It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas!

On Saturday I ran an all day Christmas home decor class for four of my customers and I just wanted to share the projects we made with you.  I had such fun designing these projects despite my reputation as the Grinch I actually do love making and crafting Christmas home decor.  I just detest the whole pressure of cramming in so much activity over the festive period, it's a time of year when I actually do want to stop my busy world and chillax in my pj's not be on a schedule!

Anyway, here we go.. enough Grinching ;-) 

The first project I want to share is the first one I designed and made, it's an altered blank 'Altoid' size tin which I decorated and made into a hanging ornament.  

I made 6 of these back at the end of October to gift as special 'swaps' for my fellow Stampin' Up! Demonstrator friends which I gave them at our autumn 'convention' or On Stage event.  I loved making it so much that I knew I would add it to my all day class.  I bought the empty blank tins from a supply store via eBay (message me if you want a link).  I used our Pinewood Planks 3D Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder (phew! what a name) to emboss some soft suede card for the lid, I did rub a little white ink over the folder before embossing which gives the wood grain even more of a texture and I also daubed some Early Espresso ink around the edges.  For the inside I used the Sheet Music background stamp and of course Best Birds stamp set to make those adorable robins.. anyone who knows me know that I am mad about wildlife, nature and in particular that I am a bird fanatic so I had enormous fun using our new Stampin' Blends to get the robin colours just right.. what do you think?
I used two sentiments from a beautiful stamp set called Snowflake Sentiments which is in our Autumn/Winter seasonal catalogue. I've been collecting twigs and Larch cones on my dog walks for a few weeks and if you leave them in a nice dry place they naturally open up as they dry out; hot glue sticks them nicely.  Finishing touches for this project included ribbon, jute twine and a bit of floristry moss.

My next project also used Larch cones and those adorable robins and I added some of our decorative Green Sprigs which I think just look so realistic.  For the base of this project I used a fabulous embroidery hoop which I got from Maries Cross Stitch online, I love it!  It's plastic but the outer ring is actually textured to look like vintage wood and it has an adorable vintage 'D' hook on the top for hanging.  I simply adhered some vellum to the front using tear and stick tape to give me a nice opaque background. All in all it wasn't a complicated project but it was time consuming to get all the elements just right, everyone thoroughly enjoyed making it while chatting away about their plans for Christmas.

Those Green Sprigs come in a pack of 12, and so we saved one back for the next project; a lumiere.  I did get inspiration from Pinterest for this one from a crafter who pinned it last year and used a gift bag.  For ours we used the Mini Treat Bag Thinlits to make a box structure and then used the Hearth & Home Thinlits to make the sweet window frame.  We used Lovely As A Tree stamp set to heat emboss those wintry trees onto Vellum card stock adding a snowy ground with a chalk marker. Once this has a tea light added to the inside it really makes this winter scene come alive.  We finished off the whole thing with a Mini Ornament and we used some embossing paste to add 'snow' to the Green Sprig.

Our final project for the day was a very simple and much more 'minimalist' frame.  I picked these wonderful copper frames from Home Bargains, they were inexpensive and just right for decorating with our stunning Year of Cheer Speciality DSP which has that gorgeous copper foil motive on one of the sheets.

Look how great it looks with a stag embossed with copper embossing powder.  I gave balance to the frame by adding more metallic elements picking up silver in the mini ornaments and pretty bow made using the Bow Builder Punch and those sprigs of metallic foil card were cut using dies from the Pretty Pines Thinlits.

I'm certainly pleased with how all these projects turned out and if you love them too please message me for any further information about products used.  I haven't made any tutorials for these but if you do want any tips then I'll try to help. And, of course, if you want to purchase any of the products used then please visit my shop by clicking the link or sending me a message. Happy Christmas crafting everyone!