Santa Silhouette - Tutorial

It's no secret that us crafters love making our own holiday decor, ornaments and gifts! What we don't like is a craft that costs us a lot of money and takes a lot of time to make! Ugh. No thank you! I want need my precious time for baking cookies, watching cheesy Hallmark movies and buying presents! Here is a VERY easy and inexpensive project that I whipped up this last week:

A Santa Silhouette!

Materials that you will need:

construction paper (color of your choice) 

frame - with backboard

background paper (I choose brown postal paper) 

Scissors and/or exacto knife

pencil

glue

Begin by measuring the backboard of your frame and cutting your background paper to size. Glue it down and let dry.

Next, find an image on the Internet by googling "Santa Silhouette" and select a Santa that you like. Print it off from your computer. I chose this copyright free image.

This part is a little tricky, but I know how crafty and talented you all are and I have faith that you can do it! You can either cut out your printed image and trace around it onto your paper, OR if you are like me and needed a larger image to fit into your frame, I had to free hand it! Which was fine, because I wanted to personalize it by adding more detail to his hair, hat trim and pom-pom. 

Hint: Trace or draw your image on the reverse side of your paper. That way you can flip your image over when you are done and you won't see pencil and eraser marks.

Next, start to cut out your image using your scissors or if you have hard to reach areas, you will need an exacto knife. 

Position your silhouette onto your background paper and glue down.

FYI: I painted my frame black. Burgundy isn't my thing! 

Easy peasy, right!

Cost of materials:

Postal paper - $Free (I had it left over from this craft)

Construction paper - $1.50 at Michael's by using a coupon from here. Just click on the "craft coupon" button on the top of the page
Frame: thrifted for $1.00

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Total cost: $2.50

Time to make it: 45 minutes

Loved your visit! Until next time...

Project Soft Book: COMPLETE!

A HUGE project that has been a long time in the making is now complete! A project that took presidence over any other craft for the past several months. Hooray it is finished...kind of! 

Several months ago, my DIY club decided to take on a major task. One that would go into the record books for our club and be talked about amongst ourselves well into our old age. We decided to make a soft book for our children! A 20 page soft book! My dear friend, Nicole, was the ringleader of the group and had it organized, scheduled and perfected. There are rules to this kind of thing, ya know! All 20 of us signed up to make a specific page that we would design and then hand produce 20 of that page. We had to sew each background, each decoration and each activity onto our page - no gluing! Nicole also figured out a good size ( 9X12) and what material (canvas) was best.  We also had to sign up on a list so stating what we were going to make so that 2 people didn't end up doing the same page. At the end, we would swap our pages and end up with 20 activity pages for an incredible soft book! We got together several times over the past few months to work on the pages and it seemed like the challenges and the work was never ending! From cutting the canvas, shopping for materials, hand cutting all pieces then sewing it all onto the 20 pages - I can say this definitely was a labor of love! 

Well, the end finally came on Tuesday night! We got together and swapped the pages, celebrated and rejoiced! I was so incredibly happy with the results and felt very lucky to be part of such a talented and amazing group of women! I just marvel at each of their pages and imagine them working so diligently on them - with care, precision and passion!

A HUGE thanks to all the crafty and amazing women in our group! Several of them have blogs too so feel free to stop on by their blogs and check out their talent yourselves!

Nicole with Elsa Bags

Caroline with Armelle the Blog

Susan with Freshly Picked

Eva, Stephanie and Kristin with Sycamore Street Press

Karisa with Pretty Handsome Paper

Dear Tia working so hard on getting the pages bound together!

Caroline is a multitasker! Shoot the breeze and sewing all at the same time!

Susan is a team player! She helped trim the canvas pages to size, removing fringe and dangling strings and made them easier to sew!

The gang is all here! 15 women, one house, one mission!

Karisa was a total trooper the whole way! She worked on her pages at 9 months pregnant, then showed up with new baby Harper by her side to get it all done!

The work!

Amy, Kristin and Eva taking a break with a few sips of Diet Coke and good conversation!

No party is complete without a table full of delicious treats to fill the bellies!

I am up to my ears in soft book pages and I could not be happier! Now I am off to the fabric store to buy some bias tape for the edges! 

Have any of you made soft books?

Do you belong to a craft club?

Have you ever gotten yourself into the middle of a project and realized you may be in over your head?