December 1, 2020Celebrate, Create, Inspiration

Merry Little Christmas: DIY Tags & Ornaments

Close To My Heart3-D, ball, christmas, Decor, dimensional, festive, Holiday, holly, joy, Merry Little Christmas, ornaments, snowflake, tags, tree, wood 1 Comment

DIY Wood Tags & Ornaments #ctmh #closetomyheart #ctmhmerrylittlechristmas #merrylittlechristmas #diyornaments #diytags #christmastags #christmasornaments

The holidays are a time for fun, family, and tradition. One of the most anticipated activities of the year is decorating the house in its festive finest. From the Christmas tree to the lights outside, decorating for the holidays allows you to turn your home into your own piece of art! To help you in this artistic endeavor, we want to show you some fun ways to add a truly personal touch to your home décor with the Merry Little Christmas special!

The Merry Little Christmas special includes three wood ornament options and two wood tag options to bring some three-dimensional fun to your holiday decorations. These beautiful ornaments and tags are the perfect way to add your own festive touch to the boughs of your tree and the gifts under it!

These tags and ornaments are made of sturdy wood pieces, and they not only look fantastic, but are super easy and fun to make! Each ornament is constructed by fitting two interlocking pieces to form gorgeous 3-D decorations. Once they’ve been fitted together, they can be easily secured with a bit of glue and strung onto some decorative thread for a festive finishing touch.

Before you fit your ornament pieces together, you’ll want to think about how to decorate them. Each ornament and tag come with a coordinating digital file, so you can cut perfect paper overlays to complement your Christmas creations!

In addition to decorating with these digital art file cut-outs, you can also embrace the natural wood look and keep your embellishing to a minimum. This round wood ornament is lightly decorated with just a few dots of Liquid Pearls ™, and the results are stunning!

For a more colorful look that still retains some of the natural wood finish, try using re-inkers, TriBlend™ markers, glitter gels, glitter glues, texture pastes, embossing powders, or our new Distress Oxide ™ inks.

For the Christmas tags that have small cut-outs, you can even put a piece of your favorite pattern or glitter paper behind it for a peek-a-boo effect, or two attach two tags together, back-to-back, for some added dimension. These wood pieces can also be stamped on, so add your own choice of patterns or sentiments!

No matter how you choose to decorate your ornaments and tags, or where you place them in your home, the Merry Little Christmas special is a wonderful way to combine your Christmas cheer with your natural creativity! It also provides a great opportunity for you to craft with the people that you love! They’re incredibly easy to put together, and your loved ones will have a blast creating them with you! Who knows—this could even be start of a beautiful new Christmas crafting tradition!

Recipes:

Snowflake Ornament
CC11207 3-D Snowflake Wood Ornaments, Z3833 Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide™ Ink Pad, Z4253 Silver Embellishing Thread, Z3886 Mini Ink Blending Tool, Z3440 Dual-tip Permanent Glue Pen

Tree Ornament
CC11208 3-D Tree Wood Ornaments, Z3837 Mowed Lawn Distress Oxide™ Ink Pad, Z3831 Peeled Paint Distress Oxide™ Ink Pad, Z4054 Gold Embellishing Thread, Z3792 Bisque Liquid Pearls™, Z3799 Carnation Red Liquid Pearls™, Z3791 White Opal Liquid Pearls™, Z3440 Dual-tip Permanent Glue Pen

Round Ornament
CC11209 3-D Round Wood Ornaments, Z4253 Silver Embellishing Thread, Z3796 Lavender Lace Liquid Pearls™, Z3791 White Opal Liquid Pearls™

Joy Tag
CC112010 Christmas Wood Tags, M1280 My Acrylix® Merry Christmas Trimmings, X6046 French Vanilla Cardstock, Z3236 Black Glitter Paper, Z8000 Black Exclusive Inks™ Pigment Pad, Z3827 Picked Raspberry Distress Oxide™ Pad, Z3828 Tattered Rose Distress Oxide™ Pad, Z3806 Moon Dust Stickles™ Glitter Gel, Z3568 Black Velvet Ribbon, Z4100 Multicolor Small Brush Pen Set, Z3440 Dual-tip Permanent Glue Pen, Z3372 Adhesive Runner

Merry & Bright Tag
CC112011 Wood Tags, Z3901 The Jubilee Crew Stamp + Thin Cuts, X6049 Scarlet Cardstock, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, X9021 Mix-in Paper Packet, Z4189 Intense Black Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z4253 Silver Embellishing Thread, Z3568 Black Velvet Ribbon, Z2533 Dark Red TriBlend™ Marker, Z2487 Jade Green TriBlend™ Marker, Z2068 White Super Fine Embossing Powder, Z4220 Anti-static Pouch, Z4252 Heat Tool, Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape, Z3372 Adhesive Runner

Snowflake Tag
CC112010 Christmas Wood Tags, Z3834 Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide™ Pad, Z3833 Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide™ Pad, Z4253 Silver Embellishing Thread, Z4191 Silver Glitter Gems, Z3884 Stencil Pack 3, Z3886 Mini Ink Blending Tool, Z4245 Opaque Matte Texture Paste

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December 4, 2018Create

DIY Christmas Ornament

Close To My Heartchristmas, crafting, DIY, favor box, ornaments, Papercrafting, Thin Cuts, tradition 3 Comments

If you’re looking to make some personalized ornaments for your Christmas tree this year, you’ve come to the right place! By combining a few photos with the Favor Box Thin Cuts (die), our Oh What Fun papers, and a couple embellishments, we were able to create a memorable (and sturdy!) paper ornament to hang on the tree.

To make a single box ornament:

1. Use your die-cutting machine and cut a base shape out of white cardstock with the Favor Box Thin Cuts.

2. Cut 1¾” squares out of pattern paper to cover the sides of your box. Cut any photos you will be using to the same size. You will need a total of 6 squares, pattern paper and photos.

3. With adhesive, attach loose squares to the sides and bottom of your base before folding it into a box. (Do not attempt to attach the top piece at this time.)

For the top paper, punch holes where the two outer holes are on the base. The easiest way to do this would be to lay the top flap of your base on top of the square pattern paper and punch out the holes.

DIY Paper Christmas Ornament #ctmh #closetomyheart #ctmhohwhatfun #ohwhatfun #diy #diypaperornament #paperornament #diychristmasornament #papercrafting #diychristmas #chrismtasornament

4. Next, fold your base into a box. The video below will walk you through the process of assembling a favor box, from start to finish. For this ornament tutorial, disregard how the ribbon is attached in the video. We will be doing something a little bit different.

5. With your box folded, we are ready to add the ribbon. Because we will be covering the top of the box with another piece of paper, simply string the ribbon through the two outer holes and ignore the one in the middle.

6. Once the ribbon is in, add the top paper to your box.

Tie a knot at the top of your ribbon and you’re all done!

A single box makes a wonderful ornament on its own, but you can double your fun by stringing two boxes together! To make a double box ornament, follow all the steps above to assemble your bottom box, but before tying the ribbon together, you’ll want to assemble a second box, this time punching holes on the bottom flap of the base, too.

The easiest way to do this is to punch the holes out before folding the base to the box shape. With the holes punched, fold your box up. Before closing the top, take the ribbon from your first box and string it through the holes you punched at the bottom of your second box and tie the ribbon inside. Finish the ornament top the same way as described in steps 5 and 6 above.

These ornaments are the perfect way to get crafty this season with the kids, grandkids, and friends! With the right photos and embellishments, these could quite possibly become a holiday favorite!

Recipe:

Favor Box Ornaments
B1638 My Acrylix^® Modern Typewriter Alphabet Stamp Set, X7238B Oh What Fun Paper Packet, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, Z6509 Candy Apple Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z4230 Candy Apple Striped Ribbon, Z4190 Red Pearls, Z4173 Thin Cuts—Favor Box

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November 20, 2018Create, Memory Keeping

New Ways to Document the Holidays

Close To My Heartchristmas, Holidays, mini album, ornaments, Short Story, Story by Stacy, Story Starter, storytelling, traditions 3 Comments

We are always looking for new ways to document this season, and today we have some ideas to share with you about how to do this, especially with Story by Stacy™ workshop kits! The Story by Stacy™ product line reminds us to consider the importance of the story behind our photos. Each workshop kit gives us new tools to keep our scrapbooking fresh and story-focused. You can use all of these ideas today within a Story Starter or Short Story album, but don’t forget you could also incorporate these holiday album themes into any scrapbooking project!

Let’s get started!

We know you have stories and photos between Halloween and Christmas, from family get-togethers to opening gifts on Christmas morning, but have you considered how even the little things about the holidays have stories? Even your ornaments and decorations have memories attached to them. Where did you get them? Was it homemade? Do they commemorate an event or special moment?

These types of small stories are perfect for a Story Starter album. You can use the Story Starter workbook to help you remember the details about your holiday ornaments and write small stories to pair with a photo in the album. By taking time to ask yourself questions to revisit the memories you have, your story will include the details that make these ornaments special.

The focus of the Story Starter album is, of course, the stories and photos you include, but you can add quick seasonal embellishments using a holiday stamp set to make it even more festive. In the album we’re showing you today, we added Candy Apple and New England Ivy images and phrases to our pages from the My Acrylix^® Christmas Countdown stamp set along with accents of gold shimmer trim. Just these simple additions gave our Story Starter album a distinctive holiday look and feel.

Here are some other ideas for Story Starter albums this season:

People or things you are grateful for this year
Tip: Try using the My Acrylix^®Grateful Heart—Scrapbooking stamp set for words and phrases to stamp in a gratitude-themed Story Starter 🙂

Favorite Thanksgiving or Christmas foods
Check out Stacy Julian’s blog here to see how she created a Halloween Story Starter album AND here for an easy way to document the things your family is thankful for in a Story Starter album.

With Story Starter you can pair individual stories and photos together about the same subject, like your Christmas ornaments, but we know that often you just have a lot of photos you want to preserve in a scrapbook. The Short Story format is the answer for you. If you’re anything like us, you’ve taken many, many, many photos during the holidays, and Short Story can help you document those photos by telling a visual story, almost like a picture book, with a summary at the end.

We’ve used Short Story to scrapbook a variety of photos from this little guy’s first few Christmases. He may not remember all the details as he gets big, but this Short Story album will remind him about the fun things he did every year during the holidays. You can combine the patterned paper and embellishments from the workshop kit with a few stamped sentiments and shimmer trim to give your album that special holiday feel. We paired the bright colors of the Short Story patterned paper with the whimsical look of the sentiments in the My Acrylix^® Oh What Fun—Scrapbooking stamp set.

With Short Story, you could focus on one particular Thanksgiving or Christmas or gather photos over a longer period of time to highlight the things that have been family traditions or fun holiday activities. Do you take your kids to see Santa every year? You could create a fun Short Story album that shows Santa photos over many years, and then write a summary about them at the end of your album. It’s a fun way to see how your family has grown or changed over time and see how your traditions look throughout the years.

Family Thanksgiving or Christmas traditions
Christmas morning over the years
Visits to Santa
Christmas vacations

Documenting the holidays doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Use these ideas to create Short Story or Story Starter albums that you can pull out every year to remember everything you love about this season, including your own holiday stories and photos. If 12″ x 12″ is more your style, that’s great too! You can use any of these ideas in your scrapbooking, just remember to focus on the story.

Recipes:

Ornaments Story Starter Album
D1799 My Acrylix^® Christmas Countdown Stamp Set, Z4207 Story by Stacy™ Story Starter Workshop Kit—Dots, Z6509 Candy Apple Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2835 New England Ivy Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z1985 Gold Shimmer Trim

Christmas Short Story Album
D1803 My Acrylix^® Oh What Fun—Scrapbooking Stamp Set, Z4218 Story by Stacy™ Short Story Workshop Kit—Lagoon, Z6509 Candy Apple Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2895 Lagoon Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2807 Willow Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, X7238C Oh What Fun Complements, Z4304 Loose Sequins—Silver, Z1799 Silver Shimmer Trim, Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape

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November 28, 2017Create

O Christmas Tree

Close To My Heartchristmas, ornaments, papercraft, Papercrafting 10 Comments

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree, how lovely are your…paper ornament decorated branches!

That’s right! We went there—decorated a full sized Christmas tree with beautiful ornaments made of paper!

Every year, the South Towne Exposition Center in Sandy, Utah hosts The Festival of Trees, where hundreds of uniquely decorated trees, wreaths, and ginger bread houses are donated and put on display after having been sold during a closed auction. The best part is that every cent raised goes towards “A Gift of Love” to benefit children at Primary Children’s Hospital.

With some help from our Consultants, Close To My Heart decorated a tree with some pretty stunning handmade paper ornaments and donated it to this generous event.

We want to publicly thank all of those who participated in making this gorgeous tree a reality and encourage all of you out there to continue making beautiful, inspiring things!

And since we are now in full holiday crafting mode, we’ve also assembled a handful of mini 18″ trees festooned with papercrafted ornaments for even more inspiration! These trees are the perfect size to display anywhere in your home, at work, or even to give as a gift.

For starters, let any doubts that you may have about making your own paper ornaments disappear. These little ornaments in particular are especially easy to replicate. With a little help from Cricut^® shapes and ready-made complements, you can have one of these trees done in no time!

Round ornaments are a must-have classic. We cut several circles using our Cricut^®(some 1″, some 1¼”) to make the ones you see here. The 3-D circles are four of these circles (all of the same size) folded down the middle then glued to each other. Before gluing the last piece, completing the sphere, add a loop of twine or ribbon to later hang it from the tree. The hearts, snowflakes, reindeer, even the “MERRY CHRISTMAS” garland, are all Cricut^®shapes (see the recipe at the end of this post for details).

Above, we ink embossed some circles with a dainty heart and sewed a bunch of other circles together to create a colorful garland.

Here’s another take on using Cricut^®shapes to decorate your tree:

One of the great things about all of these Cricut^® shapes is that you can make them any size you want—even large enough to decorate a full sized tree if you’d like!

This next tree uses both Cricut^® shapes and die-cuts:

Sometimes you just have to think outside the box, or kit. Do you recognize these gold glitter bows? They came from our Cut Above^® Merry Everything Tag Kit. And the red glitter ornaments? We used some of the Thin Cuts from the Christmas Paper Doll bundle!

Our Complements also make for some great (and easy!) mini ornaments!

The topper, “Merry Christmas,” and red glitter poinsettia shapes all came from our Silver & Gold and Beary Christmas Complements. Easy peasy!

Once again, we thank everyone that participated in creating our beautiful tree that was donated to the Festival of Trees—we hope all of our local readers will be able to attend—and we wish you the merriest of crafting as you create your holiday magic!

RECIPES

3D Circles Mini Tree
X7225B Beary Christmas Paper Packet, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, X5975 Cranberry Cardstock, Z3237 White Glitter Paper, X7225C Beary Christmas Complements, Z3216 White Twine, Z3364 Basics Ribbon Pack, Z3389 Cricut^® You Are Here Collection, Z3285 Cricut^® Flower Market Collection, 18″ Tree

Cricut^® Shapes:
You Are Here
¾” Icon-5 <f> (p. 24, M27629F7)
¾” <font> “MERRYCHRISTMAS”

Flower Market
1″, 1¼” Flower-2 <7> (p. 7, MD38983)
1″ Shift + Title <Bracket> (p. 9, MD400B4)
1″ Shift + Icon <A> (p. 21, MD43349)
¾” Background <c> (p. 33, MD70813)

Circles Garland Mini Tree
D1748 My Acrylix^® Oh Snap! Stamp Set, Z891 VersaMark™ Ink Pad, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, X5941 Bashful Cardstock, X5966 Pansy Cardstock, X5967 Pacifica Cardstock, X5984 Pixie Cardstock, X5978 Glacier Cardstock, X5979 Juniper Cardstock, X5970 Willow Cardstock, X5960 Fern Cardstock, X5971 Lemon Cardstock, X5983 Sorbet Cardstock, X5963 Poppy Cardstock, X5965 Ruby Cardstock, Z3237 White Glitter Paper, Z4014 White & Gold Twine, Z2068 Range™ White Super Fine Embossing Powder, Z555 Craft Heater, Z3285 Cricut^® Flower Market Collection, Sewing Machine, 18″ Tree

Cricut^® Shapes:
Flower Market
¾” Flower-2 <7> (p. 7, #MD389A5)
1¼” Shift + Icon <M> (p. 37, #MD71842)
2″ Shift + Icon <M> (p. 37, #MD71842)

Deer Mini Tree
1385 White Daisy Cardstock, Z3238 Gold Glitter Paper, Z3239 Silver Glitter Paper, Z3216 White Twine, Z3167 Cricut^®Artistry Collection, Z3285 Cricut^® Flower Market Collection

Cricut^® Shapes:
Artistry
1½”<Thksgvng> (p. 45, #M58A32F)

Flower Market
¾”, 2″ Shift + Background <A> (p. 21, MD43349)
2″ Flower-1 <g> (p. 25, MD43349)

Gold Glitter Bows Mini Tree
Z4053 Christmas Paper Doll Stamp + Thin Cuts, X5951 Espresso Cardstock, X5950 Toffee Cardstock, X5959 New England Ivy Cardstock, Z3241 Red Glitter Paper, Z3329 Thin Cuts—Basic Stars, Z4048 Cut Above Tag Kit—Merry Everything, Z3285 Cricut^® Flower Market Collection, Gold Thread, 18″ Tree

Cricut^® Shapes:
1¼”, 1½” Flower-1 <g> (p. 25, MD67851)
1¼” Flower-1 <Holly> (p. 48, MD7AA86)
1¼” Shift + Flower-1 <Holly> (p. 48, MD7AA86)
1¼” Flower-2 <Holly> (p. 48, MD7AA86)
¾”, 1″ Icon <Ponsetta> (p. 49, MD7AF93)
¾”, 1″ Shift + Icon <Ponsetta> (p. 49, MD7AF93)
1″, 1½” Shift + Container <Ponsetta> (p. 49, MD7AF75)

Merry Christmas Tree
X7225B Beary Christmas Paper Packet, X7226B Silver & Gold Paper Packet, X7225C Beary Christmas Complements, Z3216 White Twine, Z3169 Cricut^® Artbooking Collection

Cricut Shapes:
Artbooking
1″ Icon <o> (p. 56, M3D45C)
1″ Shift + Icon <O> (p. 56, M3D45C)

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December 14, 2015Celebrate, Create

Sprucing the Tree and Spreading Good Cheer

base, bling, christmas, donate, donation, gifts, Holiday, hospital, necklace, ornaments, pendant, tree 1 Comment

Do you have some scraps or sheets of leftover holiday-themed paper in your stash? We’ve got a great idea that will help you add some Close To My Heart bling to your tree:

Aren’t they sweet? In addition to being an adorable touch to your tree, they are so quick to make! First, pull out your 1″ circle punch, and cut yourself a circle from your extra holiday paper. Using Glue Dots™, attach that circle to the center of a Base & Bling circle pendant—then embellish it to your heart’s content!

Simple, right? All you have to do now is string a piece of twine—maybe Poppy or Fern—through the top and hang it on your tree!

Unless you’d rather hang it on someone else’s tree!

We recently had the opportunity to donate the materials for this project to Primary Children’s Hospital—a local children’s hospital that is always looking for holiday crafts to do with their patients. We gathered up some of our older holiday papers, Base & Bling pendants, Glue Dots, and twine, boxed up all the crafting fun, and took it to the hospital. We felt privileged to visit a place dedicated to helping kids feel happy and healthy!

It’s rewarding to know that you’ve brought someone joy, even if it was in a small or simple way. If you’ve got a closet brimming with items you don’t use—and we know you do!—consider donating them to a worthy cause. That could be someone’s fundraiser, or else a local hospital, school, daycare center, church, or local arts program, just to name a few!

We know that helping those around you creates the merriest memories of the season, so join us in helping out your local community! Thanks and blessings to you in advance. 🙂

Recipes

Glacier Ornament
X7200B White Pines Paper Packet, Z3153 Base & Bling Circle Pendant—Faux Silver, Z1752 Clear Sparkles, Z3093 Fern Thick Twine, 1772 Memory Book Glue Dots^™

Cheer Ornament
X7200B White Pines Paper Packet, Z3176 Picture My Life^™White Pines Scrapbooking Program, Z3154 Base & Bling Circle Pendant—Faux Gold, Z2012 Sequins Gold Assortment, Z3093 Fern Thick Twine, 1772 Memory Book Glue Dots^™

Tree Ornament
X7200B White Pines Paper Packet, Z3153 Base & Bling Circle Pendant—Faux Silver, Z1263 Bitty Sparkles, Z3093 Fern Thick Twine, 1772 Memory Book Glue Dots^™

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Tag Archives: ornaments

Merry Little Christmas: DIY Tags & Ornaments

DIY Christmas Ornament

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O Christmas Tree

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