Light up Chalet ornament

This was supposed to be an ordinary Christmas tree ornament, but some LED supplies I ordered off of ebay arrived, so I turned it into a light up ornament instead. It took a while to do, both because some of the steps required drying time, but also because I had to carefully consider how to make the lights work.

Where did I get the idea for lit crafts? I've been seeing Chibitronics cards all over and I've also discovered mini dollhouse kits that light up. My husband's an engineer and suggested I get LED components if I wanted to try making some of these, rather than buying pre-strung lights or expensive kits. I don't think I can do cards with my supplies - the lights I bought are a little too large - but I can do ornaments and fairy gardens and whatnot.

It was pretty complicated, especially since I put the back on my chalet before I decided to do the electronics, then needed to cut into it to hide most of the wires. There are three lights: two yellow ones in the house, and a blue one behind the tree.

Backing: One piece of blue cardstock die cut, glued to a round piece of stiff cardboard (not the stuff boxes are made of, more like a heavy cardstock). I punched and cut some stars out of the blue with a knife. The inside of the cardboard was painted with 3 layers of glow in the dark paint, to glow as stars. The back was painted black and then sprayed with varnish so the paint wouldn't chip.

Diorama: The chalet started out as a 3D bird house cut file from the Silhouette store. I modified it, adding windows, frames, an open door, and the balcony. There's a thin layer of German lantern paper covering the windows (it's kind of a cross between waxed paper and tissue paper - I know about it because my parents brought it home from Germany when I was a kid. I bought some on a trip there a few years ago. The point of the paper is to help diffuse the light so there's no blindingly bright spot. Tracing paper, crepe paper, tissue paper, etc. would probably work too).

The tree is from a shaped pipe cleaner, cut and dabbed with some white puff paint and glitter glue. Here's the tutorial that taught me how to make them.

The snowman is made from 4 half pearl stickers. I carefully added black embossing liquid for eyes and buttons. For the nose I used pearl embossing liquid for dimension, and coloured it with an orange marker once it was dry. I used two tiny twigs for arms, sandwiched between the lower pearls and a piece of wire through the middle of all 4 pearls to attach it to the styrofoam base. The wire and twigs made gaps between the pearl halves, so I used some pearl embossing liquid to fill those in.

Base: This is a quarter of an 8cm styrofoam ball. I thought the styrofoam looked kind of ice like, so I just I added some white puffy paint in places to look like snow and sprinkled some iridescent glitter on top. I did a failed version of the base where I covered it in a thick layer of white glue and added the glitter, but it wasn't the right size so I had to redo it. I also didn't like that the glue dried clear and flat, removing the texture and interest. I didn't realize this when I set it up, but the blue light diffuses through the styrofoam - but not the paint - giving a cool effect.

Electronics: The two lights in the house were attached to a piece of cardboard. Each led had 2 prongs, a positive and a negative. I twisted 470 ohm resisters to the negative sides before joining their wires up (behind the resisters). They come out at the bottom of the house. The positive sides were twisted and join at the middle of the house. For the tree light, I made a hole through the styrofoam for the negative wire and ran the positive one on the surface (covered by puffy paint). They join up with the wires behind the house. I punched two holes in the backing for the wires to go through. I glued a battery holder down using crazy glued, and an on/off switch with hot glue (it had a depression in the back so there was nowhere for the crazy glue to stick). I lined up the wires and my husband soldered the wires together.

I finished it off by gluing the dome on with some hot glue (alas, I made a bit of a mess with the glue in one area, so I'm trying to come up with a better way of attaching the dome for the future).

Mini Sled Ornament

I made this sled using mini popsicle sticks, so it's the perfect size to hang on a tree.  I got the pattern for the sled from Serendipity Refined, though I didn't sketch it, so after making a few that didn't look right, I had to look at the post more closely to get the proper placement of things.

I put the sled together with hot glue (I tried regular white glue first, but it took so long to dry and didn't seem stable).

It looked a little plain so I decided to spruce it up with some mini pinecones I'd found last year that I partially spray painted gold (so you get gold tips but brown elsewhere), two leaves with glossy accents (so they would have a bit of dimension) and a tiny poinsettia (using one of the new Spellbinders dies).

Bird Nest Ornament

The idea for this ornament came from Favecrafts.

I took a mini plastic shot glass and applied puffy paint to the rim, then spread chunky glitter on it. Once that was dry I glued some faux snow (ie stuffing) to the bottom of the glass, then added some real twigs and 2 punched leaves with glossy accents on them for the nest.  Finally, I glued the bird on the little 'nest' and hot glued a hanging cord on top out of giftwrap ribbon.

Ribbon Angel Ornaments

I got this ornament idea from the wonderful tutorial at Happybird's Crafting Haven.

I did two of these ornaments, one using the 'correct' number of ribbon folds, one one with fewer.  I like how they both turned out.  I glued a bell on as a head and attached the cord for hanging.

Bird Feeder Ornament

This ornament was patterned off the one at S.C.R.A.P..  The craft is designed to help you reuse some old scrap, specifically a pill bottle and a juice bottle cap.

I started off by painting my cap black and filling a mini bead bottle with bird seed.  I glued the pieces together and glued on a small branch.  I found a set of 3 mini birds at a local craft store, and glued one on to the branch.  For the metal top, I used a circle cut from a previous year's Christmas cracker, and glued it into a cone and then glued it to the bottle.  It's a bit fragile, so if I did this again I'd either use cardboard for the cone or glue the paper onto cardboard or cardstock so it's firmer.

Christmas Tree Hot Chocolate Mug Ornaments

I didn't have much time for making Christmas cards this year, so I ended up whipping some clean and simple cards.  I did, however, find some time to make cute Christmas tree ornaments I'd pinned in previous years.  Here's a hot chocolate mug ornament, patterned off the one by Loraine at Breakfast for Dinner.

I wasn't able to find mini plastic mugs, so I took a mini shot glass and used hot glue to make the handles.  I drew a handle on a piece of scrap paper, then squeezed a think line of glue over it.  The glue peeled off well, but was flat on the paper side, so I squeezed a second line of glue on the flat side so it would have dimension as well.  I then glued the handle to the cup.

I painted the edges of the mug with brown paint, then when it was dry, took a circle of construction paper with the edges clipped in and carefully shoved the edges inside the mug while leaving a flat top.  I painted the top and cut a hole.

Once the paper was dry I twisted a red and white pipe cleaner together and bent it into a small candy cane, snipping it to size, then glued it in and glued some white pom poms around it as marshmallows.

Easy Paper Christmas Tree Ornament

This was a pretty easy ornament to make.  I started by using the EK lily pad 2-in-1 edge punch and punching 8 cardstock panels, four in red and four in a shimmery white.  I attached the ends using two snowflake brads, closing the brads on the inside of the ornament.  On the top I wrapped a pipe cleaner under the brad to hang it with, and on the bottom I made a quick tassel by wrapping and hot glue gunning down a piece of ribbon around some ribbon strips.  I then used red glitter glue and pearl embossing liquid to add dots in the centers of the middle flowers on the panels.

Snowman Bead Ornament

I don't actually know where to get the materials for this, if it was a kit or purchased separately, as I found the pieces for it at the bottom of a box of ornaments.  It's 3 sizes of clear beads, with a narrow black bead and a thicker black bead for a hat.  I tied it all together using red ribbon (though a silver pipe cleaner might have given it a better snow feel.

Beary Love Ornament

This is the first ornament I made last year, but the most time consuming one, which is why I'm posting it last.

I started out by cutting some acetate with a circular die.  I only cut part of the die because I needed piece at the top to attach to the ornament.  I made a bit of a mess out of it cutting it down to size, so I should have cut an actual ornament shape on my Silhouette.  Ah well.

I glued a card topper I got from a magazine to the acetate, along with a few silver snowflakes.  I curled the acetate so I could fit it into the ornament, glued it on, then added some different coloured sequins and pom poms.

Pom pom Christmas Tree Ornament

This is another quick ornament to make.  I just filled a plastic ornament I bought at Michaels with some sparkly pom poms I got at the dollar store.  Voila!

Poinsettia Christmas Tree Ornament

This is an ornament I made for my tree last year but didn't share on the blog.

I cut out a bunch of different sized poinsettia flowers on my Silhouette SD (plus 2 leaves, though one didn't cut properly, which is why it's only partially visible on the finished piece).  I then scored the flowers to make them look a little more real and added glitter glue to the edges.  I assembled all the pieces, added a few gold cardstock berries and a piece of ribbon to hang it from.