snowman in his snow cave

Cindy Spence here for one more ornament. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with their family and friends. It's hard to believe that the month is almost over!! I had fun as a guest designer this month and for my last ornament I made a cute little snowman in a snow cave.

For the snow cave:
small balloon
white crochet thread
Stiffy fabric stiffener

Cut three or four yards of crochet thread, wind into a ball. Make three or four balls, depending on the size of the balloon and how much space you want between threads. Place the thread balls in a ziploc bag and cover the thread balls with fabric stiffener. You can soak the thread balls for a few hours, but it should be fine to work with immediately. Squish the thread balls in the bag of stiffener to help facilitate the distribution of fluid. Wrap the thread around the inflated balloon. Repeat wrapping the balls of thread until you are happy with the amount covering the balloon.
Let dry a day or so. After the thread is dry, pop balloon and remove balloon.

Find a cute snowman stamp of your choice. I colored my snowman with my beloved Copic markers. Cut out the snowman shape.

Cut an opening in the side of your dry thread shell. Layer the bottom of the inside with cotton "snow". I glued additional fake snowflakes to the top of this foundation. Glue a piece of fake pine to the back wall of the shell to represent a tree. Next glue Mr. Snowman inside his snow cave. Decorate the opening with a ribbon of your choice, and accent the opening with pretty poinsettia embellishments. Add a ribbon hanger, and you are done!

snowflake ornament within an ornament

Another fun ornament within an ornament. Start with a large plastic ball ornament. Use snow flake rub-ons. These particular rub-ons looked good on both sides, so I was able to use them on the inside of the ball. However, you can use the rub-ons on the outside of the ball, too. Next, paint one half of the ornament ball with a metallic blue. Leave the other half unpainted. Hang an ornament on the inside with an ornament of your choice. I had this pretty silver snowflake ornament on hand, but I think this would look fabulous with the Spellbinders Nestabilities. Attach the two plastic ball halves together. Glue a pretty and shiny complimentary ribbon around the seam. Finally add a ribbon hanger.

Here Comes Santa Claus

Graphic 45 paper background, K & Company embossed stickers, paper mache circle ornament or empty ribbon spool. Coating of Mod Podge

I {HEART} Christmas

Making Memories button embellishment
Lace
Graphic 45 paper
K & Company embossed stickers
heart paper mache ornament
Mod podge

snow flakes and ice

I think I have been having way too much fun decorating the plastic ornament balls. This is another simple ornament with fantastic results. All you need is a large plastic ornament ball, Hero Arts felt snowflakes, pretty ribbon, and
Mod Podge.

Paste a layer of Mod Podge on the inside of the plastic ball. Layer different colors of the snow flakes on top of the Mod Podge and paste a thick layer of Mod Podge on top of the snowflakes and in between. This will give the areas between the snowflakes an almost ice-like appearance when dry.

After the inside is dry, attach the two halves together and disguise the seam with a pretty ribbon of your choice. My favorite ribbon was the May Arts Iridescent taffeta ribbon in purple, and I thought this ribbon complimented the color in the snowflakes. I toned down this ribbon color by gluing a pretty white ribbon on top.

I used additional ribbon for my hanger.

It was hard to capture the beauty of this ornament in the light with the camera. The dried Mod Podge creates a very beautiful ice-like appearance inside the ball. So simple and so pretty.

Button Ornaments

What can I say? I love buttons. The different shapes, sizes, and oh, the colors!! I was inspired to create an ornament when I was looking at the subtle variations from the white buttons and thought that would make one cool (and simple!) ornament. I started with a paper mache ornament ball. I painted the ball with a white pearl metallic paint. After the paint was dry, I proceeded to hot glue gun my buttons around the ball. That's it! Simple and beautiful. I want to try this again with different color combinations.

Paper Christmas Tree centerpiece

I used a vintage pattern from my grandma to make this paper centerpiece. I traced the pattern on three different Paper Loft Home for the holidays paper. Cut out the design with small scissors or an exact-o knife. You can either use glue down the middle, or staple or sew down the middle of the design.

Paper Mache Sculptures at the Fair

The Volusia County Fair.
The mermaid and dancer were placed in two different categories. The mermaid was in the arts and crafts section and the dancer was placed in the fine arts section. They both won first place! Woohoo! The mermaid also won Best in Class. Awesome.
















The dancer. Also known as my mom's Christmas present.



















The mermaid amongst other first place winners. She's waving hi!

Vintage Ornaments and BLOG CANDY

Today I have a couple of ornaments created with decoupage and Graphic 45 Christmas Past papers, but instead of using a clear plastic ornament as the base, I used a paper mache ball from the Paper Maniac store. It was so easy (although messy) and looks so vintage. I love how this came out.

For the next ornament, which was done in a plastic ball (see my previous post for directions) I wanted the picture of the girl to really stand out. I actually cut her from the front cover of the paper pad. My mother always taught me to use every scrap of paper! The Santa is from the other side of the ornament. He is also from the cover.

So I know most of you REALLY came looking for the blog candy. I am really enjoying my time here as guest designer for Paper Maniac, and I am so lucky to be able to offer this great candy here on my new blog. So I don't have a photo yet, but I am pretty sure you know the product. If not, just click the links to check it out in the store. The winner will get a Graphic 45 Christmas Past Paper Pad, A Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses 6" x 6" pad, and a jar of Robin's Nest Dew Drops. How fun is that? I think the papers were selected because they are my favorite companies.

All you have to do to win is leave a comment here on this post by Sunday November 15. That's it. Winner will be randomly selected on Monday.

I am off to the Volusia County Fair now to see how my paper mache sculptures did in the judging. You can see them in the Paper Maniac Gallery: Mermaid and Colorful Dancer. Keep your fingers crossed!

A Renaissance Christmas

Hello again. I am having such a good time as a guest designer for Paper Maniac this week, and an even better time thinking about Christmas ornaments. This is so much fun!

It's not really a Christmas paper, but I absolutely love, love, love the Renaissance Faire Graphic 45 paper that Paper Maniac has in the store. I wanted to create something to help show off the paper's beauty. The plastic ball ornaments were a perfect way to do just that! This one is the 100 mm size. They are perfect for creating because they come in two halves to make it easy to do what you want to do.

It was really pretty easy to make:

I started by selecting my paper and cutting around the images that I wanted.

I brushed a layer of Mod Podge on the inside of the ball. I placed my primary pictures first and then layered
the background images, using as much Mod Podge as I needed for the images to stay where I wanted them.


After the inside of the ball was completely dry, I pasted the two halves of the ball together.

Next I covered the seams with a pretty ribbon or trim. I chose a pretty pearl ribbon that I felt complimented the whole Renaissance theme of my ornament. There are some pearl and pretty metallic trims at Paper Maniac that would be prefect.

I completed the ornament by hot gluing clay flowers to the top in a circular pattern around the hanger. Finally I added a ribbon as an ornament hanger.

Thank you for making me feel so welcome on the Paper Maniac Design Team. Like I said before, I am having the time of my life. And this blogging thing is kind of fun too.

I will be back in a few days with something else to share with you.

Home for Christmas

Hi! My name is Cindy Spence and I am super excited to be a guest design team member for Paper Maniac. I have been inspired by all the neat products that are out there and have been working nonstop to make all different kinds of ornaments.


Today I am going to show you a really unique way to use your shaped satin ribbon. This has turned into one of my absolutely favorite ornaments.

Start with using a small to medium sized balloon; however big you want your ornament.

Tape an end of the satin leaves ribbon to the balloon using a small piece of tape.

Then just work the ribbon around the ballon any way you want, using as much ribbon as you want. Just be sure to leave enough room on one end for an opening for our bird later on.

Tuck the end piece under a piece of ribbon.

Next apply Stiffy fabric stiffener to the ribbon.

Unfortunately, I am an impatient person and I wanted the ribbon a little stiffer. I know if I had waited for the ribbon to completely dry, I would have reached my desired results. Instead, I decided to also apply Mod Podge to the ribbon. What can I say? I'm an experimenter. This definitely worked in obtaining the desired stiffness of the ribbon I was looking for. However, it does make things a little more difficult when it comes to removing the dried ribbon from the deflated balloon.

After the dried ribbon form is completed, add rafia to the inside of the ribbon form.

Finally, add your bird. I had taken this little wood bird form that I had lying around the house and painted him into a stylized cardinal.

Affix the bird to the inside of the ribbon nest with hot glue. Attach additional leaf ribbon to the top to use as your ornament hanger.

I hope you enjoyed this little ornament. I will be back in a few days with something new. I just started a blog for this guest designer gig, and I would love it if you came to visit and left me a little note!

An Oil Painting with Basic Grey

Who says a painter can't be a papercrafter too? When I first saw my mother's collection of Basic Grey papers, I fell in love with them. I painted this picture for my mom, although I am not sure whther the painted picture or the surrounding area is the real focus. It definitely turned out to be a mixed media piece.

The bedroom I was creating the painting for is decorated in rich fall colors. I painted the bare tree against a colorful autumn sunset. I framed the painting with some wooden moldings. The outside area was first distressed with a mixture of paints and inks, and then I placed papers from a Basic Grey Sublime paper pad surrounding the painting. I then stamped leaf images with paint using large foam stamps I found at Michael's. The top layer is real autumn leaves I had collected on a drive through the countryside and had preserved with sealant.

I may not be a scrapbooker, but I can appreciate a great artistic paper when I see one and find a way to incorporate it into something creative!

Thanks for coming by. I am new to the bloggin world and appreciate your finding me here. Come back again to see what I have been up to. In November I am going to be a guest designer for the fantastic online papercrafting store Paper Maniac, so I will have lots of unique ornaments to share!