Christmas in July

Hi friends!  It's Suzanne, happy to be back on the Patterned Paper Plate.  The Patterned Paper Dad and I are part of a committee at our church that plans a fundraising Christmas Fair.  One of the stations at that fair is a Christmas tree filled with handmade ornaments that people can purchase for a small donation.  I started crafting some ornaments for that tree so I thought I would share with you what I'm making to celebrate Christmas in July and add a little chill to these dog days of summer.

​For the first one, I use a small piece of wood, three white buttons and the tiniest scraps of fleece material.  A little bit of paint and my trusty glue gun are also needed.  I'm starting with a piece of wood that is 3 inches long and about 1.5 inches wide.  This is a piece of a wooden mini blind slat that was salvaged when my brother and sister-in-law changed out the blinds in their house.  To start, I paint the wood with a light wash of red paint. ​

 I then glue on 3 graduated sizes of white buttons in the shape of a snowman.  To finish this little ornament off, I punch a hole at the top of the wood and string a piece of twine to use as a hanger. To make the snowman's hat, I take the tiniest rectangle of fleece fabric and tie a bit of twine around it, about two thirds from one end, then fold over the bottom edge to make a small cuff.  This gets glued to the wood right above the top button.  I also take a small piece of fleece, knot it in the middle and glue that below the top button to act as the snowman’s scarf.  

This easy peasy Christmas ornament took about 5 minutes to make and will be perfect to mass produce.  I thought the snowman was so cute, I wondered how green buttons would look in a Christmas tree shape.  Also super cute as it turns out!  For this one, it’s the same small piece of wood with a light wash of red paint, hole in one end and twine tied through for a hanger.  For the tree, I glue 4 green buttons in graduated sizes on to the wood and finish it off with a teeny tiny bow to top the tree.

For our second ornament, I'm making use of my copious supply of paper and stickers.  For this ornament, I use 3 paper punches – a 1.25 inch circle, a 2.25 inch scalloped circle and a 2.5 inch circle, some glitter paper, snowman stickers and some  thin plastic poker chips I purchased at the dollar store.  This ornament also uses baker's twine and my glue gun.  

To start, I punch out 1 2.5 inch circle from heavy white cardstock, 2 2.25 inch scalloped circles and 2 1.25 inch circles from the glitter paper.  To assemble, I glue 1 2.25 inch scalloped circle to the center of the white 2.5 inch circle, sandwiching the end of a length of baker’s twine between them.  I then glue 1 poker chip on top of that, then layer a 1.25 inch circle on top of the poker chip, allowing the rim of color to show.  

A snowman sticker is glued to the center of the ornament and the entire process is repeated on the other side of the white circle, to make the ornament two sided.  As a variation, I use some teeny wooden shapes I found in my Christmas stash.

The last ornament I'm making today is a bit of a throwback – it’s a puzzle piece wreath.  The Patterned Paper Dad really enjoys doing puzzles and when we got to the end of one, we found that there was one piece missing.  Rather than pass along the frustration of an unfinished puzzle, I decided to use the pieces for crafting.  To start this one, I trace a 3 1/2 inch circle onto some heavy card stock, cut that out and then punch the middle out using a 2.5 inch circle punch to make the base of the wreath.  

I glue one layer of puzzle pieces until the shape is full, then add a second layer over the first, offsetting the pieces.  I use a couple of coats of green paint over the entire thing and my wreath is ready to decorate. 

 I add a bow made of some wire edged buffalo plaid ribbon and a piece of white chenille yarn as a hanger.  I then dot on some Stickles glitter glue to add berries in both red and white.  In full disclosure, if I make more of these wreathes, spray paint is definitely the way to go to paint them.  Getting my foam paintbrush into all the nooks and crannies between the puzzle pieces was an exercise in patience. The basic assembly of these ornaments is quite fast and using spray paint would make them quite easy to mass produce.

I hope you enjoyed taking a little detour into the Christmas season for our blog post today.  It's never too early to think about Christmas and while we're sweltering today, cooler weather will be here before we know it.

Rebecca here: Thank you to my mother for the fun Christmas in July blog! The puzzle wreaths are very nostalgic to me as I remember making some of those when I was little! Is everyone enjoying the heat or ready for winter? Let me know in the comments below!

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Gary Spears:
www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-christmas-decoration-hanging-on-tree-250177/