Today is my day! Everyone gets to open my giftie - I hope they like it. I always like to make the wrap part of the gift. So I stitched little muslin bags, stamped the text in Brilliance ink This is my favorite ink for fabric - so long as it won't be washed - just make sure your pad is well inked. Then I backed the striped fabric with Ultrabond and cut out simple tree shapes and pressed them to each bag with an iron. I edged the trees with faux stitching using a Micron pen. That was the simple part!
Next came the closure. I didn't want a drawstring, but something more mechanical. In my studio I found these old fashioned candle clips for Christmas trees. Perfect! One problem - I didn't have enough clips, so off to Ebay I went. I found the clips easily, bid on them and won them - woohoo! Just a note: according to Ebay I had not bought anything there since 2005?!! WOW!
Once getting the clips I cut out the candle holder part with tin snips, then glued vintage tinsel in place, punched out 2 circles of cardstock, stamped the smaller circle with the #10 and glued them into place. Voila!
Next came the ornament itself. I wanted something that reflected all the artistic sides of me. Collage, sewing, jewelry and vintage were all aspects of my creative personality that I wanted to convey. Again in my studio I found a bag of old wooden thread spools. Hmmm... those would be perfect except they were full of thread and WAY to big. So again - off to Ebay - VBG! Of course I managed to find exactly what I needed.
At the local used book store, The Book Barn (an incredible used book store like none other you have ever been to) I found a children's book of Christmas Carols. I tore strips to fit each spool and glued in place. Next I applied glossy accents to the spools top & bottom edges and dipped them into Diamond Dust glitter (gotta have glitter!). For the hanger part I formed wire with a loop on the bottom, fed that through a Vintage MOP button and glued the button to the bottom of the spool. Once it dried I thread on a giant glass pearl and a crystal and finished forming the hanger. I added a crystal dangle on the bottom and I was done!
