Christmas

Hanging with My Gnomes Wreath • Video Tutorial

27 · Dec 3, 2018 · 1 Comment

Yo, yo, yo… I’m hanging with my Gnomes this Holiday season! LOL!! This is actually a fun Christmas tradition that comes from our favorite Nordic friends up in Sweden & Norway. Gnomes have always been a big part of their Holiday traditions and I thought it would be a fun one to add to our family’s Christmas this year. These cute gnomes are so easy to make and to add them to a yarn wrapped wreath form is a quick and easy way to introduce some new friends to your home. I grabbed all of my supplies at Michaels, my favorite creating store and set to work. Here’s how I made them.

+ This post brought to you by my favorite friends at Michaels +

This wreath couldn’t be easier! You could even get the kiddos involved as long as you’re in charge of the hot glue part. We don’t want any burned little fingers. They can cut out felt, make beards & even wrap the wreath with the yarn. It’s a great Holiday project for the family. Here is what you’ll need to make one.

Hanging with my Gnomes Wreath Supply List

Video Tutorial

Here is a fun, quick video tutorial to show you how to make these little guys…

Ok, had to create something fun when working with gnomes, right?

Here’s a quick list of instructions for the hanging with my gnomes wreath as well.

Hot glue the wood heart onto the bottom of the peg person. The top of the heart will be the top of his feet.
Measure the height of the peg person’s body and cut a strip of felt that is large enough to wrap around the peg person. I can’t really give exact measurements for this because all peg people are a little different.
Hot glue the felt onto the body of the peg person.
Tear a 2.5 inch section of wool roving and gently pull it apart a bit to create your gnomes beard.
Carefully hot glue the beard onto the peg person.
Cut a tall triangle out of felt for the gnomes hat. Make sure the base is wide enough to wrap around the peg person’s head.
Hot glue a section of floral wire onto the inside part of the felt triangle.
Hot glue the trangle together to create the gnome hat like in the video.
Hot glue the hat onto your gnome’s head.
Cut the stick off of the rock candy stick and then hot glue the wood ball onto the peg person for the nose.
To start the wreath, tie a knot into the chunky yarn and secure it with the greening pins onto the wreath form.
Wrap the form with the yarn until completely covered. It’s easier to work with smaller sections of yarn so cut lengths that are about 2 yards long and continue wrapping the wreath form until covered.
Hot glue your new little gnome friends onto the center of the wreath.

Vintage Canvas Christmas Tree Cart

47 · Nov 28, 2018 · 2 Comments

You guys, this project has been a long time coming! I’ve made all kinds of ornaments for my Christmas tree using my favorite Cricut tools like these felt ornaments or my farmhouse stars from last year. Now, I have something extra special for you! I have some good friends here in Nebraska, Brent & Leah from Old Cotton Wood, who are master pickers. They find all kinds of goodies and then travel the country selling at vintage markets. A few years ago Leah texted me about a vintage canvas mail cart that she thought I might like. The instant I saw it, I knew I needed it for my Christmas tree. My family hated me and begged me to get rid of it as we were moving to our new house and I held firm. I have plans for this beauty and you are all just going to have to wait and see what I create. Finally this year, I had the tools to create a beautiful canvas Christmas Tree Cart using my new, absolute favorite tools my Cricut Easy Press 2 mini & my new Sunflower Cricut Explore Air 2!! Now my family LOVES it and will be far more tolerant of my crazy hoarding of vintage finds. Come see how you can make one for your Christmas Tree.

+ this post brought to you by the amazing folks at Cricut +

The Canvas Cart

I know, I know, I know… You guys don’t have a Leah looking out for you, finding fabulous vintage canvas carts for you. I get it. However, you do have ME and I have found a fabulous new canvas cart that will be perfect for this project. It’s from one of my favorite (new to me) companies, Steele Canvas. They have a perfect canvas cart that will become a family favorite for the Holidays I’m sure! Plus, when it’s not holding up your Christmas tree, you can use it as a laundry cart or for storage. You guys, I crush hard on basically anything they make… I love canvas in all shapes and forms.

Now, your canvas cart won’t have that vintage patina but, it will look amazing either way… Old or New!

The Design

I do my best to create all of my designs within Cricut Design Space but, this one I had to design on my own in Illustrator. However, I’m sharing the SVG file for you guys to use on your own cart. Click on the image below to download the SVG file or click HERE to access it in Design Space.

Canvas Christmas Tree Cart Supplies

Now, when you are cutting Iron-On material like Cricut Iron-On Lite or my new favorite Everyday Iron-On you can use any of the Cricut cutting machines; the Explore Air, Explore Air 2 or the Maker. Any of these fabulous machines cut iron material just fine. BUT… if you want the Sunflower Explore Air 2 you need to grab it at Michaels AND they are on a crazy awesome sale this week for Cyber Monday!

Here’s what else you will need…

Cricut Machine • the Sunflower one will make you HAPPY
Cricut Everyday Iron-On OR Iron-on Lite • black
12×24 cutting mat • green or purple
Cricut Easy Press 2 • small
Canvas Cart
North Pole Design in Design Space

Instructions

You’ll need to cut the design in Design Space which is sized for a large canvas cart right now. However, you can resize as needed. I’m sharing several tips and tricks in my STORY that help with all kinds of things for this project. Go check it out before you start anything. DO NOT FORGET TO MIRROR YOU DESIGN BEFORE YOU CUT! Also, remember the shining side of the iron-on material goes face-down on your cutting mat.
In my Instagram Story, I share how to get all of your design onto ONE cutting mat, therefore, saving MONEY by not wasting iron-on material. I also talk about using more than one piece of iron-on for this LARGE design.
Weed your design and grab your Easy Press 2 (small) and get ready to iron on your design onto your cart. I recommend starting by centering the Trading Co. part first and pressing it onto your cart. If you are smart, you will do with before you load your tree into the cart and lay the cart on its side. It’s totally do-able pressing your iron-on vertical, it’s just a good arm workout. 😉 Again, watch my story to get all of the tips and tricks for this process.
Set your Easy Press to 375˚ and start pressing your design onto the cart. It helps to use the Cricut spatula tool to press the Cricut Iron-On lite or Everyday Iron-on onto the canvas surface. Not having a hard work surface, you do have to baby this project a little bit. Work in sections until the whole design is complete.

DIY Pearlized Wood Bead Star Ornament

71 · Nov 16, 2018 · 1 Comment

I love wood beads, it’s a classic trend that I can fully embrace and not feel like it’s going to go out of style anytime soon. Plus, you don’t have to worry about them breaking which is an added bonus as well. This year for the Michaels Dream Tree Challenge I made a large wood bead star for the top of my tree and I fell in LOVE with my new star. Then I thought it would be fun to use some DecoArt Americana Decor Matte Metallic paint to pearlized some wood beads to make a smaller wood bead star ornament for my Christmas tree. As promised in my Instagram story, I also made a video for how to make the star. Let me show you how EASY it is!

+ This post sponsored by DecoArt+

Over the years I’ve fallen more and more in love with making my own Christmas ornaments. It really does add more of a story to your Christmas celebration. If they are ornaments that the whole family can make together, even better. This project can be a bit messy, however, if planned for that’s not a bit deal. It would be great fun for kiddos of all ages to play around with the paint and string some “pearls” during a cozy winter activity together. Here is what you’ll need to make the pearlized wood bead ornament.

Pearlized Wood Bead Ornament Supplies

raw wood beads
Americana Decor Matte Metallic paint – Ivory Pearl
string
scissors
aluminum foil
ribbon
large needle
hot gun
hot glue stick

Instructions

You guys, this project can be some messy fun if you’d like OR, you can keep it nice and neat. Either way, it’s a fun project to work on with the family. The first thing you’ll need to do is create your “pearls.”

To do that, you’ll need to line a dish with aluminum foil and then pour a small amount of paint into your lined paint tray.

This is the fun part… rather than laboriously painting each and every bead (there are 30.) You will just dump them into the tray of paint.

The paint is a little think so you can move them around by moving the tray a bit but, you most likely either need to use your fingers or a tool to spin the beads around in the paint to cover the surface of the bead.

For this project, I’m using an upholstery needle to string the beads so I used that to move the beads around a bit and then resorted to my fingers. 😉

Next, I threaded the string on my needle and strung the beads onto the string so that they could dry without resting on a surface.

Now, this part can get a little messy, make sure your surface is protected with foil or some other material to cover your surface. Once all of the beads are on the string, you will want to hang it from something you have around the house, even taping it between two soda boxes will work.

Now, you will need to touch up any bald spots and then let them dry for a couple of hours. Halfway through, when the beads are dry to the touch, pull them apart so that the paint dries between the beads. Once they are dry, you’re ready to make your star. As promised, I created a video to show you how.

How cool is that? So EASY, right? Go grab your supplies and have these ready to go for when you have downtime next week during your Thanksgiving celebration. The family will love it AND, they’ll look fabulous on your tree!!

DIY Farmhouse Felt Christmas Ornaments

56 · Nov 14, 2018 · Leave a Comment

I am going to label this season at WhipperBerry the felt season. I LOVE all things felt and I love being able to cut and customize my felt designs using my Cricut Maker & my cute little Cricut EasyPress 2. I have been wanting to create a farmhouse style tree that is all black & white so I thought some simple and elegant felt ornaments are a perfect addition to the tree. Farmhouse felt Christmas ornaments are sure to be a classic staple for years to come as you decorate for the holidays, plus they are super easy to store and won’t break! I love it!! Here’s how you can make a set of your own.

+ This post is sponsored by my favorite folks at Cricut +

What I love about these ornaments is that you can tell your Christmas story right on your tree with these simple word ornaments. If you love Santa and would like to have a tree dedicated to words that evoke fond memories of all things Santa, you can create that!

If you would like to tell the story about the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ you can do that as well. I know that each family is different but that’s what’s beautiful about these simple ornaments. You create your own story.

Not to mention the fact that YOU can select the colors. If you are like me and would like to stick with black & white, great. If you want to have a rainbow tree, awesome! It’s all up to you and I LOVE that. Here, let me show you what you need and how to make these simple but elegant ornaments for your tree.

Farmhouse Felt Christmas Ornaments Supplies

Instructions

First, what you’ll need to do is to click on this LINK to my project in Cricut Design Space. My design will let you add your own words and customize it how you would like OR, open Design Space and create some ornament designs of your own.

Now, if you are using my design, everything is sized and ready to go for you. If you are creating some ornaments of your own design, double check the sizes and make sure everything is prepped and ready to cut. If you don’t know how to do that you can visit this post that has a full video tutorial on how to prep your design for cutting in design space.

Once you are ready to cut, all you need to do is load your felt onto your Fabric cutting mat and follow the directions on the Design Space screen.

Now for cutting the felt, I have been more successful using the rotary blade than the deep cut blade so, you’ll have to manually change that when you’re ready to cut.

Here are a couple of VERY IMPORTANT RULES…

When cutting felt on the Fabric Cutting Mat, DON’T worry about the fuzz that is left behind. I have been cutting all kinds of felt on just one cutting mat with fuzz and all and it’s not a problem. The more you play around with the cutting mat and try to scrape or wash that felt fuzz off, the more you are damaging your mat. Just keep going and ignore the fuzz. Of course, test to make sure that your felt is secure on the mat. It will after quite a few cuts become difficult to use and at that point, it’s a better idea to dispose of that mat and start using another one.
DON’T FORGET TO MIRROR YOUR IMAGES! I’ve done it more than I would like to admit which drives me CRAZY! When you are cutting your designs when using the iron-on vinyl, make sure to mirror your images. Remember, the design is cut on the back side of the Everyday Iron-On. You will flip it over and iron on your design onto the surface of your project.

It looks like a crazy bunch of backward letters but, flip it over and cut out your words and it looks just fine.

Now that your words are all cut along with your felt ornaments now, it’s time to press the EveryDay Iron-on onto the felt.

HANDS-DOWN the best tool to press any type of iron-on material is any of the Cricut EasyPress tools. I love these gems and don’t know what I would do without them in my crafting arsenal. The EasyPress and the EasyPress 2 machines are far superior to a regular iron. If you love to create anything with an iron-on element you need to invest in one or more of these great machines. The heat plate holds a consistent temperature all throughout the plate. With irons, you will have hot and cool spots. Also, the EasyPress 2 heats up super quick! I LOVE all three of the EasyPress 2 sizes. For this project, I’m using the small 6×7 size. CUTEST LITTLE EASYPRESS EVER!!

Now, all you need to do is to lay your felt down on your EasyPress Mat, place your words on the felt in the proper place, cover your ornament with the Cricut Protective Mat or a cotton tea towel and press with the small Easypress 2 set to 35o˚ for 60 seconds.

I use the remover tool to save my heat sensitive fingers from the Easy Press Mat and let it cool for about 1 minute.

Then I carefully pull the protective sheet from the top of the Everyday Iron-on material. Always start slow and pull carefully. If you see any lifting, stop and give it another run under the EasyPress 2.