Design Team: Denise O'Connor Week 8

Denise O'Connor's: Beary Christmas

We are so excited for this weeks challenge! Our design team was challenged to use our November sponsor Pink by Design's Holiday stamps to create some Christmas items in some new colors: Baby Pink, Baby Blue & Green! WHAT?! yep! we feel that red, white & green while beautiful, doesn't spell Christmas for everyone. People want to break out from the traditional, and we wanted to see what our design team could come up with! And guess what? they surpassed our expectations! Here is Denise' O'Connor's pink Christmas:

Before I get started with my project today, I have to send a BIG Happy birthday to my son Jared! Happy Birthday Jared! I love you and I cannot believe that you are already 7! Yikes, I just realized that means that in 9 short years he will be driving! Where does the time go?

This week the eCraft Design was given quite a challenge! I personally love to use non-traditional Christmas colors, but I usually go with bold darker colors. We were challenged to use a hot new color combination for Christmas…Baby Pink, Baby Blue and Lime Green! Well I love a good challenge and this one is definitely out of my comfort zone, but I have to say that I LOVE what I made!

There is such a whimsy to these colors isn’t there? Since I am also focusing on treat containers this month, I thought it would be fun to take something that all of us have at home, and use it for our treats (which even though they look complicated, are REALLY easy, keep reading and I will explain).

The first thing that I did was take a jar of Classico Spaghetti sauce and made spaghetti for dinner so that I could use the jar in my project! I love the details on the jar itself, so it was perfect for this project! I used Martha Stewart’s line of acrylic paints (found at Michaels) and painted the jar. These paints work on all sorts of things including glass, so this was easy as can be. The paint that I used was the satin finish and the color is called Pink Carnation. Oh and don’t worry about the paint job being perfect because the glitter will conceal a lot!

 I then took some Mod Podge and covered the entire jar and then went a little glitter crazy! I used Martha Stewart Snow Glitter and Sterling fine glitter. I used the Sterling sparingly just to add a little touch of silver.

 While I let the jar fully dry, I went to work on my tag. I used THIS ornament from eCraftCentral.com but also found on the Jen Allyson Celebrates SD Design card. I skewed it in eCraftshop Pro to form a more oval ornament and one that was big enough for my stamps. I cut it out of Core’dinations cardstock using a veggie mat, pressure of 5.5, no tabs and blade cover on. I then went to stamping. My Pink by Design stamp set Beary Merry Christmas was perfect for this whimsical project. I actually only stamped the bears heads on the tag along with the sentiment. I then used some Picket Fence Distress Stain to color in the bears. I love how it gives a chalky look to it! To do this, I just put some of the Distress Stain directly on my non-stick craft mat and then used a paint brush to paint in the bears. I did two coats of this. I messed up in a couple of places and just went over the black stamp lines where the Distress Stain ran over them with a black marker. I also used the same method with Shabby Shutters Distress Stain for the scarf and the little bit of the sign that is showing. I then used Perfect Pearls and painted that onto the ornament hanger.

 I added a scalloped oval behind the whole ornament and also if you look closely you will see that there is a small amount of glitter along the edges of the blue ornament to add a little more shimmer. I then set about creating the bow around the top of the jar. I used some Christmas ribbon from my stash and then layered it with a bow out of handmade Crinkle ribbon and topped it off with the pink button. The ornament is actually the same thread that is threaded through the button. I used some amazing Crafty Power Tape adhesive from 3L Adhesives to adhere this bow onto the jar, and let me tell you….it is not going anywhere!

 I added some floral foam inside the jar and started to add my “Cheater Cake Pops” (more on this in a bit, I promise) into the jar and decided that I wanted one more element in there, so I created this super simple decoration using the bird cuts and the snowflake cut from the Jen Allyson Celebrates SD Design card. The snowflake can also be found on eCraftCentral.com right HERE. For the snowflake, I again doused it with the Martha Stewart snow glitter. After I added this into the jar, I filled it up with some decorative filler.

 Now it is time to talk about the “Cheater Cake Pops”. I got this idea from the Frugal Crafter who did this for a birthday party and I decided that I absolutely had to do this. You see, I have been seeing recipes for the cake pops for a while now, and they look wonderful. The problem is that, I would rather spend my time eCrafting than in the kitchen. Who can blame me right? That is why I never made them, they always seemed like they would take more time to do than I was willing to give to it. So here is my recipe and it seriously took me maybe 10 minutes to do, and they were good too!

CHEATER CAKE POPS

12-16 Donut Holes (I got mine from Dunkin Donuts, you want the cake donut holes)

1 (16 oz.) package of Candi-Quick (found at any major grocery store)

Sprinkles or any other type of edible decorations

Lollipop sticks and something to stand them up in (I think floral foam would work beautifully)

Put your donut holes in the freezer for a few hours or overnight. After they are frozen, insert your lollipop sticks in using a twisting motion. Follow the directions to melt the Candi-Quick and then dip each donut hole into the Candi-Quick and let the excess drip off. Then place in your floral foam and add your sprinkles. Let the Candi Quick set. That’s it, you’re done! Oh and I should mention too, that I recommend that you wrap your cake pops in a small cellophane baggie. They sell some in the major craft stores in the candy making aisle if you plan on giving this to someone. That way they will be protected from all the glitter! I didn’t do that on my project because I think I am going to use this for a small centerpiece on my table.

Have a great day everybody, and be sure to come back every day this week to see what the other ladies have in store for you with this hot new Christmas color combination!

We told you it was amazing! Are you breaking out this year from the traditional Christmas colors? or any plans for making some ornaments to add a special touch to your tree this year? Share with

  us!

Denise O'Connor

www.PurplePaperParadise.com