Oh, Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree….

It is now the ‘official’ start of the holiday season, the turkey has been eaten, the crazy folks who wanted to do Black Friday are napping, curled up amidst their shopping bags.

I got this idea for a Christmas tree pin from… well,I was walking around the Houston Quilt Show, in an overloaded daze, to be honest, all sorts of ideas flying through my head, and this one glided by slow enough for me to grab a hold of it and plot it out, step by step as I wandered.

  • Create snips or burrow through your waste basket for the left over snippets of your last project. Don’t worry if they don’t play nice together.
  • Then, locate a piece of Peltex about printer paper size. Lay out the scraps on the Peltex, covering pretty much the entire surface. (If it’s fusible, iron it now, if not, press down with your fingers to kind of lock everything in place.

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  • Rummage through your specialty yarn stash and artfully drape a yard or two all over the fabric.
  • A nice glittery piece of gold tulle is layered on top of all of this.

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  • Head over to your machine with a pretty thread and go wild practicing some free motion quilting.
  • Because too much is never enough, I spritzed the entire thing with some fabric paint. (This, along with the yarn, tulle and stitching, kind of makes it all blend together nicely)

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  • Once that dried, I got out my paint knife and a bit of Golden’s Medium and swiped it across the entire thing, and sprinkled with glittery stuff. (Not really glitter, it’s tiny little flecks of iridescent goodies I found somewhere, once.)
  • I glued a piece of white cardstock to the back –(next time, I will use green, so I don’t have to worry about paint on the back)

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  • After it dries (LONG time, lol, go to work or something fun like that)  I cut the entire thing into 2 inch strips, and then cut out tree shaped triangles. (Forgot that photo!)
  • I used a mix of medium and bright green acrylic paint and painted all the white edges, dipping the bottom edge into micro beads before laying out to dry.

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  • My last step was to paint the back green, because of the sloppy edge of the green I applied.
  • Signed, dated and glued on a pin back!

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The finished pin!  A full sheet produced 24 pins.

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Enjoy!!!

Linking to Off The Wall Fridays for the first time!

Don’t forget! Christmas Photo A Day starts on DEC 1! Register to receive notifications every morning when this blog updates.

DECEMBER 24, 2011 Christmas Photo A Day

The stockings were hung from the book case with care…IMG_4262

Merry Christmas Eve!