Christmas Ornaments

It's time for the launch of a new challenge on the Claritystamp Challenge Blog. This month's theme is "Christmas".

I thought it would be fun to make some tree ornaments. The plain baubles are 99p each from The Range and are perfect for jazzing up. I've seen a lot of them decorated with vinyl by Silhouette Cameo owners but I thought they'd also be ideal for stamping.

Making them is really quick and simple - the design is actually inside them on acetate.

I cut a 78mm circle (after some trial and error this was the size that worked best) with a tab on it out of some heat resistant acetate. As I said before, I used my Cameo for this but you could use a compass to make a template out of card and draw round it.

To get a lovely solid black design I heat embossed the stamped image with Versamark ink and black detail embossing powder. Make sure you dust it with an anti-static bag first so you don't get too many stray flecks of powder. Then brush away as many as you can before heating it.

To get it into the bauble you take off the top and roll up the acetate as tight as you can before posting it through the hole. You may need to use some tweezers to curl the edges back the other way slightly once it opens up. It was the first time I'd embossed on acetate and I was worried that the melted powder would crack off when I did this but it didn't.

Then you can decorate them as simply or as elaborately as you want.

For this simple text one I've just added a black bow (sticking it on with my hot glue gun).

For the nativity scene I added some cut up raffia for straw and some rustic looking gingham ribbon.

For the reindeer I've added some Polar White Flower Soft for snow and some sparkly silver threads.

That's just three ideas but there are so many Clarity stamps that would fit in perfectly. 

I must say "thank you" to all of my FB friends who helped me nag my reluctant husband into getting the Christmas tree down from the loft for the photos last month. See Hubby, it was necessary!

Congratulations to the winner and Top 5 of last month's challenge. I really look forward to seeing all of the entries for this month's. There's a £50 Claritystamp voucher for the winner and it's chosen at random so everyone has a fair chance of winning, regardless of experience.

Stamps Used

Peace on Earth

Large Nativity

Christmas Stag

Lynne

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