Light Up Your Christmas

     This project has been so much fun to make for two reasons, one-I love making Christmas items and two-I finally get to spill the beans on why things have been so quiet on here.........I can't tell you how pleased I am to have been asked to make some samples for John Nextdoor. These die sets were released on TV Thursday and the tree die proved to be a firm favourite.

      This die has no end cut so you can make a continuous line of trees, just by cutting and moving it along you can create a whole forest the full length of your cardstock.
      The bottle I used came from a shop called Flying Tiger, it is plastic which makes it safer for use around little people, and the bottom comes off for you to decorate inside.
       A full sheet of A4 card was slightly short of a perfect fit inside, not being sure of the exact depth I wanted I cut my forest across the middle of the card so it gave me room to play with.

   
      Using the deer set of dies I cut all three strips and coloured my deer brown. I left a tab on the bottom of each animal so I could glue them to the base of the forest, leaving them white means they hardly show when the light is on.
      Some of the deer are facing the opposite way to the way they were cut, as long as both sides are coloured this gives you double the possible poses of your animals.

      So the LED tealight I used inside could not be seen and the glow would be even I used a sheet of thick vellum and stuck it behind my trees.
      I also wanted falling snow so I used a sheet of acetate sprayed with Stix2 White Fabric Spray and stuck that, once dry, behind the vellum.
      Three layers were a bit harder to curve when putting them in the bottle but as long as you are very careful with the branches it's pretty easy to slide it all in. I didn't glue the forest scene inside the bottle as it sits quite happily against the plastic.

   
     The top of the bottle looked a little empty so I cut John's Ivy Corner die in green card, coloured it with a darker green and a touch of brown, then worked it with a ball tool. The resulting garland had dimension and a slightly mote natural colouring.
     The garland sits quite happily at the top of the bottle, as it's inside some of the leaves tuck over the vellum and this helps hold it in place, so no ugly glue marks to cover.

     All that remained was to cover the neck of the bottle. I'm not big on bows and frills but this was crying out for a bow. I had some hessian in my stash in various widths, you know how it is, you but several types just in case you might need them, well I did need them.
     I wrapped some wide hessian round the neck, then made a bow from the narrower one. I have an old artificial Christmas tree in my greenhouse that comes out each year on the front porch, this now has one small needle set missing!
    The berries were bought a couple of years ago but the cones are real, they are the result of a visit to a country house with lots of different varieties of pine tree and a carrier bag. All items were added to the bottle with hot glue.
     The LED tealight is held to the base with stickytac, I couldn't glue it in place as the switch is on the bottom.

Materials list - dies
  JNDC  C021 - Deer Scenes                               
  JND 141 - Woodland Trees                               
  JND 124 - Ivy Corner                                         

I would like to enter this decoration in the following challenges:

Sparkles Christmas - It's Snowtime

The Holly and Ivy Christmas - Anything Christmas Goes

Crimbo Crackers - Anything Christmas Goes

Cut It Up - Die Cut Critter

Christmas Crafts All Year Round - Add A Tree

Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes