Handcrafted Holiday Blog Hop

If you are coming from Michelle's  blog, then welcome!  This blog hop is a great big circle so you can work your way around.  If you get lost along the way, you'll find a complete list of participating Consultants here.

One of my favorite activities during the Christmas season is to visit Temple Square in Salt Lake City to enjoy the beautiful Christmas lights.  The display that I enjoy the most is the section featuring luminaries that represent countries all over the world. My project this month is a nod towards those beautiful luminaries that I love so much.

This first one is made using a box from the Artiste cartridge as the base (page 39).  It is cut from Twilight Cardstock, has strips of Silver Shimmer Tape around the top edge and is painted along the edges with Pearl Paint.  It is topped with a square of Frosted Background and Texture paper, a circle cut from silver glitter paper and a snowflake cutout.  This is a super easy project that would make a thoughtful gift or a bright addition to your holiday decor.

This is a screen shot of what the box looks like in Cricut Craft Room.  The snowflake is from the Art Philosophy cartridge (page 30) and the snowman is from the new Artbooking cartridge (page 77). If you link your cartridges to your computer, you are able to pull images from any cartridge that you own for a project--I love having that versatility!  Before folding your box, using the Bonding Memories glue pen, adhere a square of white tissue paper over each of the four images. 

This next group of luminaries is made from paper bags.  I found some sturdy bags at Michael's that worked well for this project.  A regular lunch bag would be a bit flimsy.  Rather than cutting the design from the bag itself, I cut the images from cardstock then adhered it over an opening that I cut in the bag.  I found it easiest to trace the shape of the overlay on my bag, then I cut it out with scissors about 1/2" inside the line and then erase the pencil marks before adhering the overlay.   I wish the photo did justice to how beautiful these luminaries look in the dark--stunning!  

 Here is a screen shot that shows the different images that I combined to make the overlay.  You need to use the "Hide Contour" function to remove the hearts from the scalloped frame.  To do this, you simply hightlight the frame, click on the "hide contour" button, then hover over each heart and click on it when the outline is red.  I had to stretch the deer image vertically to make it fit in the frame the way that I wanted to.  I love how you can manipulate images in Craft Room to fit your specific project!  Once you have everything layered the way that you want it, highlight the entire image and group it using the "group" button on the top of the page so that you can move the image around on your page.  The deer and the frame are from the Artbooking cartridge (pages 57 & and 84).  The font is from Art Philosophy.

Here's a great tip to make cutting the opening in the bag for the scalloped snowman piece.  I cut an oval that is the size that the opening needs to be and used this to trace the cutting line on the bag--that made it super easy to make sure that you cut the opening the correct size.

This screen shot shows the three images that you combine to make the tree overlay.  The tree and the snowflakes are from the Artbooking cartridge (pages  66 & and 76).  You need to use the "Hide Contour" feature to eliminate the holes in the scallops on the frame (page 50 Art Philosophy) and also to isolate the snowflakes from the overlay.  I also find it helpful to eliminate any extra holes that I can from the snowflakes so that it will cut faster and cleaner. 

 

Here are some of my finds:  I used the kraft-colored "Day of week bags shown in the photo for my luminaries.  You are cutting out the front section, so it doesn't matter that they have words printed on them.  Michael's also has a selection of smaller bags in colors.  I found the small bag of accent gems at the dollar store--this would be great to include with a set of bags that you could use for gifts.  The accent gems work well to weight your bags so they don't blow away--much better than using sand!  The 24-pack of battery-operated tea lights are from Joanne and were a great price with a half-off coupon. 

I hope that you have fun making some luminaries to brighten your holiday!  You won't want to miss the great ideas the Blythe Shupe has for you on her blog!