Christmas Ornament / Tag Tutorial

 

 

Well here we are Day 6 already. I love this ornament and have been showing it at all my demos for the last 2 months. Once you have made one you will be hooked as they are so easy to put together. I thiink these would be georgous as tags on your presents with the persons name on the front so you are giving a personalised ornament as well as your gift.

Right here we go...

All measurements are in inches

Cut 5 pieces of card to 3" x 3"

On both the back and the front of these 5 pieces stamp your image. I have used the poinsettia from Papermania "At Christmas Time" stamp set. Any stamp with good fine detail will work really well.

Sponge each piece on the back and front .(See A6 Calender Tutorial for sponging tips.)

Ink around the edges by running your pieces along your ink pads. This will give a nice definition to the edges.

Now for the folds. Work on one square at a time. All the folds are the same for each square.

Fold the square from edge to edge.

Open up and fold edge to edge in the opposite direction you will end up with a cross on the square.

 

Place your piece of card on the table and flip it over  (turn over and work on the other side) you are now to fold from corner to corner. This fold is very important for making the square pop into position.

Open up your fold and put your finger underneath at the center and push to pop it upwards. Your square should now look like this. Push in the right and left squares with the creases in them together (pointing downwards. Push them towards each other until a full square forms.

Your square should now look like this.

 

Do this to all five squares.

 Now see the way they open up. You are to join all of these togeather with the open section all facing the same way when joining them. (see photos).

 

Cut two pieces of card 1½” x 1½”. These are your covers for the ornament.

Decorate these covers. I stamped mine and sponged them to match the inside panels.

Close up your ornament and place some double sided tape from the back corner to the open corner, remove backing tape and lay a long piece of ribbon over this. Do this on both sides of the ornament.

Place your decorated cover over the ribbon. Make sure you think about what way the ornament will hang when unopened as you don't want the words going off at a dodgy angle!!! 

Now you are ready to attach the bead. We have a fantastic beading shop in Bray town called BDI and they have an amazing variety of beads and findings and of course the most important thing.... a fantastic Coffee Shop :). This silver bead is my absolute favorite for this ornament it just adds a touch of class to it. I make my ribbon a lot longer than I need it so I can cut it to a sharp point to get it through the width of the bead.  Push the bead all the way down the ribbon to the top of the ornament.

Tie a knot at the top of the ribbon and cut it neatly to tidy it up. If you find your ribbon is fraying at the top you can VERY CAREFULLY run a flame along it and it will seal the ribbon to stop it fraying. You need to be quick doing this as you don't want to bun the ribbon or yourself. Another solution is to use clear nail polish but to be honest a lot of times I find this soaks down slightly into the ribbon and ruins the look of the project.

Your Ornament is done. Here it is closed.

To open it, slide the bead up the ribbon to the knot at the top. Turn the ornament inside out (bring both covers around to meet one another). Slide the bead back down. Your ornament is now open for display.

Below are a couple of other options. You can make this ornament with any shape that will fold exactly edge to edge in all directions for example circles and you can make it any size you want so long as it is the exact same size for all five pieces of card.

This shape is cut from the Xcut Four Petal Nesting Dies.

You can use any colors. The one below is inked in black using an "Ink it Up! dye based ink.

You can use any stamp you want  I like to use fine detail stamps. The stamp used below is the Enchanted Christmas Holly Fairy from Docrafts.

I hope you all enjoy making this cute little thing.

Happy Crafting everyone.

A6 Calender Tutorial

 

 

 

 

Day 5 of Tutorial week and I just had to show how to make these little A6 Calenders. They are my teachers gifts this year. They are cheap to make but look great. Hopefully there will be massively impressed teachers this year. The lighter one is for a female teacher and the darker for a male teacher. The new Urban Stamps from Docrafts are perfect for this project. (link for these below)

Whats Required:
Stamps, Calender, Dye based ink and either a sponge or a Tim Holtz Blender. 2 A6 Cards.

Take one of the A6 Cards and your inks, stamps and sponge/blender.
I have used the flower stamp just below the card and over the edge and then stamped each next one slightly over lapping the last using the same method of keeping the bottom of the stamp slightly below the card.

 Work on a piece of scrap paper so as not to damage your craft mat. Ink up your sponge and place your sponge off the side of the card. Using small circular motions across the paper make your way onto the card to sponge and start coloring it. I find this method helps darken and define the edges of the card but also gets you a much softer look then if you go directly onto the card with the sponge as you can end up getting some hard ink marks. Sponge all around the edges including into where the stems of the flowers are. Leave white space in the center as it just adds a really nice look to the calender. I like to take off as much ink from the sponge as possible on some scrap card and then just gently sponge over the center so I just slight discolor it instead of leaving it stark white.

 Sponge all over the back of the card as well.

Now stamp out the butterfly on card-  twice on White and once on Purple, cut these out.

Once you have stamped and cut out the butterflies turn them over and using a larger stamp (pattern doesn't really matter). You are going to join all these butterflies together and you don't want any white space showing under the wings.

 Take the three butterflies and join them together down the bodies. Before I do this curve the wings upwards leaving the body part flat it makes it a lot easier to sit them into one another and join them together. I actually use a 3D gloss to join them as I find it joins together really solidly and so it lasts for the year the calender will be used.

Now take your second A6 card, this will be your base.

Open the card out and on one side turn back a small tab inwards about 1cm or 1/4 inch in depth, this is your tab.

Close the card again. Taking the side with the folded over tab bend it backwards towards the card spine. See photo.

 Sharpen this center crease you have just made.
 You have just created your stand for the card.

Now to join them together. Before I do this I take a small thin section off the larger side of the stand so that it sits neatly into the decorated A6 card.

Put double sided tape on as shown in the photo below.

This stand is going to sit inside the Decorated A6 card. The small tab is to be joined to the main decorated front panel. Be sure to take your time doing this as you don't want a little white lip showing from the tab at the bottom of the calender.

Now the large panel sits inside the back panel of the decorated card.

 

Now just complete your decoration. Layer up your calender onto different card. Add your butterflies and gems. On the back decorate, I have used another stamp from the same Papermania Botanical Print Urban Stamp Set   The lettering is from the Tatty Teddy Range.

Well I hope you like this project. I am working from the kitchen at the moment as the studio is just too cold to work in and I though you might like to see how I photograph my project. (see below)

Yep, I make my daughter Hannah hold up some white card for the background!!!  I am so technical!!! lol.

Happy crafting everyone.