how to make collaged and layered doily trees

just in case you haven't seen the post right above this one, my card for the "favorite technique" challenge at shopping our stash features a fun little diecut christmas tree made by inking and layering doily scraps. these are super easy to make, but there are a few little tricks that i'd love to show you!

grab your stuff:

you'll need doilies or doily scraps, neutral paper to use as a base, a gluestick, scissors and ink. you'll also need a christmas tree die and mechanical diecut machine (such as cuttlebug) OR the ability to hand-draw and fussy cut a tree from the finished doily collage. if you're using a die (mine is sizzix christmas tree #2 which, for the record, might be my all-time favorite) it's a great idea to save the "frame" part from a previous cut... we'll be using this to help us build the prettiest layers!

start layering bits of doily

the best adhesive to use for this is gluestick (mine is the kind that goes on purple and dries clear, just so you can see it in the pics.) use a gentle dabbing motion rather than pulling the stick along, because those little lacy bits really want to tear. on the plus side, we are actually gluing this on in bits, so any torn parts will likely still be usable! :) if you're using one color of doily as i've done here, the cool collaged layers just will not show without a little ink on the edges, so you may want to apply some as you go. it will take about half of a 6" doily to fill in the space of my 4.5" tree, but i like LOTS of layers!

keep layering

to get a random "swagged" look like my tree, you need to offset the layers a bit. i like to place the first piece almost horizontal at the bottom of the tree, then lean the next piece towards the right, and the following one to the left. now you see why we wanted that frame from a previous diecut of the same tree... it's how we can see where the layers are going to fall and know when we've got enough on there. (you CAN add layers after the tree is cut, but hand-trimming the overhang is kind of a drag!)

diecut the tree

contrary to what this photo suggests, i like to place the doily side face down against the die, i think it gives a smoother cut. if dies tend to shift a bit in your machine, a tiny piece of scotch tape placed at the edge will hold your collaged paper securely in place.

ink the outer edges

...et voila! you have one lovely little collaged doily tree to use on a card, tag, or holiday journal page! add flowers, pearls, bling or glitter to make your tree even more festive. for a funkier look, alternate layers of text paper or glitter paper with the doily layers, or machine stitch back and forth along the layers before diecutting. or... add your own amazing touches to make something uniquely yours! ♥

dd07: (almost) postal

the big xmas-readiness news from sunday was that i finished the design of our mailing labels in photoshop, then list-merged names and printed them out using printshop.* then i wrote out and signed all the ones that get mailed on their own; i still have to do the ones that will be sent with gifts. for that matter, i mostly have to BUY the gifts, but that's another story. to sum up: my dd06 page is the embellished postcard-sized label:

mailing label created digitally in photoshop using elements and brushes from "an icy christmas" by amber shaw and studio flergs and the "hello winter" kit by llilea designs plus damask tonal papers by katie pertiet; vogue and tabith fonts; printed on avery full-sheet labels via broderbund's printshop; real-life products: core'dinations cardstock, love my tapes washi, studio b cardinal sticker, otc snowflake brad, queen and co mini brads, stickopotamus metallic snowflake stickers, hero arts snowflake gems, and ranger white glossy cardstock

the fun thing about using vintage paper, and only working on one side of the page, is that some of my pages have a completely unrelated image on the back, like this one:

in the past i've often wanted to cover up such "distractions" but this year i'm amused by the random juxtaposition of images-- in this case a green tinted naval officer with my fancy label-- so i've just been leaving them as is. it just adds another layer of interesting, really; and there's nothing wrong with that! :)

*whereas i now do all my digital design in photoshop (because it's all about the LAYERS, baby!) when it comes to printing, i jump back to my trusty broderbund printshop; a very old graphics program that i still use because it still works. an ancient version of the same program was actually the very first piece of software i learned... on a secondhand apple ii which came from my b-i-l c.1988 or so! :) i love that it has basic templates for pretty much anything i might want to design and print (mailing labels, calendar pages, letterhead, business cards etc) so that i don't have to think about basic things like size and shape but i can import whatever graphics i'd like to use and arrange them, add text, list merge with my address book, etc etc. i'm all for learning new things but when the old things work i'm happy to stick with 'em. 

dashing through the...

...MUD? yepper, that's what we did, on a quest for the perfect christmas tree! it rained here yesterday. it rained a lot. and here's a little known fact about christmas trees: they grow in dirt! so what happens to dirt when it rains? uh-huh. let's just say that today, there's a little less mud at the peterson farm in cherryville, new jersey, thanks to the copious amounts we carried home on our boots, jeans, tires, etc. the crazy thing, however, is that we managed to be out and about in pretty much the only hour of yesterday during which it not actively POURING. so whilst we were muddy, we were not soaking wet and chilled to the bone. which was nice. how do you swing something like that? well, it's 99% luck, but for the other 1%, it helps to marry someone who's addicted to the weather channel, who will spend several days beforehand glued to radar forecasts and somehow determine that there's going to be a little break in the... something impressively scientific-sounding... and thus we need to get ready and go NOW. so we did. and we found the perfect trees. yes, trees, plural; we got two. it's a long story. :) :) :)

dd06: peterson tree farm

one of the best parts of collecting vintage paper is that whilst making things like christmas ephemera packs and holiday journals, you are sorting through LOTS of lovely xmassy bits and it's possible to nab some of the best ones and save them for yourself! :) that's what i did with this beautiful page from an ideals magazine, which really does look quite a lot like the farm belonging to jeff's godfather, whence we get our tree each year. for the words, i experimented with a few different types of journaling card, but they covered up way too much of the illustration, so i chose to type right onto the top section of the barn. i cropped my photo-shopped photo of rain-soaked evergreens pretty tightly too... for exactly the same reason. thickers and dymo label made a nice strong title and i called it a day.

last year's view of uncle john's farm; quite a bit sunnier than it was yesterday! 

speaking of days, i hope yours is already delightful, but if not, there's still time to whip it into shape! we're hoping to put some lights and things on the trees we acquired, which should make it quite a bit more festive around here. ciao, darlings! ♥

toys for tots!

as you know, jeff and i are huge fans of the us marines' toys for tots program and we like to include them in our holiday gifting budget every christmas. of course it's easy to donate online but i have to tell you, confidentially, that this is one of those times the quick option isn't (imo) the best... we've found that it's sooooooooooo much more fun to go fill up a cart with toys* and drop them in the collection bin! and since we're lucky enough to live close to a toys-r-us store, we can buy and donate our toys in one trip. this year's deadline to donate toys at a toys-r-us store is december 7th (aka tomorrow) but check your local drop-off point for the exact dates. we made our annual pilgrimage last night, and as always, it was one of the highlights of our holiday season, so i bet you can guess what my december daily day five is about, can't you?

elf cut from a vintage flash card; patterned paper: dcwv; mini bingo card: jenni bowlin; flair badge: studio calico; foam thickers: american crafts; present diecuts and journaling circle: recollections; photo printed on kodak premium glossy paper

dd05: elfish!

there's a lot going on here, but that sort of captures the experience of shopping at a toys-r-us on a friday night in december, lol! the cute little elf is cut from a vintage flash card; the rest of the elements are bits and bobs from my xmas stash; the journaling was typed on my vintage typewriter. i think that's about it! happy saturday everyone! ♥

*toys donated to the toys for tots program need to be new, still in their packaging, but unwrapped. all toys-r-us, babies-r-us and ac moore stores nationwide are official drop-off points, but there are lots more, so check the official website for locations and full details. if it's past the drop-off deadline (which is generally the first week of december) you can make a cash donation online at any time of year! 

gala ♥JB14♥ wrap up

well, i can hardly believe it, but we've just wrapped up our fourth year of ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and there's really no better way (imo) to celebrate having all your holiday cards finished by the first week of december than to spread them out in a big pile and take a group photo. so i did, see?

stephanie did, too, and we invite you to join us by linking up your own cardpile photos; OR, if you're still working on cards, share them and leave some love for the ones others are making at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! we'll leave the "linkfest" post open until christmas eve, to provide maximum inspiration, then we'll be back on new year's day with the first prompt of 2015, and we'd love for you to join us!

with such momentous goings-on, i suspect you can guess the subject of my december daily page for day four, right?

dd04: yepper, the big story of the day is having 48+ unique holiday cards ready to sign and mail by the date that, pre-JINGLE BELLES, i would have been either stressily mass-producing or heading out to hallmark. i know it seems utterly crazy to start up again on january first, but the fact is i *LOVE* making christmas cards and once i got my head around the idea of doing it every single week... (which, admittedly, took me a good six months of the first year that stephanie and i started the JB blog!) ...i realized this works for me!* page-wise, what's been working for me this week is one pic + a title + a few embellies, and this time i used up another transparency scrap when my photo looked too stark on the pink page but too overwhelmed on patterned paper. hoping to branch out a little over the weekend... maybe do a couple of pages with hand lettering or more interesting collaged/stamped backgrounds or something, but otherwise i'm pretty happy with how my pages look so far!

*if you think it might work for you, too, click on over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ on new year's day... we'd love for you to join us! ♥♥♥

dd02 & dd03

hooray, it's a december daily two-fer! by the way, have i mentioned in the last five minutes how much i love christmas decorations? and sparkly things, generally? and the fact that the christmas season gives one carte blanche to hang sparkly things all over the house?!?!! (woohoo!)

page built on the back of a cool green harlequin-patterned xmas card; american crafts green glitter thickers; dymo labels; paper accents glossy black cardstock and a peacock feather that fell off one of my mardi gras masks but was too pretty to throw away!

dd02: i ran in to michaels the other day in quest of one particular (not-at-all-xmassy) item, discovered that ALL the holiday decor was 50% off, and came home with quite a selection of peacock colored goodness! so now i'm even more excited to get our tree on saturday. if you know anyone at the weather channel, could you ask them not to let it rain torrentially until lunchtime or so, please? kthx.

patterned papers: studio calico, cosmo cricket and recollections; mambi dimensional tree sticker; sharpie marker and black ranger archival ink

dd03: you'll have sussed that i ♥LOVE♥ holiday decor, but you may not realize that i love pretty much ALL holiday decor. so if, for example, you're a major supermarket chain who decides to build a christmas-tree-shaped display of pellegrino (or motor oil... or spam...) i will support your efforts by grinning like a lunatic and blocking the aisle during prime shopping hours so that i can take a picture of it! :)

happy thursday, darlings!

hope you are having an awesome day!

♥♥♥

december daily kicks off... and free is (STILL) good!

when i was making this page last night it finally dawned on me why i've been so obsessed by the concept of december daily and/or keeping a pre-christmas journal the last couple of years: it's pretty much the grown-up papercrafting equivalent of an advent calendar, isn't it? with one fun, special, glitter-encrusted page to assemble and reveal each day. OF COURSE i want one!!! so here's page one:

base collage: torn scraps of doodlebug and best creation glitter paper, basic grey notebook printed paper, vintage sheet music and doilies; top layer: teresa collins transparency with a strip of hambly, mambi silver chipboard letters, basic grey old skool alphas, photo printed on kodak premium glossy paper

ok, yeah, there are A LOT of layers, and doilies feature prominently. remember all the crazy doily collages i made for ICAD over the summer? well, it turns out i was just warmin' up! :) in this case i had so much fun making the base that in the end i didn't want to cover it up too much, so i put my photo and lettering on a piece of transparency to float it over the background.

most years my first bit of xmas decor is a holiday plant of some sort, that i can buy just before thanksgiving without feeling like i'm jumping the gun. often it's a poinsettia from the grocery store. this year it's a christmas cactus from home depot, which obligingly began to bloom over the weekend.

the torn paper is pretty much all scraps: some glitter paper, some notebook paper, some vintage sheet music, doily bits, etc; roughly torn and stuck down (working from the bottom of the page to the top) then machine stitched. i find making this sort of collage almost hypnotic, which, i suppose, is why i do it so often.

in case you're wondering where "free is good" comes in, just a reminder that SOS179 is an extra long challenge, in honor of the thanksgiving holiday, so there's still a whole week in which to join in! this time, my free thing was a beautiful piece of white-on-white cardstock packaging that enclosed an older set of pink paislee mistable papers. i chose it because i *THOUGHT* some of the background was going to show in my collage. in the end, i covered the whole page, but free is still good, right?! :)