Christmas Ornament (picture tutorial)

*warning, this post has a lot of photos*

Good Morning my friends!! I hope your weekend has started off right. Yesterday I didn't have school or work and it felt great to not do much. I was in the mood to snuggle on the couch and watch a Christmas movie and the only thing I could find on "watch now" on Netflix is the remake of Miracle on 34th Street. I enjoyed it. :-)

Well on to the fun stuff. So earlier this week I stopped in my LSS and they had this super cool paper ornament. They told me it was from a Basic Grey ornament kit. The kit had die cut circles that were already scored, basically all you had to do was assemble it. As awesome an idea that was, I couldn't pull myself to buy the kit so I went home and decided I was going to use papers from the November kit to make an ornament. Now, Tony is a Math whiz so I asked him to use a mathematical equation to figure out where the score lines were to go and of course he was able to figure it out. LOL!!

Now I am a little rusty at trying to give "directions" clearly in writing but I am going to give it a try. I hope I don't confuse you. LOL!!

Don't be intimidated by making this ornament for yourself. Once you mark off the "score spot" the rest is super easy. So let's begin.

First thing you want to do is chose your papers. I chose 5 papers from the November kit.

Now I chose to use my Spellbinders Nestabilities Circle Dies, but I think next time to make it faster I will use my Cricut. I had to cut 20 circles out. It didn't take a long time but I think I could have saved a little more time (read: I won't get a cramp in my hand from cranking the Cuttlebug 20 times, lol) with my Cricut.


I used the 3" circle die. With the measurements I give you, you need to make sure the circles are 3".




Now I have my 20 circles. I don't have a picture of it but next I inked the edges with some of my Colorbox Chalk Ink. I wanted to do it with my Walnut Distress Ink but my pad was a little "dried out," not really but I had to ink the edges of 20 circles, I wasn't sure it would make it.

Next is the "tricky" part. Grab your score board, whether it's the Martha Stewart Score Board or Scor-Pal, doesn't matter. Grab some masking tape or easily removable tape and a ruler.

You are going to measure, 2 9/16". Along the grove, place a tape at 0 and then at 2 9/16".

Next you are going to grab one of your circles and your bone folder or scoring tool.
Keep sliding your circle over until they line up like the photo below. Just until the "edges" match the bottom right corner of the tape. Does that make sense?

Use your scoring tool that and score from one end to the other like the photos below.


Then you will spin the circle and line the end of the one score line with the edge of the tape and score. Check out the photo below.



Keep working your way around until you have created a scored triangle.

Score a triangle on each of your circles. The next step is up to you. You can either embellish the circles with pictures, stickles, bling, or really whatever you would like. If you chose to add some pictures you will do the same steps above. Cut out the circles and score a triangle.


I chose some of my favorite photos and lined the circle die on the photo where I wanted it cut. (I don't have photos of that step)



After you cut the circles and score the triangle you will cut out the triangle. Make sure you cut to the inside of the score lines. You want your triangle to lie inside the score lines on your patterned paper circles. Are you with me so far??

Adhere the photos to random circles. I chose to adhere them to mostly the solid colors. That is really your chose though.

Ok, so if you have stayed with me this long then we are in the home stretch. Now I made several of these ornaments so I could figure out the best way to assemble the dome. I really had no idea how to tackle this. I will show you the way I figured out how I could best assemble and explain. If you try and make one of these and find an easier way to assemble it then by all means use it. I must say I was a bit frustrated until I assembled it this last way that I am going to explain.

Here we go: First you will take 5 random circles. That is why I chose 5 different pattern papers. Now if you can think of this dome having a cluster of 5 circles for the "top", 5 for the "bottom" and 5 for each "side" that may help in visualizing how to put the together.

The photos I am going to share won't match each other in the process because as I said I made several of these ornaments in order to get it right. LOL! So you will take 5 of the circles and adhere them as I have above. Actually take 10 of the circles and make two separate 5 circle clusters. One for the top of the dome and one for the bottom.




The next step is to build the sides. This part is hard to explain so I will just share photos.


Did any of those photos make sense. You used 10 circles already to make the top and bottom so you will be piecing the other 10 circles around the sides. Ultimately what you will want 5 open flaps at the top so you can adhere the "top" of the dome.
As you are adhering the top of the dome, you will want to take some ribbon and adhere it in between one of the flaps so you can hang it.

Above you will see two photos of the finished ornament. And there ya have it. So what do you think? I really wish I would have had time to make a video to share but this past week after my kids went to bed I was in class and there is no way possible to film a video when they are awake. LOL!! I hope you will give this a try. I REALLY like the way it turned out. If you do make one I would love to see your finished project, please leave me a comment with a link to your project.

It may seem like a lot but once I figured out how to assemble the dome it really came together pretty quick. Probably took me no longer to make this ornament than it would have to make a card or LO. No longer than an hour and I would say most of that was cutting the circles. I will be making more over the next few weeks and I will be hanging them on my tree. With my lil ones I am not able to have fragile ornaments, last year they broke them all.

Well that's all for today. Stop by tomorrow for more inspiration. I am also hoping to have the December kit reveal a little early this month. With the 25th falling on "Black Friday" and the day after a holiday, I am not sure many of you will be around that weekend.

Don't forget to play along with this month's sketch. :-)