DZ Doodles More Holiday Ideas to Re-create!

Hi Doodlers!

A handmade gift is the sweetest thing. Not fancy, just straight from the heart. I've gathered up some more holiday "creative ideas" that I've come across and freebie-fun images! The more I search for projects for the holidays the more I see things created using the felt fabric and buttons this season! 

Foam Board Creations are something I've always enjoyed creating ... and this 19" x 29" Foam Board Cabinet (2nd photo) step-by-step tutorial at Paper Castle will guide you through the construction of this awesome project! Whether you create yours as a 5-drawer, or 15, 20 or more, the finished piece is really inexpensive to make, decorative and lightweight but fun to use for storage ... jewelry, herbs in the kitchen, trinkets, etc.! I came across another design, not necessarily using foam board, but another idea using "cork" in the center to make it even more functional! It measures 13" x 13" and sells for about $42.00 and is made of press boards.

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Poinsettia Coasters tutorial and PDF pattern by Deborah Schlegel at Art Threads is a quick and easy decorative accent piece to make and use throughout your holiday entertaining. And a set of 6 or 8 makes a wonderful hostess gift too! Using inexpensive felt fabric, which is easily hand washable, you can either machine stitch as she has done, hand sew, or even hot glue gun pieces together.

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A mistletoe kissing ball adds a festive touch to holiday decor, and your kids will have a blast trying to avoid getting anywhere near it. DIY's Felt Design How To felt fabric makes it easy, quick and inexpensive to whip up a few of your own! 

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Reindeer Noses packaging by Zoe Robson at A Personal Touch make it a fun gag gift to give and stocking stuffer. Give someone a bag of Christmas reindeer poop!

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Thinking about doing a felt fabric ornament project? Spellbinders felt and button decorative ball may be the inspiration you (and the kids) need to design some for your holiday decor. You don't necessarily need to use the materials required to create the Spellbinders project, sometimes free-hand cutting is the funnest way to go! It's a great way to use up any scrap leftovers from other felt fabric projects. Just use your imagination!!

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Becca Feekan at Amazing Paper Grace creates a card and matching box, and a video, to demonstrate how to re-create her hexagon box and lid. Although she uses the Spellbinders Hexagon Petal Envelope, which does the form cutting for you, I came across some hexagon templates cut-out using scissors or craft knife that you may like to use instead to get a similar design. Just click on the images to enlarge. Right click your mouse on enlarged image and "Save As..." to your digi folder. 

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Ladies Home Journal gingerbread House is labeled as "easy" and given that is starts off with a stove-top gingerbread dough, I think perhaps they are on to something. Find the slideshow HERE.

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People around the world are discovering a love for felt-making.  Learn all about working with fleece roving that you can find online or in almost any craft store.  You will learn how much fun it is to work with this palpable product and suitable for all ages and level of crafters. There are 25 appealing projects in “Making Felted Friends” illustrates how creative it can be working with this colorful medium using wet and needle-felting techniques.  You will find a new and exciting artistic outlet for yourself. From cats, dogs, and penguins to snakes, dinosaurs, and monkeys, all the favorite animal friends are covered. Most start with a simple armature, which is wrapped with fleece roving. Then, with the addition of a bit of soap, water, and elbow grease, most projects can be made in several hours. Felting invites embellishment, and these projects make the most of it with brightly colored spots, stripes, spikes, and beaks that offer the imaginative crafter opportunities for sculpting one-of-a-kind creatures. This book comes just in time to make some of these fuzzy felted friends’ a perfect toys as holiday gifts or add a decorative touch to a tabletop or mantel display.  Gift this book as gifts or kept for your own inspiration.

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Felt fabric "Blanket Stitch" step-by-step corner and two pieces together.

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More project ideas coming soon!
Diane :0)

DZ Doodles Thanksgiving & Christmas "Createables"!

Hi Doodlers!

With just a little over a month before Christmas, it's time to gather up ideas to start decorating your home! Here's a few holiday decor ideas that may interest you and know I'll be re-creating.

Pumpkin Pie Thanksgiving Cookies! Ok, they may not taste like pumpkin pie, but these Thanksgiving cookies sure look like it! For a portable version of the Fall dessert favorite… how about cookies? Decorated on circles with just two colors, these “pies” are cinch to make.

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It's snowman time!

If you are a sucker for a cute snowman face - here's several cute faces! This freebie snowman printable candy bar wrapper is from Laurie Furnell. 

 

Felt Christmas Snowman! This is a cute idea, especially as a door knob hanging greeter, and its easy to recreate too!

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Becca Feekan Honeycomb Ornament tutorial at SplitCoast Stampers transforms lightweight double sided paper into a beautiful holiday ornament! Although she uses Spellbinders 2011 Heirloom Ornament die I'm sure using your Xacto knife and #11 blade with a similar drawn image as a template will create the same outcome. You can easily "print out" the tutorial from the right side column of her tutorial page.

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Martha Stewart Decorative Paint Line is filled with 40+ Projects from stencil painted pillows, lamp shades to skirts, redo's, frosted mirror, table transformations, to plates, napkins and so much more! I've just got to stencil paint some snowflake glassware!! :0)

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 “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”  ~Anne Bradstreet

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They are gorgeous! Amanda over at The Ivy Cottage blog has Three Easy Candle Crafts for some simple yet elegant Christmas decorations to light up your holidays! Even for gift-giving!! 

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Christmas 2011 -- Birth of a New Tradition

As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods -- merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor. This year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans. There is no longer an excuse that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands. Yes there is!

It's time to think outside the box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in a shirt box, wrapped in Chinese produced wrapping paper?

Everyone -- yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates from your local American hair salon or barber?

Gym membership? It's appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some health improvement.

Who wouldn't appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, American owned detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a book of gift certificates.

Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plonking down the Benjamines on a Chinese made flat-screen? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.

There are a bazillion owner-run restaurants -- all offering gift certificates. And, if your intended isn't the fancy eatery sort, what about a half dozen breakfasts at the local breakfast joint. Remember, folks this isn't about big National chains -- this is about supporting your home town Americans with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open.

How many people couldn't use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?

Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a local cleaning lady for a day.

My computer could use a tune-up, and I KNOW I can find some young guy who is struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes.

Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at your hometown theater.

Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.

Honestly, people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of light, about fifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip.

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining American pockets so that China can build another glittering city. Christmas is now about caring about US, encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams. And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn't imagine. THIS is the new American Christmas tradition.

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Darlene from Darlene’s Designs shares a great video on how to get the blended look of Copic markers but she uses Stampin’ Up markers. There are easy way's to use what you already have! We don’t always need to run out and spend a bunch of money on the “latest and greatest”.

 

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This challenging acorn box, originally by Jessica Wolf of Paper Acorn, is a hexagonal slant-sided construction with lid. Carol at Extreme Cards and Papercrafting has a great "construction tutorial," including downloadable cutting files, that will help make sense in how to re-create this stunning project!

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I have so much more to tell you, and show, that I'll have to continue with another post as I get projects completed and come across more fun ideas for you to re-create!

Happy doodling!

Diane :0)

2011 (c) DZ Doodles Digital Stamps and DZ Doodles Doohikey Designs. All rights reserved. Any third party products, brands or trademarks listed above are the sole property of their respective owner. No affiliation or endorsement is intended or implied.

DZ Doodles Santa's Sleigh, Wreath's To Create!

Hi Doodlers!

Now that I've got a fireplace, although it's only the kind with a room heater and fake fire, I thought that this year 'we' would just decorate around it because family and friends will be visiting out-of-town and it seems like a lot-of-ta-do for just the two of us. I remembered the sleigh my mother drew up when I was a child and Dad made from wood-cuts and that she had handed down the original pattern to me awhile back when she was downsizing her stuff ... but do you think I could find the thing when I needed it?! What to do even after restructuring my filing system to find it? 

The only thing was to design my own "sleigh" and here's one that I came up with that I call, SANTA'S DOOHIKEY SLEIGH. Using chip board as my base I doubled the sleigh runner's inside up to the part where the blue card stock will be attached and did the crunched-up foil wrap effect just on the runner's (tutorial is in one of my earlier posts), then buffed a blue acrylic paint over the pieces. Blue card stock is applied to both cut pieces of chipboard panels as well as a red dry-embossed card stock panel. The panel-piece holding the sides together measures 3-inches wide. THEN I added the finishing touches that brought it all together!   

The holly leafs are from some printable download that I bought - just printed them out on card stock, cut around each piece and applied them to both sides using glue dots. The bow is made of card stock using Hot Off The Press Fold-It-Bow Template - they are so much fun to use (HINT: I sometimes create a larger bow by drawing around the original template bow, scan it, and using one of my programs I enlarge it to the size I need - print out, cut around and well-la!). PRODUCTS USED IN SLEIGH CONSTRUCTION: Chipboard, cheap roll of thin foil wrap, acrylic paints, Aleene's All Purpose Tacky Glue, Best-Test Rubber Cement. Measures approximately 6-7/8-inches high x 10-1/2-inches long x 3-inches deep.

This sleigh shape can be decorated prior to assembling, and after, using a large variety of holiday items such as stickers, rub-on's, stencils, paper, fabric, buttons, charms and more. Use it for creating home decor floral centerpiece, gift-giving containers, and whatever your creative mind wants to make of it ... the possibilities are limitless!

What I'm going to do is give this sleigh filled with some wrapped Avon products, as it is very durable, so that it can be used as a Christmas card holder by the recipient for years to come. This is only one-of-the-many sleigh designs that I am creating, and I'm looking into the easiest way to make them available to you without all the arduous hand-cutting of chipboard. I'd like to offer my designs to you as pre-cut chip board pieces, so we'll see what I can do. And I have a bunch more goodies (like sleigh's) to show - so keep checking back!! :0) 

This sweet candy Christmas wreath idea doubles as a holiday decoration and an advent calendar. Count down the days until Santa's arrival with a special treat from the wreath.  Kids will love this creative advent calendar and wreath idea.

Christmas Craft Ornament Garland – With a beautiful design that features a range of lovely pastel colors and button, string and yarn accents, this faux garland will bring a look that you are sure to love to your holiday decor. Try winding this beautiful, colorful garland throughout your Christmas tree for a lovely addition to your arrangement of ornaments, or display it above your mantel for a beautiful, colorful effect. Quality craftsmanship helps to ensure years of lasting beauty. Cheerful colors will bring a festive look to any room in your home.

The Decorated Cookie, by Meaghan, a blog about decorated cookies, painted marshmallows and other crafty sweets has a sneak-peek look at her SUGARLICIOUS 2012 book release of cookies, cupcakes, and cakes - which also covers everything you'd ever want to know about crafting sweets. A must read article about "how to get a book deal" has some solid, brilliant and spot-on-advice for anyone who has thought about publishing. I can't wait to get my hands on it as one of my New Year's resolutions is to commit to getting more enjoyable 'baking' done come next year! :0)

I love wreath's but lets face it, a "wreath is a wreath" and I can never seem to find what I'm looking for - and what I want is too expensive! That is until you find something as gorgeous and different such as these. The Red Thread, a world of design, art, craft and interiors, and whatever else catches her eye has this gorgeous PAPER CHRISTMAS WREATH TUTORIAL that you may like to re-create! I know I am. I love the 'craft-equipment' she used. I came across another Autumn Wreath design and some suitable pre-made leaf patterns to use; just size and print out - click on image to enlarge, right click mouse on enlarged image and in drop down menu "Save As..." to your digi folder!

           

                        

     

After the Halloween hoopla, place your photo's onto your version of a Spooky Haunted House 12" x 12" scrapbook album like the fabulous creation made by Melissa Samuels at The Art of Scrapbooking!

FOR-A-DONATION! Quite frankly and sad to have to say this, but, I've had to eliminate FeedBlitz email alerts, and a few other such programs, so you will need to look-me-up in order to view my blog updates and any freebie-fun images that I may be offering. However, on some image listings, once I've received notice from PayPal of your donation (left-side column) I will be more than happy to email you the set of  images listed here "unwatermarked".

For most of my "Freebie-Fun Images"and projects you'll need to join us at Paper Craft Planet.



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Woman's Day Holiday Craft: Felt Stockings. Trace the stocking template onto three pieces of felt, then cut them out, using pinking shears for a decorative edge on the front. Sew the pieces together, and embellish with felt poinsettias, trees and ribbon-trimmed packages.

Creative Breathing's blog on PEPPERMINT ELVES and assortment of various other project designs made of felt, pipe cleaner pieces, floss and a bit of hand sewn stitching is not only inspirational but just too darn cute! Tutorials and patterns available!

CRAFT FOR A CAUSE! Pine Ridge Reservation.

 Introducing the many faces of MR. POTATO HEAD cookies 

that rocked the facebook world!

BIG POW OF COLOR! Elizabeth Allan's Art Studio share's some great tips about coloring your images with Ranger's Distress Inks on glossy paper. One that I really need to practice doing as well! :0)

Have fun,

Diane :0)

2011 (c) DZ Doodles Digital Stamps and DZ Doodles Doohikey Designs. All rights reserved. Any third party products, brands or trademarks listed above are the sole property of their respective owner. No affiliation or endorsement is intended or implied.