Day 7 - Oh, Christmas Tree...

This week has been fabulous...reading all the comments you have left (but I admit I need to leave the house soon).  And to be quite honest I want to thank everyone for being such good sports in answering all our Christmas questions.  
I hope you have taken a few minutes to read the comments.   Not something I usually do when I'm reading other blogs, but there have been some very touching as well as funny stories. These are three of my favorites from this week: 
From Dria:

MY favorite decoration =now that is hard to choose. I love my Nativity because it represents the true reason of Christmas. But my favorite decoration has to be my little pair of baby angels my dad bought me during my 4th Christmas season-- I still remember seeing them in the store. It was snowing and I was Christmas shopping with my daddy while my 2 older sisters were shopping with my mommy. The ladies had gone to a big girls store daddy and I went to the toys and decorations areas. We were looking at the tree with all of the glittering ornaments when I spotted a baby girl and baby boy angle--she has long white hair and he has short white hair- Every time I pull them from their tissue wrapping I am transported back through time to that evening(over 46 years ago now) a little girl hanging on to her daddy's finger and asking "PLEASE?" Although that daddy passed away 12 years ago now his indulgent smile lives on. 

From Cynthia:
My sister and I used to have a tradition when we were younger: Two days before Christmas we would open one gift each, then wrap it back up so our parents wouldn't know what we had done. On Christmas Day, we would shake the box and 'magically' guess what was inside! This was so funny to us until our parents clued in and that tradition was nipped in the bud!! =D 

And from Crabtree-Creations: Every year since 1960, we have bundled up on Christmas Eve and set out to find Santa Claus. I have wonderful memories of piling into my Dad's Buick, kids all crammed in the back seat, my Dad and Uncle up front, one driving and one navigating, our little cold noses pressed up against the car windows, trying to get a glimpse of the Sleigh, or Rudolph or the Big Elf himself.
Every year without fail, we would return to Grandma's house to find that HE HAD JUST BEEN THERE!! Oh so frustrating!
One year I decided to stay at the house, so not to miss him, but was somehow convinced that it was better to go out and look for him, so off we went, and when we came back, HE HAD JUST BEEN THERE! I repeated this tradition with my children, and now I am a new Grandmother, so will continue to take the grandchildren out on that yearly trek going out to find Santa Claus, returning home to find a home full of love, goodies on the table, and presents under the tree, because HE HAD JUST BEEN THERE!
See what I mean?  Great stories!

Again, thank you everyone who commented!

The winner of Day 6 of the 7 Days of Giveaways is...

 Congratulations! 

Lori said...

This is something that my mom did for me and my siblings when we were kids. She made our Christmas Stockings from brown grocery bags. They were sprayed gold, trimmed in red rick rack and sprayed with snow and of course our names on them. To this day I love and remember those stockings. This year, my mom recreated one for me. I was in tears for the whole day over it!     December 17, 2011 4:40 PM  

Lori please email me at paula@2gypsygirls.com to claim your prize!  

You have 24 hours or it goes back in the pot! 

Oh, Christmas Tree... 
Well, we've made it our last Giveaway!  When I started this week I intended to make a few small projects...today's project is anything but small!  I used the 7gypsies ATC & Photo Display as my structure.  If you have never seen this product, it has a heavy base and a tall rod that screws into it.  Each of rings gets successively smaller and they can be put on the tall rod in any order or you can use as many or as few of the rings as you want.  The thing I love about this product is that you can make something for Christmas and then change it out for your summer vacation photos.  

So here's the base,

Pick a paper to cover the top of the base. I am choosing the vintage paper Leslie sent me because I am so inspired by the red numbers!  Place the paper on the base and punch the hole.  Then turn the paper over and sand off the excess so the paper will not cause problems with the rod screwing into the base.

Add nice coat of Multi Medium to the top of the base, then the paper.  Use a brayer to smooth out any bubbles.

Flip the base over and cut off the excess paper with a cutting knife.  Sand the edges and ink...Vintage Photo (right, Sue?).  Don't leave home without it!

So you could put paper on the edges or leave as is but I am going to use a vintage measuring tape. 

Here's the finished product.

Now were ready to put the ATC and Photo Display together.  Then start adding the embellishments (or junk as we like to call it).
Three tips to Remember:

1. Embellish the back of things because you will see it, even if it's just paper.
2. Limit tying or wiring things to the structure.  Why?  When you take it apart you will have to deal with that and it's no fun.  I created one of these with vacation photos and hand wired everything to the structure...not fun when summer was over and I had to take it apart.  Learned my lesson!
3. Hanging thing from the clips makes them at least 1/2" longer.  More times then not I haven't taken this into account and had to move items from the top row to the middle because it was too long.

So let me walk you through the project.  

Most of the items are self explanatory so I will give you the product information and a few notes.

7gypsies Tag set - Affirmations

7gypsies Mini Hanger - brass

Idea-ology Vial labels  (obviously my favorite product of the season)

Vintage pearls as ornaments in the tiny tree.  A vintage thimble serves as a tree stand.

Needed a way to hang the tree.  Not sure why I figured this out today after hand wiring almost 170 trees for the Junk Drawer Advent kit.  Why didn't this come to me sooner?  Grab one of Tim's Memo Pins and shove it down into the branches of the tree.  Glittering the tree gave it just that extra something to hold the pin in place.  So simple. 

Wendy Addison tag (I added the words)

Who doesn't need a bottle of snow?
7gypsies Apothecary bottle
label - vintage

I had to add a few pictures...these are from my friend Rachel at Darkroom Door.  Our long term readers know these photo booth shots are a go to favorite of mine.  These are from the sheet of couples.

More vintage items
7gypsies key

Vintage red velvet coat buttons.  These have been in my stash for years and they never seem to work till now.  I just stitched them with some thick wool thread so the stitching would show up.  Added the vintage red label at the bottom and the number from a page found in an old book.

I made the window from 7gypsies collage paper that has been treated with Ice Resin.  You can see how I did it here (amendment: you can skip step three of the instructions...I have now made at least 50 sheets of ice resin paper and you don't need to wait for the bubbles to rise to the top when making paper.  Just stir for 2 minutes and go.)
The red metal flower is an old earring hanging from a Swivel Clasp.
7gypsies collage paper - Birdsong

You can see how I cut the Collage Tissue for the frame.

This card was made using one of my favorite stamp- Vintage Polka Dots from Red Lead.  It is a must have!  The chipboard letters are 7gypsies - Paddington...they have been painted silver and glittered.  The card is doubled, stamped on both sides and then sewn together.  Add the bell at the bottom to finish it off.

This little tree in the wooden spool has red beads from an old necklace.

Vintage card with some glittered pine cones.

Chipboard swallow with vintage paper.

7gypsies Tag Kit - Family
My favorite part of creating is cutting words from old books.  It always surprises me how the words come together to make the project unique and have more meaning. 

Glittered pine cones with a stitched leaf I cut from felt.

Another card from the 7gypsies Tag kit - Family

7gypsies Tag - Lille

There definitely needs to be a Naughty and Nice List, right?
7gypsies Numero Clear Stamp

Okay so you have already seen this calendar in the gift wrapping post but I stole it off my sisters present because I decided I needed it here more).  I added the silver metal star (American Tag)

Vintage numbers and a bit of leftover packaging from the village kit.

And the tree topper...a glittered star (can you believe my luck to run across the word tinsel?)

The ATC & Photo Display comes with a metal ball that screws on to the top.  I replaced the metal ball with a vintage clothes pin to hold the star in place.

Loving this project so much that I can almost guarantee 
we will be selling it as a kit next fall.

If you would like to enter to win today's giveaway (I do, I do!)
to win a KIT to create this project, please leave a comment.  The kit comes with everything you see here and the ATC and Photo Display structure.  There are full packs of two tag sets, the mini hangers, the large Vintage Polka Dot stamp from Red Led, the thimble tree and the spool tree, vintage labels, vintage earring, pearls and beads, all chipboard pieces, ice resin collage tissue, red clothes pin and even the little notebook and pencil.

Today's question: What do you want for Christmas?
I know my husband needs this one answered quick!

Day 7 Giveaway is open till 12 midnight pacific time.  

Winner will be posted tomorrow morning and you will have 24 hours to claim your prize. 

When we started 7 Days of Giveaways it was really a way to say "Thank You" to all of you that have supported us in our creative endeavors this year, whether it be in the classroom or buying a kit online, we appreciate it and you.  There are so many of you that we now call friends and we always look forward to hearing from you.  

Welcome again to all who have joined us from Pinterest and Tim's World.  We're glad you're here at One Lucky Day for a bit of this and that with a little gypsy flavor thrown in and we hope you'll stay awhile. 

Deb and I are taking a break from blogging this week to spend it with our families. 

We'll see you back here at One Lucky Day after the holiday!

and you can see I already purchased the ding dongs and hoho's for the neighbors!

cheers!

paula