Hi everyone — it’s Lisa here! Get ready to deck the halls this week — I have bunches of holiday decorating ideas to share with you.  I thought I’d start off with one of my favorites — trees!

These trees are sure to brighten up your table or mantle place!  They also make a great gift for the person who has everything.   Give them one or a trio, then watch their eyes light up!  You can personalize the tree to match their decor.  And, they are perfect for mailing since they are lightweight and won’t break during shipping!

Basic Instructions For All Trees

The basic instructions are the same for all of the trees — details on each tree are below, so keep on reading…

1. Cover a Styrofoam cone with plain cardstock or patterned paper.
2. Stamp a DesignBlock on the front and back of three notecards — since DesignBlocks are so BIG they cover the whole side in one swoop!
3. Emboss, then punch out circles or cut into strips and adhere to the tree with glue.
4. Add bling!  I used Hero Arts Gemstones and pearls, plus mirrors from the craft store.
   

Details on the Cream Tree

For this one, I stamped the the DesginBlock Big Holiday Words on white with brown pigment ink and embossed with clear sparkle  powder.  Then I roughly cut out the words in strips and distressed the edges, and glued it to the tree to make garland.

I stamped on the mirrors with snowflakes using White Staz On ink before adding them to the tree.  It’s impossible to get a good shot of them because the stamped image reflects in the mirror.  Trust me tho, it looks neat.  Here’s a tip: don’t be surprised if the clear stamp sticks to the mirror — they are super clingy!

Finally, I put a large Felt Snowflake on the tree top with a mirror behind it so it would show up better.

Details on the Blue Tree

This is the peaceful tree of the trio.  I used the blues from the Winter Notecards pack — love them! I  stamped the DesignBlock Stunning Snowflakes with baby blue pigment ink, then embossed one half of each notecard in white and the other half in sparkle clear embossing powder.  Then I cut them into strips and tore the strip in twos.  Hero notecards are white inside, so when you tear the edge you get that white distressed look — kinda reminds me of snow.

To finish off, I added Felt Snowflakes with straight pins, then hid the pin with a Smooth Gemstone.

Details on the Red + Green Tree

I kinda went crazy on this one, hee hee — was going for sort of a mod/retro look.  I used red + green glittery embossing powder from Stewart Superior.  Check out the embossed notecards before I punched out the circles — aren’t they yummy?

I used VersaMark ink to stamp with — all of the color that you see is from the embossing.

I used three different sizes of circle punches — things always look better in threes to me.  Then after I adhered the punched circles I added Felt Poinsettias with a Smooth Gemstone in the center.

Supplies For All:

• DesignBlock Big Holiday Words (for cream tree)
• DesignBlock Stunning Snowflakes (for blue tree)
• DesignBlock Holly Flourish (for red + green tree)
• Clear Design Owl Christmas (for the snowflakes stamped on the mirrors)
• Smooth Gemstones
• Medium Pearl Accents
• Felt Snowflakes
• Felt Poinsettias and Leaves
• Snowflake Gemstones
• Sparkle Embossing Powder
• White Embossing Powder
• Winter, Crimson, Green Apple and Green Notecards
• VersaMark Ink
• White StazOn ink (for stamping on the mirrors)
• VersaColor Baby Blue, Bark pigment inks
• Other: Circle punches (EK Success, Marvy Uchida), cream linen-look paper for cream tree background (Bo Bunny), green and white 12×12 cardstock, Styrofoam cones, little mirrors (they can be found at craft stores, don’t remember who makes mine), paper distresser (Tonic), pins, glue (Crafter’s Pick), red + green super sparkle embossing powder (Stewart Superior)

Now for this week’s challenge: using at least one Hero Arts stamp, create something to deck your halls!  Submit it to the Hero Arts Flickr Group Photo Pool by Sunday, October 5th at 11:59 PM PST.  Tag it with the code word “deckthehalls” — that’s “deck” + “the” + “halls” — all  together with no spaces.  It can be any holiday from now until December — including Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Be creative and have fun — and get started on your decorating early this year!  Plus, if you use a stamp from the 2008 Winter Catalog, you can also submit it for the current “Win A Day” contest! Just add a second tag “winter2008″.  Click on the link by the Santa Owl over there in the sidebar for full details.

Here are the prizes:

• 1st place: $50 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog
• 2nd place: $25 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog
• 3rd place: $10 of new Hero Arts stamps + a 2008 catalog

I can’t wait to see what you come up with!  I have tons of ideas to share with you this week, including magnets, candles and more!

But in the meantime…how about a GIVEAWAY?  My friend John from Stewart Superior has donated three sets of super yummy embossing powders that I used!  Feast your eyes:

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post with your favorite tunes to listen to while stamping.  I’ll announce the three random winners on Wednesday.  Thanks so much, John!  [Edited to add: The contest is now closed and the winners have been announced HERE.]

See you tomorrow, when I have a fast, fun project to share.  I’ll also be online from 6-7 pm PST to answer any questions that you may have!  That’s 6 pm PST, 7 pm MST, 8 pm CST and 9 pm EST. Please ask your questions on tomorrow’s post so that they don’t get lost today with the giveaway going on.  You can post them anytime tomorrow before the chat starts, tho!  

[Edit at 9:51 am PST: just fixed a typo in the times -- sorry about that!  :)]

Can’t wait to hear what tunes y’all listen to — I need some new ones to add to my playlist!  Oh and for the record (ha ha, sorry, bad pun!), I was listening to Feist when I did these.  Love her voice + Mushaboom!

Until tomorrow,

Filed under: deckthehalls

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 4:04 am and is filed under Motivation Mondays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.