pen & paint: December 2011

Friday, December 23, 2011

O Emmanuel

Here they are!
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, three wise men, shepherd and shepherd boy and angel.
This set ended up being for a friend, but I will be making sets for the boys to put in their bedrooms during Advent and Christmas season.
They are sweet reminders of our faith and celebrating Christmas in our family.

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”

Matthew 1:23

Thursday, December 22, 2011

merry and bright

Me: Say, "Merry Christmas!"
Jack: Cheeeeee
Charlie: CANDY

Well, I was promising they could have a Hershey Kiss if we took a picture.

We are wearing Christmas pajamas all day, eating candy canes, finishing up Christmas gifts, and enjoying time with Mr.Wonderful home.

I hope your week has been merry and bright so far.

Friday, December 16, 2011

What to do with all those wine corks.

Surprise! It's more Christmas crafts.

I found the idea for a Christmas tree made from wine corks

in a Martha Stewart magazine probably 6 years ago.

After saving corks for a while I decided it was time to make another one

and this time I changed it up a bit.

Make it happen:

You need a large Styrofoam cone, a hot glue gun,

a knife that will cut through cork,

and about 85 wine corks and one champagne cork.

Starting at the bottom hot glue each cork vertically to the cone

until you make one row.

Change it up and hot glue two rows horizontally.

Continue until you have reached the top.

Hot glue a champagne cork to cover the top of the cone.

Because each wine cork is different you may end up with a gap in your row. You can take a sharp knife and cut a cork to fit the gap, or if you are like me you can just leave the gap and make sure the tree is angled just right on your mantle so no one can see it.

Most likely you are not going to have 85 corks lying around...

unless you are like me and like to ~~hoard~~ save them for craft projects.

But you can start saving for next year,

and have your friends save their corks too.

You never know when you might need to make something out of corks.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

little Christmas hands and feet

Who doesn't love a little hand print or foot print ornament?

I know, stop it with the cuteness.

I got the idea from an Instagram friend, Melissa, who shared a Santa hand print ornament on an embroidery hoop. I had some little mini canvases and thought they would work perfectly for our little hands.

How to make it:

Paint the canvas a solid color and allow to dry.

Take a little hand and liberally apply red to the top part of the hand & thumb,

apply skin tone color to the middle and white to the bottom part and four fingers.

{The trick is to keep their hands flat so they don't mix the colors and you get a tie-died Santa.}

Allow to dry and add eyes, mouth, nose, eye brows.

Attach a ribbon to the back for hanging and you have the sweetest little Santa Claus you have ever seen.

Last year hand prints weren't gonna work so we made these.

I painted and stamped the boys' feet on pieces of cardboard and cut them out.

For Charlie's ornament I traced his hand prints and painted them brown for antlers.

It's so sweet having these handmade ornaments on our tree.

Have you made any? Leave a link in your comment so I can see!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Ohhhhh Christmas Wreath

I know what you are thinking (one of three things):

1. "Whoa that's a red door."

Yes it is - bold, BRIGHT, and red.

2. There is some paint on the peep hole.

You are correct, painter's tape can only cover so much.

3. Another wreath?

Yep, and I will be making another one for New Year's because

now that I use fabric rather than yarn I really like making wreaths.

Here is my Christmas wreath. My very inexpensive Christmas wreath.

I used broadcloth from Hobby Lobby that was $2.99 a yard, and with a coupon my 18" straw wreath was only $2.99. Add on the cost of a few glue sticks, some scrap material I had and felt and you get about $8.

Just another reason to make a wreath for every season :)

I have more Christmas crafts to show you this week.

Hope you are enjoying the most wonderful time of the year.

- - - - - -

In case you need some directions on how to make a fabric wrapped wreath:

Supplies:

-wreath (I used an 18" straw wreath and keep it covered in the plastic)

-scissors

-hot glue gun and glue

-fabric (1 to 1 1/2 yards, as mentioned I used broadcloth. You can find it at any fabric store. It is cheap and thin and comes in a variety of colors.)

Steps:

-Cut the whole yard of fabric into 2" strips.

-Hot glue an end of fabric to the back side of the wreath and allow to cool. Then wrap the fabric around the wreath covering the end and and continue wrapping the remaining fabric around the wreath overlapping it so none of the wreath shows through. Once you reach the end of the strip of fabric hot glue the end to the back side of the wreath. Continue until the wreath is completely covered.

-Choose your embellishments and hot glue them to the front side of the wreath. I went with scrap fabric, rickrack, buttons and felt flowers. You can use this tutorial to learn how to make the loopy felt flowers like mine.

-Hang your pretty wreath for all to see.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

away in a manger

Meet Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Sunday night I pulled out my paintbrush

for the first time in several weeks.

I wanted to make something for the boys so I decided to begin working on a little nativity.

The shepherds, wise men and angel are in the works.

I also have some fun ornament ideas in mind

for the boys and their little hand prints.

Are you making any fun holiday crafts?

Monday, December 5, 2011

♥ I heart art ♥ fashion illustration

I heart beautiful fashion illustrations in blues.

“The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson