Claire Selby one of a kind Paperdoll

On the 9th Day of Christmas my true love assembled for me…a dancing lady Paperdoll! This Festive gal has lots of style, in her bright pink dress to her almost Zebra like tights, she is ready for dancing! My Dancing Paperdoll started out as an Artchix Studio image that I adorned with German Dresden white wings for a feathery bonnet! Turned upside down the wings made me thing of Odette’s headpiece from Swan Lake! For the arms I recycled a West Elm fabric swatch by gluing it to cardstock with Aleene’s® Original Tacky Glue™ and then cutting out the upper and lower arms once it dried. The legs were vintage calligraphy pages also glued to cardstock, but I chose to cut these out as one piece. The dress is also Recycled from an Amy Butler scrapbooking paper scrap. I added the pretty tartan ribbon printed from Sandra Evertson’s book. And to finish her off, she is festooned with a glittered garland cutout from a Martha Stewart glittered card kit. She is truly an assembled lady, it feels great recycling things I have and repurposing items I own to make something new!

Claire Selby one of a kind Paperdoll close up

This Swan card started out as a winged beauty from Artchix Studio atop lots of paper scraps! I added the German Dresden Swan wings with Aleene’s® Original Tacky Glue™. The edges of the card are all Colorbox pigment inked. I also embellished the card with the rose ribbon and the Close to My Heart Crystal accents. She is a sparkling swan beauty ready for the New Year!

My true Love crafted for me…5 Decorated window panes! My Christmas window features Vintage Christmas cards & Sheet Music, some have been in our family for generations! For my window frame I covered it in blue Acrylic Paint with red and green around the trim. I glued the cards to the front of the glass panes with Aleene’s® Original Tacky Glue™, and then glued the vintage sheet music to the backs. For the finishing touch I applied gel medium and Pearl X pigments to the top of the glass panes and the cards. If you want to make copies of vintage papers and cards to use in your artwork make sure they are printed by a toner printer not inkjet, or the ink will run and bleed.

On the 3rd day of Christmas my true Love stitched for me….3 Fancy Pillows! For my fancy pillows I used 100%  Cotton quilting fabric mostly found at Fabric.com. For my tufted Pumpkin Pillow I used the delicate floral Amy Butler Midwest Modern Poppies fabric, cut into 5- 20″ long wedges, I then stitched these together and filled with 2 big bags of stuffing. The Bright pink and red Pumpkin Pillow was made from the lovely Jennifer Paganelli Bell Bottom fabric, making sure every wedge was cut in the exact same spot so they would line up well when sewn together. My Red Silk edged pillow was stitched from Beth Ann Bruske fabric from several years back, it has the perfect Christmas feel to it. I printed a family photo on printer treated cotton fabric and stitched that atop Amy Butler scraps from my Pumpkin pillow! Nothing going to waste! Even small scraps were used to cover the buttons on the tufted pillow!

On the 2nd day my true love crafted for me…. 2 Party Crowns! Great for the holidays, celebrations and just plain being a girl, crowns are fun to make, wear and decorate with. I crafted my first crown from a Vintage Crown image found at Graphics Fairy printed on cotton fabric treated for the printer. I then hand stitched it to a 12″ pillow made from Robyn Pandolph quilt fabric. The pillow sides are sweetly trimmed with pink and ivory cotton ribbons, seam binding and vintage lace.

For my second party crown I created a cone base from vintage sheet music painted with big blue circles. I then added the chunky transparent glitter to the entire crown by first thickly painting on Aleene’s® Original Tacky Glue™. Once dry I trimmed the Crown in pompoms, a ribbon rose and my hand dyed Pink Tinsel. Pink tinsel is quick and easy to make, check out my earlier tutorial HERE.