Festive Ornaments for Eileen Hull Designs

Hi everyone and welcome. This month Eileen Hull's Teams are sharing projects using Eileen's new Sizzix Chapter 3 dies as part of the launch celebrations this month. For my second project of the month I have combined two of the new dies, the Sizzix Scoreboards L Die 'Box, Ornament' and the Thinlits Die Set 'Wreath & Snowflake' to bring you some more festive ornaments. Each one has been given a different yet complimentary look using some of the products from Sizzix Effectz range.

To show how each of these ornaments was created here's a closer look at each one individually together with a 'how to' tutorial, starting with the largest.

This one started with me cutting six of the ornament shapes and their matching elliptical stripes using Eileen's 'Box, Ornament' Die from thick card, gluing the the shapes together and then folding each one in half lengthwise (as shown below). To give them some extra dimension I added a coat of Sizzix 3D Adhesive from the Sizzix Effectz range with a spatula, patting over the surface to give it a stippled look.

For the best results you have to leave the adhesive to 'cure' and go clear before adding anything on top. At that point I took some 'Gold' Sizzix Decorative Metallic Flakes and pushed them onto the tacky surface, making sure every part was covered before rubbing away any excess. As you can see the stippled surface can be seen even more with the flakes applied.

At this point I glued the gilded ornament die cuts together to form open 'segments'. Note; the heavier the weight of card you use the chunkier each segment will be.

With a thought to wanting to match these new ornaments to the to ones I'd created last week I decided to further emphasise the surface texture by dry brushing over the Metallic Flakes with 'Wisteria' PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Paint which has a lovely chalky look, taking the opportunity to cover the edges too at this point.

To decorate and add a contrasting finish some leaf stems and berries were cut from card covered in 'Gold' Sizzix Decorative Foil Sheets. I added drops of Lavender Liquid Pearls over the berry pieces to compliment the Wisteria paint colour before gluing the leaves and berries around the centre of the ornament. To finish drops of White Pearl Liquid Pearls were added to the decorative border and some sheer white ribbon was added to the top around an embroidery thread hanging loop.

The second ornament is one based on Eileen's snowflake from the 'Wreath & Snowflake' Thinlits Die Set.

This one started with me covering strips of kraft coloured card with double-sided Sizzix Adhesive Sheets on one side. I then applied 'Gold' Sizzix Decorative Foil Sheets over the top before die cutting five of the snowflake shapes.

After folding each gilded snowflake in half  I glued each one together, matching the sides together as shown below.

To decorate the assembled snowflake more drops of White Pearl and Lavender Liquid Pearls were applied to the surface to give it a 'bejewelled' look. To finish I glued a loop of embroidery thread into the top of the snowflake and threaded some matching beads on to it, using a little glue to secure them in place.

The third and final ornament is based on the wreath die from Eileen's 'Wreath & Snowflake' Thinlits Die Set.

For this one I die cut six wreath shapes from kraft card and covered each one with some of the 'Gold' Sizzix Luster Wax. I suggest using a brush to do this if you don't want to use your fingers and applying a couple of coats gives really good coverage. You will need to cover the front of three and reverse of the remaining three.

In the same way as I'd done for the previous two ornaments I folded each of the wreath shapes in half before joining them together, matching each piece by folding three inwards and three outwards; this is why you needed to add wax to the back of three pieces since they would end up as front facing.

In the same way as before I covered more kraft card with Sizzix Adhesive Sheets before applying Sizzix Metallic Foil Sheets on top. More berry shapes were die cut from the card remembering that I would need some to be cut from the reverse side so they would match up back to back.

You can see below how I glued the berries onto each side of the wreath sections, matching them up against each other. To finish I also added drops of White Pearl Liquid Pearls and secured the embroidery thread loop at the top with a white pearl bead.

And as a reminder this is what the group of three ornaments looked like when finished;

I hope you've enjoyed seeing how Eileen's dies have been used to create these ornaments. Make sure to check out the other Chapter 3 release projects and tutorials from the other Inspiration and Educator Team members - links to their posts can be found on Eileen's blog throughout the month.

For now thanks for visiting,
Jenny xxx