let dry.

Step 11: Cut a miniature fence to fit across the tin. Adhere it to the box with a strong adhesive. After it dries, dab faux snow onto the fence and onto the base of the tin. Sprinkle with glitter and let dry.

Step 12: Bend the end of a small artificial pine branch 90 degrees downward to form a small tab. Dab faux snow on the branch, sprinkle with glitter and let dry.

Step 13: Adhere the branch tab to the side of the box with a strong adhesive.

Step 14: Punch a hole in the top of the tin.

Step 14: Paint Gina's Birds Shape Set with black gesso. Let dry.

Step 15: Cover the birds with gloss gel medium. Press assorted colors of Primary Elements onto the birds.

Step 16: Make a small loop of metallic pipe cleaner and thread through the hole in the ornament. Add a metallic bead on the inside and secure with a strong glue.

Step 17: Adhere metallic pipe cleaner around the edge of the tin with strong adhesive.

Step 18: Adhere birds with strong adhesive.

All that is left to do is hang on your tree or give to someone special. 

Thank you for letting me join you here at Gina's Designs. I wish you the happiest of holidays.

Warmly, Betsy at PaperCalliope.com.

Great Gina's stuff to use:

  Bird Shape Set

Other stuff to use:

 Bird cardstock

   Assorted holiday cardstock

    Artificial pine branch

    Miniature fence

    Metallic pipe cleaners

    Metallic bead

    Aleene's True Snow

    ColourArte Primary Elements: African Jade, Forest Green, Lucky Apple, Sky Blue, Bushing Rose and Mango Freeze

    White glitter

    Gloss gel medium

    Matte medium

Vintage Style Christmas Triptych

Hello everyone!  I hope you are all enjoying your week.  Barbara here with a pretty little vintage style Christmas Triptych.  Triptychs are just about my most favorite projects to make.  When I saw this beautiful laser cut triptych from Gina's Designs Lasercuts (soon to be Gypsy Soul Lasercuts, effective 1 December), I knew just what I wanted to do with it.  Don't you just love when that happens?

Front

Back

The triptych has six pieces, as shown; three solid bases and three decorative frames. Look closely as there are subtle differences, so be careful to take note when putting it together. Paint the three decorative frames with Emperor's Gold using a sponge dauber.

You can see in this closeup how closely this resembles gold leaf.

Next, brush a coat of Crackle Paste White over the frames, being careful not to cover the intricate laser cuts.  Set aside to dry and crack.

Brush a light coat of Interference Gold mixed with Primary Elements Ancient Coin powdered pigment over the cracks to give it that aged, shabby chic look.

In the closeup, you can see how transparent the color is, allowing the white to show through a bit.

Cover the three base pieces with the Graphic 45 Christmas papers on the front.

Cut strips of Tyvek from used postal envelopes to make hinges.  (TIP: I like using Tyvek because it is not only strong, but it is also very thin and practically unnoticeable when placed beneath paper.)  Measure about 1-¼" up from the bottom and glue the Tyvek pieces between backing pieces, leaving about ⅛" to 1/4" space between the backs.

Cut three consecutive pieces of Graphic 45 Christmas paper to cover the backs.  I was a bit more precise cutting these pieces out as I will not be able to cut away where my hinges are.

Paint the hinges with black paint to match the background paper on the back, and Emperor's Gold on the front to match the frame pieces.

Adhere the paper to the backing pieces

Trim away the excess paper from the tops.

 Adhere the decorative frame sections to the front sides of the backing pieces.

I used three framed prints from the Graphic 45 Christmas Past papers die cut sheet.  I backed them with black chipboard for strength and for dimension.  Each print was edged with brown and black distress inks to define the edges, and then I coated each one with a Clear Crackle Glaze.

 I got a little impatient and thought the crackle glaze was not working, so I added a coat of Crackle Accents over the top.  Much to my surprise, I got this really cool "cracked glass" effect.  That is what I love so much about mixed media ... the experimentation and surprising results.

I colored some German Scrap Holly Berry Leaves with StazOn Cactus Green and Claret, picking up the color from the ink pad with a fantastix brush.

 I colored the branches with StazOn Spiced Chai and the fantastix brush.

 The StazOn goes on transparently, so it allows the shininess of the German Scrap to show through.  I wanted to tone down the shininess, so I added some Olive metallic rub on to the leaves with my finger.  You can see the difference in the photo below, where the leaves on the left are colored with the metallic rub on.

 I glued the framed prints and holly berry leaves to each section, as shown, and began adding embellishments from my hoarded stash.

Front side of Triptych

Here are closeups of each section.

The reverse side of the triptych was decorated with these pre-printed Christmas embellishments from more of my hoarded stash.  The pretty little chipboard snowflake on far left section is from Gina's Designs and was colored with a Krylon gold pen, adding Diamond Stickles for extra glitteriness.

Reverse Side of Triptych

And here, again, are more closeups of these sections.  Here you can see the pretty snowflake from Gina's Designs.

Gina's Designs Supplies Used:

Triptych - Arch Top

Snowflake Shape Set

Other Supplies used:

Graphic 45 Christmas Past Paper Collection

ColourArte Radiant Gels Emperor's Gold

ColourArte Primary Elements Ancient Coin

Crackle Paste White

Interference Gold Acrylic Paint

Stickles: Diamond, Platinum

Krylon gold leaf pen

StazOn Midi ink pads: Claret, Cactus Green, Spiced Chai

Olive Metallic Rub-On

Gold holly berry leaves

Embellishments (my stash)

I hope you enjoyed my Christmas project today and are inspired to check out the fabulous chipboard shapes from Gina's Designs for your Christmas makes.

Barbara