Here's a wonderful ornament that you can make for gifts!

Here's a really great tutorial to make easy gifts to give this year.  I know that I will be trying this myself.  These look so festive and I bet they are really easy.  I may make these to give to my co-workers and to mail with my cards to friends far away.  I really appreciate this wonderful tutorial.  Please click on the title link and visit the blog for more.
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Christmas Ornament Tutorial

Hi! I just sent all 9 packages to their recipients of my swap group today (Phew!) and decided to post the tutorial here as well. It's a christmas ornament made out of shrinkable plastic and adorned with my favourite itsy bitsy buttons. But first, download the template here.

STEP 1 : DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE. This is how the template looks. I've not included the patterns, you may want to decorate them as you like. Digitally or with sharpies/colour markers. I've used quilting textile patterns and put in the recipients name with Adobe Illustrator. If you need the illustrator file, just e-mail me.


STEP 2 : DESIGN YOUR ORNAMENT & PRINT. That's my work table with all the printed shrinkable plastics. Choose shrinkable plastics that allow you to print on your inkjet printer if you intend to do this digitally. Read instructions on shrinking percentage and enlarged as you seem fit. Bigger ornaments need bigger graphics (you may try out one first.) Usually shrinkable plastics will shrink about 50% tp 60% from the printed size. Some may even shrink horizontally more than vertical. For mine, the rounded ornaments started as perfect circles, but when they're heated it shrunk vertically more, so they now appear oval like.


STEP 3 : Remember to print at 50% lighter shade. Because of the shrinking that will take place in your ovennete, things will appear very much darker.



STEP 4 : CUTTING OUT THE PIECES. All arranged out. I'd advice you to cut 1 set at a time and punch the holes as soon as you do. Make sure the punches are on the same direction for all the pieces. If not, you will have the holes in the wrong edges.


Step 5 : PUNCHING THE PIECES. Only punch the edges where you will sew the pieces together. Always remember to punch before heating, if not it will be too late to punch once it is shrunk! Too thick and too damn hard! Oh yes, a bigger punch is used if you need a bigger hole. Too small of a hole will not be effective once it is shrunk. (I hope that makes sense.)
Step 6 : HEATING THE OVEN. Please use the oven. NO MICROWAVE OVENS (unless you want a Chernobyl incident here!) I use a simple toaster oven. You need very low heat (follow manufacturer's heating instructions). Pop them two at a time on top of foil. Watch them shrink and curl. Don't worry about the curling, it will naturally uncurl once it is ready to come out. This will take less than 30 seconds or more depending on heat. When there is no more movement or shrinking, pick them out with wooden chopsticks onto a wooden board and flatten while still warm.


STEP 7 : Place on wooden board to cool. Do the rest. It's quite automatic after awhile. If you notice unsightly dents in the middle, it means that your piece needs more heating. Do not overheat though, it will take a lot of heat to melt it again and it will be disastrous.
You can pop in The big pieces on at a time. Don't be in a rush, I know you'll get excited watching it shrink and dance but you need to control the curving when it comes out from the oven and you need to flatten it immediately.


Check out the shrinking.


Laid out to rest.


STEP 8 : VARNISHING. I used Modge podge to varnish and waterproof the pieces. You can also use aerosol sprays but Modge Podge is way cheaper. Let dry overnight and away from busybody 4 year olds.


STEP 9 : ATTACHING THE PIECES. Select matching buttons. Size of buttons depends on how far the holes are from one piece to another ornament piece. I tie a knot to secure the button first before sewing onto the pieces.


Select the last piece and sew to the upper one.


To knot off by going around a few times and knotting at the back to properly secure the button to the piece.


Sewing the upper pieces together depending on how many layers you want your ornament to be.


STEP 10 : ATTACHING THE RIBBON. Assemble the ribbon and buttons for the upper ornament.


STEP 11 : ATTACHING THE RIBBON FOR THE TOP MOST ORNAMENT. With the same method, attach the topmost ornament with a ribbon for hanging. Select soft ribbons for this.


Do the bow for the middle. You can opt for felt cutouts or maybe lace, there are many possibilities. Use your noodles!


Step 12 : ATTACH THE RIBBON to THE MIDDLE.


Knot off with the same method for a neat finish.


Tada! The finished ornament. This is for Melissa of Group 17.


All in a row. I even made one for myself. Now, remember to write to me about your creation this Christmas.


Merry Christmas Everyone. Have a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year. Do write and keep in touch.

Posted by Yoonie at 1:33 PM

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Christmas will be here before you blink twice!

With half of this year almost gone, it really is time to start thinking about the Christmas holidays.  Although I am sure no one will start their Christmas shopping this early except me, I thought this would be the perfect time to begin showcasing easy, fun ways to make the holidays truly family centered and maybe help it to be less stressful.  To that end, I will be posting easy Christmas decorations you and the kids can be making now, as well as easy, breezy Christmas cards to make and send this year.  Hope you enjoy!

Here's a cute idea for decorating the outside of your home.  It is inexpensive and takes just a bit of skill, but the effect is beautiful!

Outdoor Holiday Decorating -- Snowflake Curtain
This was taken from Fabulous Living's site and copied here for your use.  Please visit the original site to see more ideas!

Author Notes:	Plastic snowflakes from the dollar store transform the front of a house into a winter wonderland with this ingenious yet inexpensive holiday decorating idea. Lisa Dodez originally came up with the plan.  She hung the snowflakes by her Gautier, Mississippi home's entrace in a free hanging curtain, as she had nothing to anchor them to on the bottom.  Needless to say, the wind quickly made a mess of things by tangling the lines (although to be honest, even in this state, it still looked pretty). Cheri's home in Big Bear, California, with its front porch railings, seemed more suitable, as the hanging snowflakes could be anchored at the top and bottom, creating a luminous snowflake wall that looks great day or night.  If you have such a set up at your home, give this a try and be prepared for tons of compliments from the neighbors!
Supplies:	scrap piece of wood for template small screw in cup hooks (you will need twice the number of hooks as you want strand of snowflakes plus 2) small elastic hair ties (double the number of strands you plan on making) various sized plastic snowflake Christmas ornaments (see notes below) clear fishing line hot glue gun and glue scissors tape measure
Instructions:	We found the snowflake ornaments at the dollar store.  Depending on the size, they come several to a pack (meaning the smaller ones are 3 or 4 for a dollar).  We have less than $20.00 invested in this entire project.  How many you need will depend on how many strands you want to make, the length of those strands, and how close you place your strands together.  For the snowflake curtain in these photos, we used 4 to 6 snowflakes per strand, and we placed our strands about 1 foot apart across the entire front of our porch. The first step is to measure, mark, and insert cup hooks where you want your strands of snowflakes to hang.  We measured across the top of our porch, putting pencil marks about every foot.  We repeated this on the bottom.  Now put a cup hook where each of your top and bottom markings are -- we placed the top hook about 6 inches above the top sightline, and the bottom hooks underneath the porch railing, also out of sight from the front. Making a template is optional -- you could certainly do this project without one just by measuring carefully, but we found it made the process quicker, easier and neater.  To do this take a scrap piece of wood that is least the length between the two cup hooks on your porch.  The template essentially duplicates the cup hook scenario so you can quickly and easily make the snowflake strands.  Screw a cup hook into each end of the wooden template. To begin making the snowflake strands, tie one end of the fishing line onto a doubled up elastic hair tie.  Put the hair tie loops over one of the cup hooks on the wooden template.  Unroll the fishing line the length you need and tie another doubled up hair tie on the other end and slip it over the cup hook on the other end of the template.  This is how the strand will hand on the cup hooks on your porch, so make sure to get the length correct -- long enough to reach but without too much slack (the elastic hair ties help make this easy). Slip a piece of paper under the fishing line to protect your surface from glue, and position snowflakes under the fishing line strand in a pleasing arrangement, as in the photo below. While holding the fishing line in place (it helps to have 2 sets of hands), run a line of hot glue down the center of the ornament right over the fishing line. Using your fingers on both sides of the snowflake as in the photo below, hold the fishing line in the glue for a few seconds until the glue begins to set and dry, fusing the fishing line to the ornament.  Repeat with the remaining ornaments in the strand. Repeat the process to make as many strand of snowflakes as you need.  For a more natural look, try to stagger placement and sizes of the snowflakes in each strand. Now take each strand and hang them on the cup hooks you placed on your porch.  If you used a template, they should be the prefect length to hang between the top and bottom sets of cup hooks. At night we opted for all blue lights to keep with the ice/snow theme.  White lights would have also worked well, but as you can see from the photo below, the snowflakes also look great in the daytime without any special lighting.