Showing posts with label Silhouette. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silhouette. Show all posts

2016 Christmas Decor

It's starting to look and feel a lot like Christmas ... the presents are wrapped, the mantel is aglow, and our home is an explosion of glittery gold, bold red and deep green.




This year's mantel is decked out in three layers of garlands ... a base of vertically strung pinecones, and a lighted spruce garland, topped off with a gilded cascading garland.  Instructions for the DIY pinecone garland are HERE.



Above the mantel, a traditional spruce wreath with gold and red ball ornaments is surrounded by a gold open picture frame and a symmetrical arrangement of glittery cutout gold stars and red trees, red felt cone trees, and copper lanterns filled with gold wrapped candles.

A splash of red also warms the hearth area - this darling wood step stool painted with shiny red enamel was built by hubby's grandfather many years ago and is the perfect perch for the vintage red truck and tree.  Surprisingly, our gold painted Thanksgiving pumpkin appears to be alive and well to shine on through Christmas.



On our coffee table, a large clear glass cloche filled with red glass ball ornaments is resting on a gold framed mirror tray.  In reality, it's not a tray at all - it's a wall mirror found at Target.  Nice when items can do double duty.  

Accompanying the cloche is a little red lighted vehicle with Christmas tree.  It was originally green and received a festive makeover with red paint.  Read more about that HERE.



The two slipper chairs in the living room are adorned with red rosette pillows, and my thrifty find of the season ... a dark grey plush throw with super large fluffy pom poms.  I was thrilled to find it at Tuesday Morning for only $14.99!!!  If you're searching for these, they also had them in ivory and a light tan.



In a break from tradition, this year's large living room tree is decorated all in gold, with burlap garland and gold raffia.  It rests in a burlap filled galvanized container.  To see how we set up the tree container, click HERE.



The topper is a gold star with white lights, and glittery gold cascading sprays.  The sprays were found at Lowe's and the star topper at Target.  Tree ornaments were all items we had on hand.


Instructions for making the burlap and book page stocking ornaments can be found HERE.




The foyer decor (adjacent to the large tree) is simple and consists of a lighted tabletop urn centerpiece on the foyer table, and a simple  door wreath.

Our gift wrapping color theme this year is a combination of metallic gold, white and black.  I created and cut the gift tags from black card stock using my Silhouette Cameo, and shiny gold paper fills cutout tree openings in the tags. 




Names were written on the tags with a metallic gold Sharpie (from Lowe's).



In the dining room, a new addition this season is the hot beverage bar on the small antique chest.  The chest is just the right size for all the goodies needed to enjoy a hot cup of coffee, tea, spiced cider or cocoa.  In addition to the Keurig and K-cups, add-ins are ready to go - chocolate chips, marshmallows, flavored coffee creamer, sprinkles, candy cane stirrers and cinnamon.




The dining room table centerpiece is another large glass cloche, filled with red and gold glass ornaments and surrounded by gold and red beaded garland.  This cloche is displayed on a farmhouse style carved round wood tray with metal handles.  The tray was from Decor Steals and came in a set of two.    



A counter height bar separates our kitchen from our dining room and it's a great place for two lighted 4' counter trees in urns.  They're decorated with the handmade cinnamon ornaments from last year (instructions found HERE and HERE). 



 Next to each lighted counter tree are small gold metal ornament stands loaded with red and gold ornaments and "skirted" with red berry candle rings.  The gold metal stands were Goodwill finds this summer.



If you're still with me, have you noticed that pillows move around a lot in our home?  :)

In the kitchen, we continue the explosion of festive red.  Our kitchen is typically very neutral and at Christmas the red really makes it come alive.  



 The light fixture above the island is dressed up a bit with green garland and red and gold tinsel wreaths.  A similar wreath is also centered on the garland at the kitchen sink window.  

 Our framed Christmas countdown is in full swing on the kitchen counter, along with a mug of hot cinnamon flavored candy canes in a holiday mug perched on a white and gold dotted cupcake pedestal.  A trio of glittery gold cone trees add a little sparkle to the top of the fridge.

 The trio of cracked glass lighted orbs on the counter remain year-round because we enjoy them so much.

A white ceramic soup tureen is great for displaying Christmas crackers/poppers (which do you call them?) until Christmas day and a chubby little Santa is keeping them company.



Wrapping up this holiday tour, our master bedroom has a touch of glitz in the form of tinsel trees and matching gold wreath.


How is your holiday decor coming along?  Are you just beginning to decorate, shop for gifts and plan your menu?  Or, have you finished and are now breathing a sigh of relief?

Your comments are greatly appreciated and I look forward to your thoughts and ideas!  I try to respond to comments via email as soon as I can. If your email address isn't available, I will comment here. Thanks so much for visiting!

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Patriotic Chalk Art

A quick peek at our Patriotic Chalk Art sign for the festive lighted chalkboard easel ....




This started with a Silhouette Cameo cut file (link below) cut from Contact paper to use as a stencil, then filled in with colored chalk markers ... the same process used for the Father's Day Chalk Art and "It's a Good Day to Have a Good Day" chalkboard signs.  




I drew in a few freehand stars and side borders (lines and dots) to fill in blank space.




 The colored chalk markers were really fun to use and the colors are bright.  These are the ones I used for this project:


Chalk Markers


The Silhouette cut file below can be found HERE:

 
Wishing you a Happy Fourth of July!
 







Your comments are greatly appreciated and I look forward to your thoughts and ideas!  I try to respond to comments via email as soon as I can. If your email address isn't available, I will comment here. Thanks so much for visiting!

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Father's Day Chalk Art

Just a quick post to share with you an easy Father's Day stenciled chalkboard sign that's a fun and bright way to celebrate Dad on his special day!




This adorable lighted, distressed chalkboard easel was a thoughtful gift from our sweet daughter that she found at Kirkland's.  :)

And the chalk art design is another Silhouette Design Store regular cut file that I purchased and cut out of white Contact paper to use as a removable, adhesive stencil.  


Silhouette Design Store

For this sign, I bravely drew the double-lined border at the top and bottom of the chalkboard - free hand!  It's not perfect, but "good enough" is my new perfect.  Works for me!

After drawing the border, I placed the contact paper stencils (again separating the design into two cut pieces) on the chalkboard.  For more details, click HERE to see my previous DIY Chalk Art post.

Using a chalk marker, I filled in the open areas of the stencil, removed the stencil and cleaned up any smudges with a slightly damp artist's brush.




It took all of about 30 minutes to do - including cut time.  Quick and easy!  




If you don't own a Silhouette Cameo cutter, you can achieve similar results by printing a design on cardstock, cutting it out manually with scissors, and tracing the design onto Contact paper. 




Or, you can use cardstock as the stencil (skipping the Contact paper step), but for me I've found that I need the self-adhesive stencil to get a clean line while tracing.




Hope you enjoyed this quick and easy Father's Day chalk art.  What plans do you have for the "king of your castle?"  We'll be showering dear hubby with lots of attention and much deserved food and desserts! :)



Your comments are greatly appreciated and I look forward to your thoughts and ideas!  I try to respond to comments via email as soon as I can. If your email address isn't available, I will comment here. Thanks so much for visiting!


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DIY Chalk Art

A couple of years ago I found this framed marker board at Home Goods and have been using it as a backdrop above our fireplace for mantel wreaths ... until now!



For this project, I used:
  • Framed marker board
  • White chalk marker
  • Silhouette Cameo cutter
  • White contact paper
  • Ruler
  • Silhouette design - "It's a good day ..." phrase
  • Stiff artist's brush
  • Plastic stencil - half circle and circle



Knowing the limits of my artistic ability and that I would need a stencil, I browsed through the Silhouette Design Store and the phrase "It's a good day to have a good day" immediately made me smile, so I put the cut file in my online cart, paid 99 cents, and it was mine.

To begin, I used a ruler and drew chalk marker double lines along each side of the marker board to form a chalk "frame."  Then used a plastic stencil to add open half circles and smaller circles at each corner and at the center of each side.  

To remove the chalk where lines intersected and overlapped, a slightly damp artist's brush worked well without disturbing other areas of the design.



Next, opening the cut file in my Silhouette software, resized it to 12" wide and ungrouped it to cut "It's a Good Day to Have a" ...




... and "Good Day" separately for ease of handling.



After cutting the two pieces using white contact paper, I removed the letters and design from the paper backing and was left with an adhesive stencil.

I removed the stencil from the paper backing and placed it carefully on the marker board, being sure to press it down firmly to eliminate any gaps.  


Finally .. the fun part ... filling in the stencil using the chalk marker!




 Instead of filling in each letter solidly with chalk, I mixed it up a little by alternating diagonal lines and dots.  Just a bit of visual interest, don't you think?  Can you spot the areas that still needed touching up?  There are a lot!

Of course, after "finishing" it, I had to tweak it by adding a scroll design to fill the blank space between the two portions of the phrase.  

 NOW, it's complete!


Have you tried your hand at chalk art on a marker board or chalkboard?  Did you use a stencil or are you artistically inclined and can do it freehand?  




Your comments are greatly appreciated and I look forward to your thoughts and ideas!  I try to respond to comments via email as soon as I can. If your email address isn't available, I will comment here. Thanks so much for visiting!


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Fun & Glitzy Holiday Pumpkin

Decorating pumpkins is such fun!  They're like round blank canvases ... ready and willing to be painted, covered and embellished in virtually any materials we impose on them.  




Materials used:

 (Click on individual items below for additional info)




This beast is huge - at 30# and a diameter of 50", it's a LARGE canvas!   Hubby brought it home to me after a recent trip to Sam's Club.  He jostled it into the house, stating that it just looked like something I should have!   :)

My goal was to create a design that was not occasion specific and would be appropriate to display thru all the Fall/Winter holidays.  

 Last year, I painted our Fall pumpkin with black chalkboard paint and it lasted for months and months - thru Fall, Christmas and into the following year.  It reached a point where we kept it just to see how long it would last - it turned into a personal challenge between us and "the pumpkin." LOL!  

 Finally, in May we gave in and and tossed it.  The pumpkin had won - it was still intact and showed no signs of deteriorating.  

The first step to tackling this year's beast was to paint it with two coats of primer (Zinsser's Bulls Eye 1-2-3 White water based primer/sealer for all surfaces is my favorite).  Left the stem natural. I liked the primer so much that I didn't add a layer of regular paint over the white primer.

 Next I used a stencil and a pencil to transfer a frame design to the pumpkin. 




 
Filled in the frame design with a black permanent marker and used gold metallic craft paint and a soft artist's brush to paint the natural and somewhat uneven stripes of the pumpkin along the deep ridges.  Did you know the ridges are actually called "ribs?"   

Then I filled the center of the frame design with gold/white patterned tissue paper.  Used the stencil and pencil again to transfer the inside of the frame design to the patterned tissue paper.  Cut it out with scissors and decoupaged to the pumpkin with regular white glue.

At this point, I really wanted to add gold dots in vertical rows, but knew it would take FOREVER to stencil or even dab paint dots on this beast.  

Fortunately, I found tissue paper in my stash that worked perfectly - white tissue with rows of shiny gold dots!  I cut long strips of single dots and decoupaged them to the pumpkin.  

 Perfectly aligned rows of shiny gold dots - much better than I would have been able to do by painting.  Love when an "unplanned" plan comes together!  :)




For the monogram, I could have used my handy dandy Silhouette Cameo cutter, but this was such a simple monogram that I made my own quick stencil by printing the "S" on my laser printer, and cutting it out manually with scissors (old school!).   

After tracing the "S" onto the reverse side of the black contact paper, I manually cut the monogram out and attached it to the center of the frame design.




The last step was to use a scallop circle paper punch to create two scalloped circles to place on each side of the monogram.

One last tip:  I've used all types of craft glues and, have found that with many projects, just plain old white glue (the kind that you used in kindergarten) from the dollar store works just as well.  



And, that's it!  Such fun to let projects like this just evolve and change as you work your way through them.  Have you decorated your holiday pumpkin, or do you prefer carving?  Have a great day and I hope that you are experiencing Fall-ness in your area!




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