~Santa's little elf and vintage decoration tutorial~

That's how I'm feeling, like Santa's little elf!!

Inbetween the usual routine of life, and then some, I am painting and glittering up a storm,

and having lots of fun getting things finished up for the Fieldstone Christmas market next weekend.

christmas~vintage~handmade

doesn't get much better than that peeps!

here's one of the vintage style decorations I've been working on today

I usually start out with a general idea in mind, but then my decorations evolve as I go along, more fun that way!

If you'd like to make your own here's how:

VINTAGE STYLE CHRISTMAS STAR

Okay,  pump up the Christmas music. I'm generally a not-before-December-1st gal, but if I'm gonna be doing Christmas all day, I need Christmas music!

First of all you need large stars. These ones were from Michaels, they actually came as a mini scrapbook kit so the holes were pre-punched. Handy. I don't have a photo of them before glitter, but they started out as stiff white cardboard stars. {I picked these up last Christmas but it should be easy to find similar stars, or you can make your own.} Chipboard stars would be awesome if you can find them large enough. These are around 9 inches across.

Spread them with craft glue and glitter them up. I used a small foamie to spread the glue, and then used a really coarse glitter here as I'm going for the vintage, vintage look.

Next you need to make your paper rosette. I have made dozens of these this year and they are so pretty. There are lots of good tutorials out there on how to make them, I hope to post my preferred method in a future post {ie. after market when I have a bit more time:-)}

Quick tip: glitter the edges of the pages BEFORE you fold them. I used an old hymnal for these, but you could also use dictionary pages.

On the rosettes I used a much finer glitter, this one is rose quartz from the Martha Stewart line. It's a much gentler color than it looks in the photos. My rosettes are 3.5 inches across to fit snugly in the star.

Be sure to secure the back. I like punches, can you tell?

Now you want to finish off your rosette. I punched white scalloped circles from white cardstock and stamped them with my very most favorite french script stamp.

Top it with a punched crown from glittered cardstock. I picked up my glittered cardstock in a couple different places : scrapbook stores, Michaels and even a $ store {look in the scrapbooking section}.

Now glue your rosette to the star - I use my trusty old glue gun for all the glueing.

Final step is to create the hanger. Take a silver pipecleaner and wind it fairly tightly around a pencil, like this:

Loooove me some sparkly!

Then attach the twirly pipecleaner to the star by twisting the ends through the punched holes, and securing at the back with a dab from the glue gun. It would probably stay without the glue. You can adjust the twirls and stretch them out a little if you like.

Ta-da, you have a lovely vintage styled christmas decoration, which is great as a stand alone gift or on the tree.

Let me know if you have questions about any of the steps and happy glittering!!

Enjoy the weekend,

Tracey

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