Wednesday, July 7, 2010

inklings christmas blog hop

kia ora and welcome
to the Inklings christmas in july blog hop! i am guessing you hopped on over from the very clever nicky's blog to check out mine and want some ideas and inspiration for christmas ideas because it is not long to go -it'll be on us before we know it and we will all be wishing "gosh darn it i wish i had started those darn xmas cards and projects earlier" lol i know because i say it every year hahahahahaha remember we are also giving away some blog candy so leave a comment and then email our fabulous organiser christie so you can go in the draw to win FREE STUFF! if you are a SU demo feel free to leave a comment so i can come and visit your blog but unfortunately you cannot enter the competition for the blog candy when i was a child my mum often encouraged me to make presents for people. each year she would dutifully hang our handpainted pine cones or paper lanterns or macaroni angels on the tree with pride. when i my mum passed away 2 years ago i carefully accepted those handcrafted masterpeices and added them to our tree here in australia. i have also encouraged my kids to make a new decoration each year to add to the tree. this is what i will be getting the kids to make this year. it is a decoration made from the little plastic ribbon reels we have when we use up all our SU! ribbon. just add paper, ribbon and a bit of bling and xmas decoration is done! this is what the ribbon reels look like. they come in skinny or chunky and are very durable. they also pull apart so you can have two parts to it....or put stuff inside them.....
here is a side view of what i did to my reel. i added some ribbon and silver twine to the middle.
inside the reel i put in a teeny tiny banner saying 'merry christmas' for the kids i will get them to make a banner with their names on it, possibly a photo, and the date so it can be a little momento of this christmas
whilst trawling the internet a while back i came across this cool star and thought that it would look fab with our dsp. so i hunted down some instructions and this is my example. i used the basic gray dsp from the hostess pack as it was already cut into 15x15 squares for me! here is a tutorial on how i made it!
cut out six 15x15cm peices of paper and fold them in half to make a triangle
draw a line down the middle. i did this to help remind me where not to cut!
i measured it up so i had 3 even cuts along the bottom i measured 3cm, 6cm, 8cm, 13cm, 15cm and 18cm. from top to bottom i measured 2cm, 4cm, and 6cm.
then i cut lines that joined up with the measurements. however i did not cut alllllll the way through!!! if you do this it will fall apart and you'll end up with a pile of diamonds!
fold it out and it should look something like this. minus the ugly looking numbers because yours will be a lot more discrete :>
take the middle two and curl them in together and attach. i used dst but a glue dot would work just as well
turn the paper over and do the same with the next lines
turn it over to the starting side and curl those together so they attach hopefully yours will be looking a little like mine at this point!
turn it over for the last time and attach the points together this makes one branch of your star. go ahead and make 5 more
when you ahve got all six done, grab three and staple together at the tip. then do that with the other 3. then staple them all together. go around the middle bits and staple them together too.
it should end up looking like this hopefully my instructions are ok and you get what i mean :> another project i have been wanting to do is a nativity scene with punch art.
so here are all the gang with baby jesus. i have my 3 wise men and their camel. i have my shepherd and his sheep. i have the angel on high with the star.
and of course, mary and joseph and baby jesus in a manger. i would just like to say that these are NOT childproof and should be kept away from anyone who is short, cute, just learning to walk, around 1 year of age and likes to eat paper ...sigh.... well on that note it is time for you to hop on to the next exciting blog to visit the amazing amy. don't forget to say hi and leave a comment before you leave! cheers ears!

31 comments :

Beth said...

Great use of ribbon spools, and I love your Nativity Scene!

Christie Kunkel said...

Love the nativity scene!

Anonymous said...

Love the nativity scene.

Anonymous said...

That nativity scene is just adorable :)

Spardha said...

love it!.. thanks soo much for the tutorials! :)

Fiona said...

The nativity scene is amazing, well done.

Anonymous said...

love, love, love it all :) Thank you!

Sarah Milbourn Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator said...

Great work! Love the star.

kari said...

Oh my goodness Clare! The ribbon spool idea is fabulous, but that nativity scene absolutely amazed me! Wow! You truly are a punchart goddess!!!

Liz said...

The star is absolutly stunning - and the Nativity scene is soooo cute!

Divya Rao said...

Super idea for the ribbon reels and the nativity scene is amazing!

Michelle said...

ROFLMAOTSCOOMN!! Truly a post of genius! SO glad you got to take a picture of your gorgeous nativity before it got ingested!! Love the idea of the ribbon spool decs with memory banners inside, my two will love to do that! ANd thanks for the tutorial on the star. Now I'm hyperventilated and dizzy from laughing so hard...

Dani Fender said...

You are a punch art QUEEN!!!!!!
LMAO! Katie is a treasure!
I LOVE this! The nativity scene is just the cutest thing ever! I want to make one now and when I show Karl I will no doubt have to! LOL!

Becky said...

Love the nativity scene

Heather M said...

Excellent ideas! I love your star! What a wonderful decoration. Thanks for the tutorial!

Margaret said...

The nativity scene is inspired - you should be considering getting this published. Margaret

Kylea said...

I love the nativity scene. I better start now if I want it ready for Christmas

Alison Steele said...

The nativity is so cute! And all the family will be getting a star for chrissy. WOW!

Christine Blain said...

Claire, all your projects are great!! LOVE the teeny tiny banner inside the ribbon spool, and your Nativity scene is adorable (or, was, before it apparently got destroyed).

Dinky Di said...

Wow! Your punch art is awesome. I love the Nativity and the instructions for the star was great. Thanks for the inspiration.

Dinky Di said...

Wow! Your punch art is awesome. I love the Nativity and the instructions for the star was great. Thanks for the inspiration.

clare mcilhatton said...

thank you all so much for all those lovely comments. i can happily say that the nativity scene has been repaired although soem characters have ahd new additions added or taken off and it does look a teent bit different after katie the eating machine chomper her way through a wise man or 2 and a tasty shepherd lol

Anonymous said...

love the nativity scene

Sandra said...

WOW!!! I love your nativity set!! What a fantastic idea. I can DEFINETLY understand the one year old child warning. I could have used that advise today LOL

Jan McAnulty said...

Your nativity scene is really fabulous, Clare! Your comment about not it being childproof brought back memories of a few years ago my spending quite some time making a rather elaborate sliding/pull card, left it (well out of reach, I thought) for all of 2 minutes and returned to find my then 2 year old son had managed climb up and tear it apart, completely wrecking it - needless to say he wasn't my favourite person for a while!

Kylea said...

Thank you so much for all your goodies- they arrived today & the cards are so beautiful.
Thanks again.

Carolyn Sharkas said...

absolutely adorable ornaments. the manger scene is beautiful. thanks so much for sharing.

Dorothy T in FL said...

The nativity scene is fabulous! Thanks for sharing it!

Unknown said...

THat nativity scene is adorable Clare, you are so clever at punch art :) A big congrats too on your win over at So shelli, you truly deserve it. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

evonne said...

Super Cute-and you have great patience! Congrats on winning Shelli's creative challenge

savvy teaching tips said...

Fabulous - I love that Nativity Scene.