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Thursday, December 12, 2013

Handmade from the Heart, an Oliver Family Christmas Tradition


Hello blog friends and welcome to day 12 of D's Paper Studio's, 12 Days of Home for the Holidays. It’s been really cool reading all about the traditions of each of the artists who participated this year.
Handmade gifts are from the heart, and there’s no better way to share your love and joy for the season than to give something that you’ve made by hand.  In our family we have a longstanding tradition of handmade Christmas ornaments.

Hand-stitched felt teddy bears, painted wooden ornaments, handmade photo ornaments, some nearly 50 years old hang on our Christmas trees, and every year when we get them out to hang them, it’s an opportunity to share and re-live the memories of Christmas’ past.
This year, since we were all together at Thanksgiving, I took the opportunity to share our tradition with some of the younger members of our family.  We created Christmas rosettes that are beautiful enough to hang as ornaments, but could also be used as Christmas banners, present toppers or even clustered together as wreaths.

I knew there would be some teaching opportunities with the younger ones.  We got to learn about cutting, measuring, and folding, and my nieces even mastered the scoreboard.
  
     
Our Christmas rosette ornaments turned out beautifully...and once we got started, everyone created more than one. We kept our craft table set up and going all throughout Thanksgiving weekend.  The kids were so excited, they made them for their friends, for their teachers and lots of their own tree at home. 
And, when we discovered that we could use die cut photos to decorate the Christmas rosettes, the ornaments became another way that we could share memories of holidays past. 
Creating Christmas rosettes was really one of the most fun ornament projects we've ever done in our family.  We ended up with lots of new ornaments to share and lots of new ornaments for our own Christmas trees. And, together, we created some Christmas memories that we can treasure forever. 
Our Thanksgiving weekend was really special this year, we had everyone from our generation of Olivers together at one place at the same time...it was something that had not happened in over 15 years...so we were very blessed to share the family time together and to continue our family tradition of handmade Christmas ornaments with cousins and younger members of our family. 




Thank you for letting me share our Oliver family tradition of making Christmas ornaments. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season this year, and make some time to create and give something handmade.  It's a wonderful tradition that is from the heart and will bring joy to everyone for years to come.


Merry Christmas,
Ken

Monday, December 9, 2013

Vintage Handmade Cards with Craft Attitude

Hi there, thank you for stopping by today, it's my turn on the Craft Attitude Blog Hop.  I was really excited to add some "attitude" to vintage handmade cards.


Since I knew the Craft Attitude film was transparent, I knew it would give me the opportunity to add texture and visual interest behind whatever I chose to work with.  I chose to reproduce some original collage pieces I'd created earlier this year.  The originals have embossed copper backgrounds, and dimensional pieces that are kind of bulky to use as cards. I've never reproduced any collage piece I've created so I knew I'd get to explore some new techniques.  Using the Quilt Attitude would allow me to transfer my scanned images onto an antique linen napkin, thus adding a linen texture behind my collage image.

I used the Flip Pal Mobile Scanner to scan my original collage pieces.



Then printed the scanned images onto Quilt Attitude film. Applied the film to antique linen, as the package directed...



You can see where the linen texture is visible through the transparency of the Quilt Attitude Film.  I like the texture it added when I reproduced the collages and applied them to linen.  It looks like the image is printed on a canvas.

To create the cards, I die cut the linen with Spellbinders Grand Calibur machine and Spellbinders Card Creator Die Templates.


To create the card bases, I recycled and die cut manila file folders; It's a cool way to reuse something that is still usable.  
Working with Craft Attitude on this project was really cool...it let me digitally reproduce a 3-D collage to create a 2-D card...and let me alter the original image by transferring it to antique linen...the texture is great behind the collage image.  


Thank you again for stopping by today on the Craft Attitude Blog Hop...I loved using the products and I see lots of possibilities with Quilt Attitude...handmade fabric Christmas ornaments, fabric gift bags, photo throw pillows...

You'll want to see how everyone else has used Craft Attitude too.

Jonathan Fong’s Christmas Roses
Trudi Sissons’ Collage Tutorial
Candie Cooper’s Personalized Ornaments
Nov. 27 – Tammy OConnell
Julie McGuffee’s Glass Block
Dec. 5 – Kathy Cano-Murillo
Dec. 9 - Ken Oliver (You are Here)
Dec. 12 - Cathie Filian

til next time, stay inspired,
Ken