Holiday Banners

Happy Holidays and welcome to day 8 of our Holiday Hoopla here at the Crafting Journals! This is Lenore and I am going to share with you one of my favorite holiday projects - altering inexpensive chipboard books into banners.

Chipboard books can be found in the dollar bins in Michael's and I used supplies I already had on hand. (These were purchased last year and were in my stash.)

  

Just take them off the ring. Select your favorite holiday papers and get started. Below are some of the basic supplies I have used on my snowman chipboard pieces:

Step 1: Trace the chipboard piece onto the backside of your paper. Then cut out using a scissor or craft knife. 

Step 2: Adhere paper to chipboard. I am a huge fan of using a glue stick for attaching paper to chipboard. But of course you can use your preferred adhesive. I find the glue stick adheres  the paper really well to the chipboard with no bubbling like with liquid adhesives and you can get the adhesive onto all the entire surface easily. 

Step 3: Ink the edges. I also love the Prima chalk inks for inking the edges of the chipboard pieces. Love the pointed edge to get the ink into tight spaces! Or instead of ink you can add Stickles or glitter or dimensional snow on the edges. 

Step 4: Embellish, embellish and embellish! Here is where you can customize the banner any way you want by adding stickers, letters,felt, more glitter or snow. Just have fun with it!!

Step 5: String chipboard pieces onto ribbon or twine. (Sorry for the bad pictures. I would have loved to have hung these up to photograph for you but we are in the midst of a remodeling project and there is no good place to take photographs at the moment.)

And that's it! You have a beautiful customized holiday banner to hang in your home for the holidays or to give as a gift! I am gifting some of mine to some family members this Christmas but shhh....don't tell them!

Below are some of the different chipboard pieces I created : 

Or you can also use the chipboard pieces on packages, wreaths. etc. They are so much fun to make.

Wishing you all a wonderful Holiday! Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered to win the awesome goodie box we are giving away at the end of our Holiday Hoopla!

Glass Ornament Wreath

Ho!  Ho!  Ho!  Tracey here on day 7 of our Holiday Hoopla crafting!  I'm here to show you how to make the coolest wreath for your holiday décor.  I got the idea from my friend Karen... I was TOTALLY blown away and inspired by her gorgeous wreath, so I decided to make my own.

You will need a wreath base (I used a flat backed, 12 inch Styrofoam wreath), hot glue gun, strong twine, silver garland (I used two strands), and a lot of glass ornaments in a variety of sizes. 

In the photo below, you can see the Styrofoam wreath has already been wrapped in one strand of silver garland.  It's not necessary, but I used two strands for added fullness.  After you wrap it with the garland you will cut a 14" piece of strong twine.  Tie it around the wreath into a knot on the back (making that the top of the wreath).  You will then tie a loop to use for hanging when your wreath is done.

The beauty of this project is you can use whatever extra embellishments you want to make it your own.  I added glittered pine cones, glittered birds, and bottle brush trees to mine.

All of my glass ornaments were purchased new.  However, I wanted to add a bit of a vintage touch and found some faux vintage style ornaments at Home Goods (the colorful striped ones in the photo below).  According to Karen you can use a little sandpaper on new ones to give them an aged look as well.

Now that you have all of your glass ornaments and embellishments, it's time to start putting it together.  There is no right or wrong way to do this.  In general, you want to start with the bigger glass ornaments and cluster them around the wreath.  In between them I tucked in my glittered pine cones and birds.  Then, I went back and filled in with my smaller glass ornaments and bottle brush trees.

A couple of tips:  Step back at times to look at your wreath from a distance to make sure you are keeping the wreath "shape."  Be sure to use enough hot glue to really secure all the pieces together.

So, that's it!  You will want to make them for your friends and family once you see how easy it is and how beautiful the results are.  : )  Don't forget to leave a comment here and on all of our other Holiday Hoopla posts so you can be in the running to win a jam packed crafting goodies box.

Until next time...

Guest Post: DIY Satin Fabric Floral Headband

Hi Crafting Journals readers! I'm Tara from Spot of Tea Designs! My blog is all about my adventures in crafting, party planning, baking, home decorating, and being a newlywed and new mom! I'm so honored to guest post here at The Crafting Journals, as I have worked with many of the authors and have been inspired by them for years!

This past August, my husband and I welcomed our first daughter into our life and I've been finding ways to craft for her as much as I can. I started a baby scrapbook, made several wall décor pieces for her nursery, and created a name garland to hang at the hospital. Today I want to share a tutorial showing how I made the floral headband she wore for our Christmas Card photo shoot!

Supplies:

Satin Fabric

Tulle (I used red and white)

Scrap of felt

Crochet Headband (I bought the Celebrate It brand at Michaels)

Silver Clips (I bought the Simplicity brand at Walmart)

Needle and Thread

Scissors

Buttons

Candle

Optional: Tongs

 

1. Cut different sized circles from the satin fabric and tulle. Don't worry about making a perfect circle shape. In fact, I think they look better when they're not!

 

 

 

2. Use tongs to hold the satin fabric circles over a candle. As you get closer to the flame, you will notice that the ends will curl in slightly due to the heat. Please be careful with this step and don't set the fabric on fire! You might even want to keep a bowl of water nearby in case you get too close!

3. Layer the satin circles on top of one another, mixing in the different colors of tulle. Again, I personally like the look when the pieces are not perfectly center. Use a needle and thread to secure the pieces together, sewing a button in the center of the flower.

 

 

4. Sew the finished layered flowers on a piece of felt and sew silver clips on the back. For this particular design, I made three little flowers and since it was so long of finished piece, I sewed it onto two silver clips.

Clip the silver clips onto the crochet headband to wear! The best part: since its attached with clips, you can mix and match different flowers and accents onto the headband for endless possibilities!

 

I hope this post will inspire you to make your own satin flower headbands for you or a friend! For more crafts for little ones, (or to see how the photo shoot went), visit me over at Spot of Tea Designs or follow me on Pinterest, Twitter or Bloglovin'!

No Ordinary Card

Hi Hoopla fans!

Cindy, here. I have a fun and easy card to make that is actually a mini album in disguise. (Big surprise, me making an mini album. Lol.) I'm going with the Christmas theme here but it can be made for any special occasion.

First, gather fun themed papers, embellishments and cardstock. I chose these happy papers and layered die-cuts by K&Co.

Score a 12"x12" sheet at the 3" and 9" marks. Rotate and score at 3" and 9" again. Cut out the four 3"x3" corners and crease on all fold lines. (I chose a double-sided paper for added interest.)

I liked the colorful bulb side more as the front of my card so I turned it upside down to work on the inside first.

Cut four white panels measuring  2-3/8" x 5-3/8" and adhere them to four kraft mats measuring 2-1/2" x 5-1/2". Cut eight patterned squares measuring 2-3/8" x 2-3/8" and adhere them to eight kraft squares measuring 2-1/2" x 2-1/2". Set aside four of these finished squares for the front. Glue down the remaining squares and panels to the card as shown below. As you can see, any one of these panels can be used for photos or journaling. Lots of space to play with.

Determine the sentiment for the front of your card. I chose to punch out a stamped Inkadinkadoo greeting. I used a Wink of Stella Zig brush pen to add silver glittery edges to the EK Success star punch.

Now, fold over all four edges one by one. (I chose to go counter-clockwise.) Tuck in the last edge to lock the card closed. Add embellishments to three of the squares and adhere to the front of card, along with the sentiment square.

Done! (Or, are we? Want to know a secret? There are even more spaces to add photos on the front of those flaps. They're just hidden by the folding over!)

Wouldn't this be a great post-holiday keepsake to send to family? Or even, one to keep propped up on an easel to enjoy all year?

I hope you're inspired to use this card/album idea for your next fun event. I'd love to hear your ideas. Remember, too, commenting on all of our Holiday Hoopla posts will give you the chance to win a mega prize package at the end of our run. Do come back tomorrow for another fun craft idea. Til then...