Christmas Project #17

Santa Shadowbox

guest designer Kerry Lynn

The Santa shadowbox is made with a vintage photo mat and is sitting on an end cap from a vintage player piano roll.  St. Nick peeks out to see who's been naughty or nice this year in hopes he can deliver presents to those within his gaze.

So, this is the last of the Christmas projects for 2009...we are sad to see it come to an end.  But not to worry, CHA is only a few weeks away! We will be previewing the New Release early January.  Now THAT is something to look forward to!  And from what we have seen here in the gypsy camp, you're gonna love it.  

We hope you visit us again for a little more gypsy inspiration, ingenuity, and creativity.  You know us gypsies...we always have something up our sleeve!

Merry Christmas

-the gypsies

Christmas project #17

Cupcake anyone?

guest designer Kerry Lynn

(This may very well be the cutest thing we have ever seen!)

The cupcake stand is made with a vintage embroidery hoop. 

 

I mounted vellum inside the hoop and then applied a cut circle of the number rubbings, in other words, the rubbings were put on as a group not as individual numbers.  I just cut circle size I wanted from the rubbing sheet and then applied it to the vellum all at once.

 I also mounted underneath {around the interior of the embroidery hoop} metal paper edges so it would poke out with a cute little subtle scallop edging.  To finish off the stand I added 3 wooden spools of thread to the bottom.

I made the "jolly" flag with vintage crepe paper and an old Dennison label (a gypsy all time favorite!). The flag is stuck into the frosting with a key from the Vintage Hardware set.

Is it too late to do some holiday baking?

thanks again, Kerry Lynn for your fabulous inspiration...

Christmas Project #16

Christmas bags

Paula Cheney

Fabric bags for Christmas treats and small gifts.

Here's how I did it-

 Cut a piece of muslin fabric (for a small bag - 7 x 10").  I chose two 7gypsies clear stamps Nottinghill and the new Venice stamp.

Use the script stamp from the Nottinghill set to stamp the fabric in two colors of ink. There is no pattern to the stamping I just made sure the entire piece of fabric was covered.  I used Archival ink from Ranger.  The first layer of ink is Sepia and the second is Coffee.  Two great colors you should have in your Gypsy tool bag!

I stamped the center patch with another stamp from the Venice set (Very Beautiful) with StazOn Timber brown just to mix up the colors.

Position the patch on the front of the bag, pin in place.

Stitch with sewing machine.

Edge stitch the top edge of the bag.  Then fold in half, right sides together and stitch the bag closed on the side and bottom. Turn bag out to the right side.  Gather top of bag and tie with a ribbon.

For a larger bag ( 9 x 13" piece of fabric) stamp the same script stamp in Archival - Sepia.  Change stamp to the large clock from the Venice stamp set.  Stamp with Archival - Coffee just like we did in the last bag.

Using the stamp Gypsy Year, stamp December 25 on a piece of scrap fabric then cut out, stitch to bag front with red thread.

Stitch a string around the top of the bag and pull tight to close.

For the complete bag tutorial click here.

Merry Christmas!

-paula

Christmas Project #15

It's all about the trays today!

 Family Picture Tray 
Peg Hewitt

 We love this Photo Tray from an artist halfway around the world in Australia.  Peg has taken, what started as a white Photo Tray (not to be confused with the Artist Printer's Tray that has 12 small squares) and made a very clever, almost window-like effect.  

 The openings in the Photo Tray are 4 x 6" to accommodate a standard photo which makes it super easy to plunk down your picture in the opening.  But...Peg turned the tray on it's head by first orienting the tray on it's side, adding a larger picture than 4 x 6, and then actually cutting the picture into 4 pieces to make it fit.  It might take a bit more work to find a picture to make this technique work, but if this is the result, we think it's worth the effort.

Opens up a whole new line of thought, huh?

 Oh, and by the way...she covered the back of the tray too.

 

Thanks Peg for letting the gypsies share your tray!

Peg is on the design team for Shop and Crop, a great place to pick up some 7g goodies if you live in Australia.

If you have any questions about the tray you can contact Peg via her blog.

Grandkids

Ann Mabee

This Artist Printer's Tray (this is the one with all the little squares mentioned above) was made by Ann Mabee, one of the members of the gypsy design team.  Ann took the simple idea of wanting Christmas pictures of her grandkids and made it into an easy Christmas themed tray.

First, she set up a photo booth by hanging a white sheet as a background.  Next step?... She pulled in a small decorated tree.  Then, to add some variety (rather than just having each kid stand by the tree), she chose an old wooden chair and a red stool to give the kids something to hold on to or sit on.  We think it worked!

After the photo shoot (and what kid wouldn't want to have their own photo shoot?), she used Photoshop Elements to add the digital brush frame and each name to the picture.  Add in a little red flocked paper, some cut pieces of a metal paper edge and a few embellishments and your done!

We love this idea!

Christmas Project #14

Friendship Tea

 Rachel Carlson

In the spirit of holiday entertaining...every year I make my friends "Friendship Tea".  This year I decided to put the tea in an extra special tin just for holiday giving.  Although it was VERY hard to cut my favorite Barcelona paper - Manresa but I took one for the team - pout.

The Friendship Tea is very easy to make and fun to give.  I have friends that actually look forward to my Friendship Tea every year...and wait till they see their tins this year!  IF I can actually bare to give them away...

Product used:
Barcelona paper - Manresa
Victoria paper - Jubilee
97% Complete sticker- Merry
Red bird brad- Chelsea Brads
Gaffer Tape - stitches

Friendship Tea - aka Russian Tea
1 cup Tang Beverage Mix
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Instant Tea powder
1/2 cup instant lemonade
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Preparation
Combine ingredients and store in a tightly covered jar. To serve, combine two teaspoons of tea mix with one cup hot water, or for iced friendship tea, use one tablespoon per glass of ice water.

cheers to tea!
-Rachel
ps: Rachel's Friendship Tea was featured at Todays Mama...congrats Rachel!

Note to Self: Send Rachel more Manresa paper.

Christmas Project #13

Holiday Gift Tags

Rachel Carlson

I KNOW you are still wrapping presents, you are, YES you are.  I LOVE tags, I just do, all kinds.  7 Gypsies makes it so easy to alter an already printed tag for some vintage holiday paper packaging.  OR you can have them on standby for those last minute gifts you need to give the doctor, the mailman, the milk delivery guy, etc.  I used a lot of scraps for these tags but also some staple products that you should have on hand for these types of projects.

  Products used:
Vintage Tags

Shaped Vintage look tags
Large Clear Stamps:  97% Certifiable - Oval
Various Brads
Various scraps of yummy 7Gypsies paper

and ONE MORE from 

Renee Camacho

 The monogram set is just PERFECT for unifying present tags and keeping them clean and simple at the same time.  AND the kids will know exactly who’s present is who’s as soon as they see their initial!

Supply list for Tag:
Monogram: classic alphabet
97% certifiable Round Clear Stamps
Other: cardstock, pop-dots, rhinestone, black ink

Little bird wall hanging

guest designer Kerry Lynn

I used another book cover for this one.  It's a great size for this project.

The large flower is a rosette I created using vintage piano roll paper {i hoard this stuff}.  I layered the rosette, a Christmas tree light reflector and then a metal clock (Vintage hardware kit).  Next is a bird made with the 7gypsies Victoria clear stamp set. I stamped the bird image, cut it out and then glittered with blue glitter.  I added some little vintage numbers to complete the center portion and then attached the entire rosette to the book cover.

The hanger is a vintage bulldog clip.

 To finish it off, I punched a hole at the bottom of the bookcover, added an eyelet and a large hanging crystal (Princesca Harware kit).

 Another fab project from Kerry Lynn!

Gotta get some of those bookcovers, right?  Apparently, there's a hundred things to do with them that have nothing to do with books.