Basic Grey -- Ornament Fun by Anne House 4 Months, 1 Week ago
Ornament Fun presented by Anne House featuring Basic Grey
I hate winter, but I love the winter holidays. How can you not love all of the decorating, traditions and meaning behind the fun days in December? To jump start your season, I have a few ornaments to show you, teach you how to make, and then we will put a couple of them together in a different way for even more decorating fun.
Today, we’re featuring the wonderful new line from Basic Grey: Eskimo Kisses. This line is both fun and fresh for the holiday season. Made featuring a fun pastel palette, this snowy line is perfect for decorations, or layouts all the way into January and beyond.
Snow Cone
Supply List:
5”x 5 ½” piece of patterned paper
Ribbon
Optional: Border Punch
Copy Paper
White Yarn
Buttons
Scrap of orange cardstock
Straight pins
Adhesive: liquid
Circle template
We're going to build this one in two main parts. First we will start with the cone. For this, you will need one piece of paper 5”x 5 ½”. Follow the directions in this diagram.
See attached for pdf.
Lightly close your cone, and punch a hole in the center of the sides.
Run your ribbon through the hole, tie a knot, and repeat on the other side. Set this part aside, we are ready to work on the snowman.
The second part of this is the snowman’s head. To make this, start by tearing a sheet of copy paper in half, and crumple. Form this to the approximate size of the head desired, and wrap it completely in white yarn. Glue on the black buttons for eyes. To make the carrot nose, cut or tear your scrap of orange cardstock into a 1”x 2” strip. Tightly wind it, and then twist that to form a very rough, knobby cylinder. Using a straight pin, run the pin through the underside of the last half of the carrot, so that it protrudes from the back of the carrot. Now, poke the pin into the snowman’s head.
To make the hat, you will need one circle about 2 ½” in diameter. Inside this circle, cut a circle about 2.” Cut a strip of paper 2”x 4”.
Roll this in a cylinder and stick this into the center hole of the circle for the base of the hat. Allow about ½” to protrude from the under part of the hat.
Using your scissors, snip the paper intermittently around the cylinder, and fold the tabs up to the base of the hat. Use adhesive to attach to under part of hat. Use a little adhesive to hold the top part of the cylinder together. You have formed your hat, feel free to decorate as desired.
To adhere the snowman into the cone, use a liquid adhesive liberally around the edges, place the ball into the cone, and allow to dry. Enjoy!
Paper Fan Sphere
Supplies:
6”x12” piece of patterned paper
Stapler
Tape adhesive
Ribbon
I have seen this ornament in a few locations, but I took my inspiration from How About Orange. Start by cutting your 12” paper in half, to create two 6” sheets. Then cut 12 strips- 1”x6”.
Stack these, fold lightly in half, and staple.
One at a time, add adhesive to the end of a strip, fold it over and stick to the bottom of the strip.
Repeat, making sure each time to glue in the same direction. Finish by gently pushing down on the top of each petal to “poof” it out a bit. Add a ribbon, and decorate as desired.
Modular Christmas Tree
Supplies:
Two 3” square patterned paper
One 4” square patterned paper
One 5” square patterned paper
Metal bling: Mark Richards
Take your first square and fold in half.
Make sure that the paper/side you want to end up showing is folded in. Open the paper, turn 90 degrees and fold in half again.
Open, take bottom left corner and touch top right corner and fold. Open, turn 90 degrees and repeat. Open.
Take bottom right corner, touch the middle spot, and fold. Leave folded.
Repeat this with every corner.
Pick up your paper, and push the folds toward the center so that you end up with one full triangle of paper on each side.
Lift your first triangle flap, take the tip and touch it to the upper corner, pinch fold, and fold into center of fold.
Repeat with every side, the final one will provide a small amount of resistance. Simply be a bit ginger with it. You have the first part of your tree. Repeat this process for the other paper squares.
These stack very easily on top of each other, add glue to secure, if desired. Punch hole and add a ribbon and bling, as desired. Here is a video that helped me in learning this paper folding technique:
A Combined Effort
Supplies:
One 4”x8” patterned paper
One 6”x12” patterned paper
Two 4” square patterned paper
Two 5” square patterned paper
One 6” square patterned paper
Various patterned paper scraps
Bling
Buttons
Straight Pins
Canvas art board
Gesso
Glitter
Now, let’s take a little from every project, combine them, and make a fun snow scene. Using what you learned from the Paper Fan Spheres, make two spheres of coordinating colors. Make one sphere as described. Then we will need a smaller sphere, so make the other with eight 4” strips. To stack the circles, take 2 petals of the larger ornament and flatten the petals. Now, add a touch of glue, and insert the flattened petals into the bottom petals of the smaller ornament. Add your buttons, make a carrot, and allow all to dry. Make a hat as described for the Snow Cone project. Adhere with liquid adhesive or hot glue gun. The next step is to make a modular tree. To make this bigger, I have simply increased all proportions by one inch.
The base was fun to make. I simply took a canvas art board that I found inexpensively and added mountains of gesso. Be very liberal with the gesso, being sure to cover the entire canvas and also create drifts and patterns in the snow. While the gesso was still very wet, liberally sprinkle course glitter all over your canvas. Set aside and allow to dry for several hours before assembling
Wonderful job with these beautiful Basic Grey products 
