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.

On the first day of Christmas crafting, my true love made for me Party Crackers! I found the gorgeous gold star artist paper at Aaron Brothers Frame store and that was my inspiration for the gold and silver party crackers. I have also found lovely papers at Kate’s Paperie for crafting or wrapping. A Cracker is usually filled with little gifts and shared by two people who pull the cracker apart by the sides, winner takes the loot! Here are the supplies I used for these festive crackers.

1)  2 empty rolls of toilet paper, one cut in half for the 2 sides

2) Piece of Art paper to cover the rolls

3) Clear Tape to tape the edges to the rolls

4) Aleene’s® Original Tacky Glue™ for trims

5) silver doilies, and tinsel

6) Victorian scraps and Art Chix Studio scraps

Claire Selby Glittered Ornament

For this large glass ornament I decided to trap a fairy girl image from Art Chix Studio inside along with glitter and Angel Hair tinsel! To place the fairy inside you need to cut out an image that is narrow and then gently roll it into a loose scroll, adding Aleene’s® Original Tacky Glue™ to the bottom of the image. Lower her in place with fingers or tweezers. You can then add glitter and tinsel or beads and buttons to the inside letting it dry over night. For the Outside I painted Pearl X pigment in salmon on the top and then glued White and blue glitter to the top and bottom of the ornament. This looks cute on display or on a Christmas tree!