Little Glitter Houses and Church Printable Christmas Ornaments

Yes Santa.... Inka is still alive :)) I am so sorry it has been so long and I had some great free Christmas graphics planned. Not to mention I wanted to get my Nutcracker Theater in my little etsy store. I made the characters from redressed Tuck and Sons paper dolls and the Theater is just an amazing Christmas fantasy! However I still have some work to do on the nutcracker character but he is coming along nicely.

It seems that the past few years life has just gotten in the way of my blog this time of year. This year my daughter in law was ill. It took the doctors several weeks to figure out that her gallbladder had problems, then the surgery, then the recovery. So during all this time I had my grand babies. Taking on a 14 month old when you have MS is an ENORMOUS undertaking! Sitting at the computer while watching him was mission impossible! Although his brother who is 5 helped a lot, by time I got him in bed at night I would just collapse. Then to top that off hubby has kidney stones and was on the couch for several weeks too.... no help there...lol.

Once the boys went home, I had Christmas staring me in the face. I usually have the decorations up and the gifts bought by the day after Thanksgiving. This year we skipped Thanksgiving and I was still doing some shopping the day before my big Christmas eve party. So I thought I would share some pictures of our holiday decor and the little graphic for my ornaments.

 Our tree was dressed in crystal icicles, little news print houses and little music print churches. The graphic for these print with the news print and music print already on them. Now available in my little etsy store. I also I glued a heavy wood bead inside the house to weight the other side. That way the little tree did not make the ornament hang crooked. However you would not have to put a little tree on yours I just felt it really dressed them up. You might have other ideas that will work just as well.

I wrapped the gifts in newspaper and burlap ribbons

The stockings were hung by the chim... well the coat rack with care :)) I made them from vintage lace table cloth and they are reversible. You can cuff them if you like but I ended up with too much to put in them so by Christmas they were hung without the cuff.

 

The topiary was dressed in gold this year.

And my daughter in law did a lovely job decorating the chandelier.

We hung glitter snowflakes from the ceiling as we always do. This picture really doesn't do them justice. They spin and twinkle with every movement and it just sets such a holiday mood.

I even changed the display in my glass cloche for the season.

Well there you have it :))

Faux Putz House Christmas Ornaments

Boy am I getting this in just under the wire! This weeks Theme over at the "Created Byhand Challenge" is Snowmen...Aren't these cute! This was also my project for my local art group "The Artistic Souls" this month too.
 

I used the pattern from Better Homes & Gardens and then I used some of my digital collage sheets that I offer over at my little etsy store. I did shrink them to 50% before I printed them so they would fit on my little houses.

Mixed Media Monday ... Numbers ATC's

 

There are several challenges that I really enjoy looking at what everyone else has done and I get a chance to play once in a while too. This week at Mixed Media Monday the theme was Numbers, so here is my entry. I have also placed these on my ATC’s for trade page but I want to trade them as a set. So if you too have a little triptych set email me and we can set up a trade :)

Christmas Eve House

Ok … the little house … or church you all have been waiting for…this is my first attempt at soldering something dimensional…it was a learning experience for sure! But for my first one, I am pleased. I put a little battery powered tea light inside it and it looked great but it did not picture well. The battery tea light is smokeless so you don’t have to worry about having a way for the smoke to escape or it getting to hot, yet you still have the ambiance. I will have the kits for this and for one that doesn’t have such a steep roof available soon. I will also have the house shapes to sandwich images between. Smaller houses for charms will come with the small circles when the thinner glass arrives. They have to be made from the thinner glass.

I am calling it my Christmas eve house as that is the big day in our family. That is the day we have a huge party, open our gifts and Santa comes :)) By Christmas day it is all over with but the eating … lol

Most of these are made by sandwiching your images between two sheets of glass and then soldering it like you would a charm. This one is made of a single panel of glass. I don't have a lot of storage space so I wanted to be able to change the images for the season. I used "Tack-it-over-and-over" glue just on the edges of each collaged image so it only hits the soldered area. This way it can be removed and saved for next Christmas. The Number also has the "Tack-it-over-and-over" glue. Then I have saved the backing paper after I used my xyron so that I can store the images sandwiched between when the time comes. I have already started the "Valentines" images and eventually I will have a set for the entire year.

House of Q

You all are probably getting pretty tired of my photo houses but I am hooked on these … lol. Here is the latest addition to my block party. It was really hard to get a good scan of it as the chain did not want to hang right on the scanner. It features no other than the mighty Quinton himself.

Well you know me … I kept walking past the house of Q in the hallway and I just felt it was not finished so I pulled it down for a “redo” … lol I added the rusted curlies and another rusted snap and it made all the difference.

These can be made any size but the measuring tape on mine are accurate.

House Of Three

I had posted the "House Of Three" last night but I just did not like it. So this morning I disassembled it and remade it. This is my son and his wife’s first house (there will be more featuring these three). I used the number three because they are now 3.

My 58 House

Not my 58th , it is my first photo house. But this photo is of my mom and dad in 1958. Inspired by several artist work, I wanted to create a hallway wall with all the little houses of my family’s life and history. The curlies are chipboard. In real life the chip board curlies do really look like metal. I would love to share the technique with you, if only I knew it. My son provided me with two bottles of his secret rust. I painted on the some of the contents from the first bottle and it looks rust colored. Then when that was dry, I painted on some of the contents of the second bottle. It bumps up and gets flaky and dark in spots and it really looks real rusted metal. Then just for fun I brushed my copper ink pad over that. I just updated the photo. Some of you may remember that I did not feel it was finished. After a few days of thought, I added a keyhole and a little key fringe. I created the fringe by adding eyelets with little keys hanging from it. Although it doesn't look as good on the scanner bed as it does hanging, I think you can get the idea .