12 Ornaments: Merry Marathon

 So today is one of those days like we have had for the last 12 years where everyone gets all pumped because the numbers are all the same.  They conveniently forget the fact that they probably don't recall what happened on 11/11/11 or 05/05/05 or if it turned out good for them or not.  Yet still, here they are, positively elated and wishing on clocks or penguins or whatever people wish on these days. 

Yea, needless to say I don't buy into it.  But what I do buy into is taking some crazy fad and turning it in to something productive.  This idea was not entirely my own.  A very good friend of mine mentioned that he was going to post multiple posts on his creative writing blog (found at www.nathanhinote.com, which I don't think he will mind me sharing) today because everyone was all bananas over the date.  He said he wasn't going to do 12 things, which of course got my mind spinning on if I COULD do 12 things for this blog...

So needless to say since we are two of a kind, we are now both in the process of our 12 things.  Well, not entirely, because obviously if I am typing this I am done.  But I had a head start.  In under 6 hours I give to you this Christmas cheer.  It serves the double purpose of not making me back down from a challenge and for filling up my little tree.

This time, I am adding all of the individuals after all of this, and putting the explanation in captions below.  Hopefully this works this time, haha! Remember, most of these will take you well under 30 minutes to do, drying time aside.

To make this I cut about 3 feet of tulle and stuffed it inside the ornament.  I used a sharpie (high tech here) to put on the eyes and mouth, and white + copper puffy paint to put on a nose and scarf.  The biggest time is drying, it is super quick and easy!

There was probably never a loony toon I liked more than Marvin the Martian.  Admittedly, I used to go around trying to imitate his voice, demanding my space modulator back...NOW.  Regardless, to make him I stuffed the ornament with black feathers, way faster than painting! I painted his eyes, hat, and a little strip of red at the bottom and he was good to go.

 

As you may or may not know my soon to be craft studio is full of damask print.  I probably should have been working on it today instead of making 12 ornmanents...oops!  Regardless, this is also stuffed with black feathers, the damask is freehand and I coated it in polyflake.

 

This is green crackle paint sponged on with a sponge brush.  Right after I had it on I put polyflake on it to let the glitter dry in the paint.  If you use crackle, be prepared to choke.

 

Another crackle painted ornament, only this time I used a knife to put it on.  For everything except the green ornament above, I used a plastic knife.  It was great for helping to control the texture.  The paint does crack later, so don't be alarmed if it takes a while for it to go into effect.  As always, I coated it with polyflake.  I have all of these ornaments drying on pieces of styrofoam cups that I cut apart to make stands.  I will have to finish the backs later.

 

Soooo...this was originally going to be a pine tree on here, but after I got to doing it I just coated the whole front.  I am really not sure why.  I do, however, love the texture, it reminds me of a pinecone, so I am ok with it.



Do me a favor, and say hi to RoboRaptor's leg! He helped me craft.  Anyway I used a sparkly ornmament, puffy paint, and a yellow jewel to make an "elf" on this ornament.  I really like Elves...if they are the blond Lord of the Rings variety (I'm lookin at you, Bloom).  But that would be weird to put on a Christmas tree, so holiday elf it is.



This thing is cracking me up.  I pulled up a picture of the Abominable Snowman on Google Images to get an idea of what to do.  The white is done in crackle paint! It dries incredibly quickly and lets you do all sorts of oddball textures.  If you are going to freehand something and use a sharpie, draw your lines twice as thick in case you paint over them a little.

I am not really a college sports fan, but I think this little bugger will find a home on my mom's tree.  I used another 3ft or so of tulle and this time wrapped red sheer ribbon around it as I went.  I stuffed it into the ornament, tied a festive bow on top, and used my favorite white puffy paint to do the symbol and name.  Everyone remember that puffy paint that I started with for that infamous ornament?? Yea, I just NOW finished that bottle.  Great stuff!

For you non sports fans, I wanted to include the shot of how cute it was even before anything was painted on it.

Here comes Santa Bulb, here comes Santa Bulb...round 2! I used crackle paint and multiple other colors to whip out a basic Santa face.  The more I look at it...the more I think it looks like it is from the Jetsons.

IT'S PSEUDO GARFIELD! I did not have yellow paint, so I will have to fix that later after I get near some.  Again, google image the picture and get to painting. 

As arguably the most truly me in all of the ornaments of today, I made a Coheed & Cambria based ornament. If you do not know who they are...get off my lawn.  TOTALLY KIDDING! But I really like them and have for years, and they may well go down as my favorite band overall. 


Please excuse my messing up of the table, I had to have all of my stuff within arms reach to make sure that if I was holding a wet ornament and got a great idea, it would not be hard to make it happen.  I already had all of the materials for this on hand, which made it that much better.  If you are getting ready to craft, take a look at what you have buried in your totes and organizers before you go buy more.  There are some very crazy things that make for quite the ornaments later.  To make all of these, I used less than 10ft of tulle, less than 4 ft of ribbon, a fraction of two different colored bottles of puffy paint, and barely made a dent in my other paint or polyflake.  The ornaments that are clear came from Michael's (who sells plastic ones individually thank you very much) and the green ones came from my friend Gretchen.

Consider also the many variations on some of these: using red or green tulle on the snowman to make a santa ornament or elf, using feathers in place of tulle, using a part of a boa, etc.  Don't just do what I did because I showed you can- make it better and show everyone! That is what I love about crafting and creative things, we have such a way of building upon what others do that everything is really just the base for something else.

GET TO CRAFTING!  And thanks for stopping by my blog :).