A Fun and Frugal Holiday Garland

When I first began working on Christmasy projects a few weeks ago, I had a hard time deciding whether or not to post them on my blog.  I'm not Christian but I love so many things about this holiday.  Since I have a hard time with words, I'd like to borrow from Christie of Grace is Overrated, who perfectly expressed what I had been feeling on this topic.  In a recent post she said, "I didn't want to offend those who might celebrate differently than I do or not at all, for I know that Christmas is not a universal celebration.  Most of all, I want this to be a place where we all feel welcome and appreciated and included."
Thank you Christie, for saying that so well!
I hope that those of you who don't celebrate Christmas will not feel hurt or excluded.  If you'd ever like to adapt one of my projects to a holiday or event you celebrate and want ideas how, please contact me - I'd love to brainstorm.  :-) If you adapt a project and share it online somewhere, please let me know in the comments so I can link to it!  I would love that. ♥
This project in particular lends itself well to any occasion one wants to decorate for.  I love it so much that I plan to make one in rainbows to have up at all times.  Not to celebrate anything (well, I suppose to celebrate my love of rainbows :)

I originally planned to make this garland by punching circles from cool paper and gluing to a string.  I quickly discovered that I didn't have the patience to get the gluestick on the circles and line them up on either side of the string before the glue dried... at least not for the time it would take to make 12 feet of it!  I had the circles all punched out and was very disappointed until I had a sudden brainwave...
Stickers. 
No glue.  No punches.  EASY!  And best of all, FUN because I love stickers.

This holiday garland has some parts that could easily be done by children and some best for adults.

Supplies:

• tape (I use painters tape because it is easy to unstick from walls, string, fingers etc)
• 1 package of coloured circle stickers (any colours you like)
• thread or string (any colour you like - I used silver because I like sparkly things)
• Optional:  1 package of coloured metallic star stickers (or any sticker you like that is smaller than the circles)

I already had thread and tape on hand so this garland cost about $2 in stickers bought at a dollar store.  If you use only circles, it would be around $1


Step 1. (kid-friendly)

Stick the star stickers onto the circle stickers.  You can use contrasting colours.  I decided I liked how it looked best when the star was the same colour as the circle.  This photo doesn't show it well but when the light hits the stars, they reflect.
They don't need to be even - this step could easily be done by any age of child that could be trusted with stickers.
Idea: children could also draw on a few of the circles instead of putting stars on them.  They may enjoy later picking out their drawings as they look at the garland.  Another option is to spell out words - 1 letter per circle.

Step 2.

Tape a length of string between 2 walls in a corner.  You could also tape one end to a table and the other to a wall. If you leave the string attached to the spool, then you don't have to calculate how many stickers will fit on what length, just keep on sticking until they are used up!
If you look closely on the left, you can see that I experimented with having circles and stars alternate on the string - it was much too finicky to get the stars to match up evenly so I abandoned that idea.  You can also see that I didn't immediately think of putting the stars on the circles before attaching them to the string!  Trust me, it's way easier to do Step 1 first :-]


Step 3. (not so kid-friendly)

a) Stick the stickers to one side of the string.    I stuck one on the string, pressed the string firmly onto the adhesive and was able to let go while I got the other sticker from the sheet.  This may not work as well if you were using a heavier weight of string. It doesn't have to be in the exact centre.
b) Stick a matching colour of sticker to the other side of the string, lining it up as close as possible to the first sticker.  Don't stress out if they don't match up perfectly.  Once I hung mine, I couldn't even see the mistakes.
c) Decide how far apart you want to space the stickers and repeat steps 3 a) and b) until your garland is as long as you want!

I made a big long garland but this would also look very nice in many shorter strands hanging down vertically from a ceiling.  I used my experimental alternating star/circle piece to hang down from the centre of the garland.

To prevent tangling:

As you fill up the length of string you have taped between the 2 walls, you can loop the finished pieces and tape to the wall like this:

To store:  I will wrap it around a piece of cardboard that I've made notches in each end of, then put in a file folder or envelope.  You could also wrap it around an empty paper towel roll as shown in the photo on this blog: Polka Dot Garland


Hanging: 
When made with thin thread, this garland is very light and airy.  It is held up to the ceiling with Scotch tape and has not threatened to fall down.  I doubt the entire 12 feet would hold with just 2 pieces of tape but I hung it in scalloped sections and it's holding well.

If you try this project, or a variation on it, and post online, I'd love if you'd comment with a link!

Happy decorating!

SNOWtographs and List It Tuesday

For today's List It Tuesday list, I decided to write a few things that I love about snow... since I'm a few days into one of the biggest snowstorms I've seen in my life!

The snow began innocently enough about a week ago and I danced around all excited at the first snow of the year, taking photos like this boring one that I'm now glad I kept for comparison:

First bit of snow

It snowed gently here and there for the first few days and then, within 2-3 days, almost as much snow dumped down on us as fell throughout the entire winter last year!  Snowly moly!  Apparently the reason just one small region can be hit is due to something called The Lake Effect.

Same shed about a week later!

Gracefully shaped snow overhang

I love the way the snow hangs over... seeming to defy gravity

Watch where you walk!

It looked magical last night... I'm looking forward to tonight after another 24 hours of snow!

* * *

I apologise for the big spaces between photos.  They don't exist when I create the post and Blogger won't let me edit them out!

Christmas-y Wordle

Have you played with Wordle yet?
I love it. :-)
Basically you go to the Create page, type (or paste) text, hit the Go button and edit how you'd like the words to appear (horizontal, rounder edges, random shape, font, colours etc).  You can edit a custom colour pallette like I did with this Holiday-themed Wordle.  The more times a word appears in your piece of text, the larger it will be.  Therefore, if you want different sized words, you will need to have some words appear more than once.

You can write your own text or play around with copying and pasting poems, songs or writing from online sources.

click to see larger image

  http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2815980/Christmas-y_Words


One of the few things I don't like about Wordle is that it doesn't make an image file you can save.  I got around this by using the ridiculously easy screen shot tool in Windows Vista called the Snipping Tool (which I just discovered today and am very excited about :)
~

Christmas-y Things I Want To Do: List It Tuesday

I've been intending to take part in Aimee's fun List It Tuesday for a while but I never seem to get around to writing a list by hand, photographing it, uploading, editing... and then posting here.
So I decided to make a list in Windows Paint today instead.  It's a real bugger to work with so it helps me to relax, knowing that my drawings will look amateur no matter what I do :-)  Somehow that stops me from being too perfectionist.

Here's my list of Christmas-y things I'd like to do:

Hand Stamped Wrapping Paper

I had so much fun decorating the wrapping paper for this gift and wanted to share a picture with you of the final result.
I'm normally too much of a perfectionist and it gets in the way of me enjoying some artsy/craftsy things.  This time I somehow turned off the inner critic and just had fun!  Nothing is really even, the wrapping job is a bit lumpy... and I don't care LOL!

The stamps: the star stamp was hand-carved from an eraser.  The rest were store bought from Michaels.
The ink: inexpensive dye-based stamp pads - also from Michaels.  The silver dots on the trees were added by hand with a new gel pen I am loving.
The paper: I have supplements shipped to me by mail and I always save the packing paper to re-use.  It is not very strong so I doubled it up to make sure it wouldn't rip when the gift was handled.

I Love Paper Weaving!

I spent almost the entire weekend with the computer turned off and was impressed with (but not surprised by) just how much more time it felt like I had.

I recently read about using a paper shredder to make paper strips for crafts instead of having to cut them all by hand... what an awesome thing!  So many types of paper (please see disclaimer at bottom of post) can be fodder for the shredder - magazine pages, the cool patterns on the inside of security envelopes, sturdier wrapping paper, paper bags, drawings, paintings, colouring and art journal pages you don't need any more, coloured envelopes you receive in the mail, construction paper, sheet music (which you can photocopy if you want to keep the original - thank you S. for that awesome idea and for sending me sheet music in the mail! :)

The strips of paper can be used for many different crafts but my favourite is paper weaving.  If you have a paper shredder and think you may like paper weaving, I encourage you to try it out!
I tried coating them in glue afterward and the one that used about 50% construction paper did very well and stayed flat.  The one made entirely with thinner paper warped but I will try putting it under some heavy books to see if it will flatten out.


Here are some photos:

Christmas-y colours.  I will likely cut this piece up to decorate cards or make ornaments with.  This is the piece that had construction paper and survived the glue very well.

Music weaving start.

Music weaving finished.

I found it a bit boring all white and black and decided to try stamping on top of it... not very happy with the results but I find it interesting enough that I will try this method again :-)

An abstract watercolour painting on paper was the source for this weaving.

If you experiment with paper weaving and post online, I'd love if you'd include a link in the comments section!  I love seeing other people's experiments :-)

*disclaimer and warning*
I have no idea if any of the paper suggestions could jam your paper shredder... please proceed with caution! :-)  With the shredder I used, the super thin, flexible papers ended up shredding in a slight curve and were not straight-edged.

BlueBird of Happiness - detail from art journal page

This small piece is one of my favourite parts from a larger art journal spread that I've been puttering with over the months.

You can click on the image to see a larger version (hopefully it works - this blogger feature has been causing me some problems lately).

I find art journalling so healing and therapeutic.  I often begin by laying down a background of words or images that express a difficult emotion I am processing, then when I have kind of 'gotten it out' I continue adding layers and transform the 'negative' into a viewpoint I'd like to have that is more positive.  It's rare that I art journal without realising something very important about myself.

The nice thing is that when I go back months later and look at a page, I usually can't recall the angst that began the page - I only recall the positive message/learning that came out of it!

Tip: the lid from an old toothpaste tube can be repurposed into a fun stamp that makes two circle sizes depending on which end you use.  I like the frilly edges it makes.  The border around the bird's 'nest' is made with a hand carved eraser stamp.

Wordless Wednesday

New Camera Excitement!

I am so excited!
I have a new camera... finally!
The Fujifilm Finepix S1800 which has a clever enough Auto Mode that I can take nice pictures easily and flexible enough manual settings that if I ever learn more and want to adjust them on my own, I won't feel trapped by too simple of a camera.

My favourite part is that the Macro function is easy to use (simply press one button) and it works.  Pictures are actually in focus - something that has been an issue with the macro function on all of my previous cameras.
Equally exciting is that fact that it has a Super Macro function (simply press the button twice)... I didn't even know about this before purchasing so it was a lovely surprise.  The Super Macro function can take pictures as close as 2cm or around 0.8 inches!  So awesome :-)
Come spring and summer, you will likely see many flower, plant and hopefully bug close ups here on the blog.

What I find very interesting is how much more aware I am of nuances in my surroundings now that my creative mind is looking for 'photo-worthy' images.

Batteries are charging as I type this and I will be posting photos soon!

(the camera takes 4 AA batteries which is another thing I love about it - I use rechargeable NiMH batteries and they have saved me so much money over the years as well as being more environmentally friendly.)

Lovely Autumn Shadows

On sunny mornings lately I have been loving the shadows on my dining room wall. ♥
They are created by the sun shining through dried up flowers outside my patio door window... and also a few butterfly 'window clings' I have on the glass.

I still don't have a camera so these are taken with a video camera that has just one quality setting: 'sure-to-make-you-wish-you-had-a-real-camera!'.  That's not the official name of course... but it should be LOL!

Here's the view looking out the window showing what's creating those shadows (in the background you can see the pink sweet peas that have only succumbed to cold weather in the last couple of days!):

 

I also enjoy these shadows created by brass bells amidst leftover morning glory vines.  I played around a bit in my photo editor to give it an antique look.  Sometimes it doesn't look like shadows on a wall at all to me but rather objects seen through heavy fog:

One of my cats likes to 'help' with the photos  >^..^<