Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Technique Tuesdays: Paper Ornament freebie and Happy Birthday Tyler!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER! My little boy turned 6 today! I can't believe it! He is growing so fast. Even his jeans we bought at the beginning of the school year are short! He eats like crazy but stays soo thin! I wish I could grow tall again! LOL! Daddy took Tyler out for breakfast then dropped him and his cupcakes off at school. He just loves riding in Daddy's truck and going out for breakfast! The teacher made him a party hat and he wore it all day! It was covered in 6s! Hmm I should take a photo of him wearing it before his sister gets a hold of it!

Okay now for the technique. I know it's a little late but at least this time it's still Tuesday! I must work on next week's technique early...Tyler's birthday party is Sat so we'll see! I found the technique for these cool ornaments on Carlos N Molina's blog. (Carlos has amazing paper items..his shoes look sooo real!) I can't take credit for the idea. Carlos created them and he has a video for you to view here. I did my own little tut in photograph form below too. I have provided you with the digital paper cutter file as a freebie at the end of this post.





Remember you can click on the photos to make them larger. I will show you some examples of one I made. But first let me share with you some things I discovered while making them...meaning things I goofed up and don't want you to.

*The center tube is much easier to roll if it is NOT cardstock. It is best to make sure your tube matches your ball in case it is visible between the paper strips. So if you have a thinner paper as one of your colors use it to cut the rectangle used for the tube.

*Very thick cardstock is harder to make form the curve of the strips. So you may want to "soften" by running a pencil down it as you would if you were curling ribbon with scissors. Making it curve as it will when you make the ornament.

*As you add the strips onto the top of the wire it will have a tendency to "pop" up so make sure you use your fingers to press down the strips maintaining the round shape. Also make sure at the very end when you form the loop that you have cut enough wire off. If there is any gap between the beads or paper circles then you need to cut more off. You need everything to be tight to have a nice round ball...or you will end up with an ugly cone!

*I was trying to use thing around my house so I used two different wires. One hubby gave me was a softer copper wire. The other was a stiffer wire 22 gauge I think...maybe 24. For this project the stiffer wire was better as the softer wire kept wanting to bend while I was making the ornament.

I know none of these hints make sense right now but you'll understand once you start actually making your ornament. Oh and these are really very easy to make don't be intimidated by all the steps in my instructions! Okay now on to my examples.




Above is one more tip....I think it is better to use cardstock for the circles but if
you want your patterned paper to show just cut two and glue them together so you have the stability of the cardstock and the prettiness of the patterned paper.

The pictures really don't do the ornaments justice. The glimmer mist has such a pretty gold sheen on it. The snowflake one is pretty too with the silver sheen. Tyler wanted me to make some of these to hang up for his birthday party! Hmmm now there's an idea! Don't know if I'll have time though! I'm giving the ornaments I made to the church for their craft bizarre on Sat.

Oh and for the snowflake one you can purchase the snowflake in my Festive Twig Tree file. Click on the preview below to purchase it. It's on sale the whole month of November!



I was trying to use things around my house...beads that I had and papers. I bet you if you went shopping though you could easily make these to coordinate with a birthday party or Christmas party. I'd love to see some done with glitter but I didn't have any loose glitter and didn't want to have to wait for the glitter glue to dry. You guys have waited long enough for this tut! Flocked flourishes would be soo lovely! If you make an ornament I'd love to see it email me it to me at shellysart@verizon.net. I'd love to feature it on my blog!

I'd like to share with you this pretty box Jan Walz made using files from my quarterly membership club. I love the burgundy and evergreen colors she used and the felt embellishments.



If you'd like to make a box like this of your own then click on the Ad below to purchase my membership. (It's a great gift to mail as you can lay it flat to send it off!) I promise to offer a variety of boxes, embellishments, cards, and home decor items. If you scroll through previous posts you can see some of the files I have offered already in the membership. All files will be in SVG, KNK, GSD, WPC, and AI formats.



Wow! I didn't realize this post had gotten soo long! Sorry! I guess I'd better stop blabbing and give you the freebie I promised. This is totally a time saver. You can use your digital paper cutter to cut the ornament pieces and not fuss with measuring. (I despise measuring!) KNK, SVG, GSD, AI, and WPC are included in the zip. This file still follows my terms of use. Please do not share this file instead send others to my blog to download it. Click on preview to download.



Thanks for letting me share with you this little ornament. I do hope you are inspired to make one too and will share you creation with me! I'm ready for a snoozers!

Goodnight! Be sure to join me Frugal Fridays where I feature 1 file for $1.00 for 1 day only!
Shelly
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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you! Your blog post will be advertised on the DigiFree Blog Cutting Freebie search engine today (look for timestamp: 17 Nov [LA 04:00pm, NY 07:00pm] - 18 Nov [UK 12:00am, OZ 11:00am] ).

Rebecca said...

Thanks Shelly! I'm looking forward to making some of these ornaments. Yours are all so cute! And the freebie file is going to make it so easy. Thanks again & Happy Birthday to your son!

Barracudasue said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Tyler! Wow...6 years old!

Thanks for the freebie, Shelly. This is amazing! Gotta try this for sure!

bzyPTmom said...

Thanks for the freebie--and Happy BD to your son!

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday to your son. These are so cute - I look forward to trying to make some of them with my granddaughters!!!

Carol's Crafts said...

Shelly, your ornaments are fabulous!
Thanks for sharing them, and for the freebie.

Carol said...

I'm going to have to give this one a try. Thanks for the freebie to make it easy.

Carol

Judy said...

Wow! The paper ornaments are beautiful! Thanks

Caroline said...

Happy Birthday Tyler!! Thanks for the freebie Shelly, this looks like fun!

CutItOut said...

Shelly, thanks for the ornament file.

~~ CutItOut