12 Days of Ornaments - Day 3!

Hi all! It's a little late in the day, but I'm so excited to share today's ornament. It was inspired by one I saw at Lowes. Again, I immediately thought that it could be recreated with a die. Tim Holtz's Vintage Market die, to be exact.

The exciting part for me was trying to come up with a way to recreate the galvanized metal that the inspiration ornament was made from. I think I discovered a pretty cool solution. Read on to see how I made it!

Begin by cutting out the words to spell 'noel' from chipboard. For the first set, cover the chipboard with foil tape before cutting. The next two sets are cut from plain chipboard. For the fourth set, cover a piece of chipboard with foil tape, but place it tape side up on the die, so that the back of the letters is covered with foil.

Stack your letters and glue - keeping the foil-covered letters on the top and bottom layers, so that the ornament is foil-covered front and back.

 When the glue is dry, sand the letters lightly, being careful not to fray the edges.

Next, cut strips of foil tape slightly wider than your stacked letter (mine is just over 1/4" wide) and apply to edges of letters. Some letters are easy to do in one long strip and some may require a couple shorter pieces to get around the edges. Use a thin tool like a bone folder or dull edge of a knife to smooth the foil down.

To give the foil the look of galvanized metal, dab lightly with Brushed Pewter Distress Paint. Let it dry for a bit, but not totally. While it's still tacky, dab a bit of Black Soot Distress Paint onto the letters. Immediately pounce it with your finger to blur and smudge it. Let letters dry completely.

 To finish your ornament, glue the letters together. I used a combination of Beacon's 3-in-1 and hot glue. Mostly because I was in a hurry! When the glue is dry, screw two idea-ology eye hooks into the top of the letters and tie with jute string. Attach jingle bells with a jump ring and you're done!

I love how this looks on my little tree with the ornaments from Day 1 and Day 2! In case it isn't obvious, I'm going for a vintage/nature vibe with all of these. I hope you're enjoying them! I'm having an absolute blast coming up with them.

All the supplies I used can be found at Inspiration Emporium and Amazon (chipboard) via the links below. Remember to use my coupon code - stamptramp - to save 10% on your order at IE!

Sizzix Vintage Market Die Inkssentials Metal Foil Tape Distress Paint - Black Soot Brushed Pewter Distress Paint idea-ology Jute String Idea-ology Screw Eyes idea-ology Jump Rings Grafix Medium Weight Chipboard Sheets, 12-Inch by 12-Inch, Natural, 25-Pack Vagabond

InLinkz.com

Day 1

Day 2

Above are the links for the previous ornaments. I hope you're inspired to try some of the techniques I've used. If you do, be sure and link to me and let me know what you've made

Thanks so much for stopping by - see you tomorrow!