Another set of 2013 Christmas gifts - II

These two went to a person who like the elegance of the color combination of black, gold and white .  Each year he receives at least one ornament in these colors either for Christmas or his birthday.

Another set of 2013 Christmas gifts

This family consists of three: husband who is from Irish descent, his wife and their 5 month old son.  They received several of my ornaments over the past year and the son’s birth gift from me was 2 - 1.5 carat faceted rubies.

Poodle's miniatures for 2013

Eight years ago I gave my first miniature tree to a person who said they were not planning on having a tree.  One the way home, I thought “Everyone deserves a Christmas tree.” and I made my first mini tree which stands 33 inches tall.  The first tree had 50 mini lights for outlet and 80 battery-operated mini lights, 36 pairs of earrings, and over 100 handmade ornaments no longer than 2 inches.  Each year I gift another set of handmade miniature ornaments.  This is the set for 2013.

Finishing up on Ornaments

Trying to finish up on this year's ornaments.  Making some more of the ornaments like the glittery red/green/blue onions but using the metallic finish ornaments.  Will make ornaments with both silver and gold tone accents and in both 4 and 6 spoke variations.  Each card has four of each color, so I'll make up at least a dozen.  Each takes about an hour to do, but I usually have several in different stages of completion.

These will mainly be used as 'emergency' gifts, kept in the car just in case I need a gift for someone.  Try to keep at least a half dozen pre-wrapped ornaments stashed in the trunk.  Usually have them color-coded using gift wrap so I know which color I am gifting.  I need to see if they have the marquise shaped ovoids in the metallic finish, and if they do, I may make up a pair for each box.

I also need to work on a few upholstered ornaments for a couple of co-workers.  One of them pulls for Alabama, the other UNC.  I have the cloth, forms, and trim, the only thing I have to check will be the double-faced carpet tape.  The one who likes UNC gave his ornament away from last year to his son, so I need to make him one to replace it and make several more for him.

Last night, I made an old woman cry.

Yesterday, after work I stopped by a local craft store and picked up a miniature tree skirt, found a container that I could slip over the cement base of the miniature tree and packed about 2 inches of plastic snow in it.  I delivered the 1-ft tall last night.  I stopped by my co-workers home and called his mother to come over with the ruse that his wife needed her help.  We sit the tree up on the kitchen table, turned on the battery packs and waited for his mom to walked from next door.  Totally surprised her when she walked into the kitchen.  Her son told her the tree was from "Daddy" and he pointed out the cookie ornament to 'prove' it.

We told her that last year, I was asked by Cookie, if I would make a tree for her.  She kept saying she was very happy and didn't want anything else for Christmas.  I showed her where the battery packs were and that she would need 16 AA batteries.  I then turned to her grand-daughters and told them batteries would be a good idea for stocking stuffers.  She took photos of the tree and started sending them out to her friends.  Later, the son carried the tree to her house and sat it beside the urn containing his father's ashes, which I have been told is where it will stay.

Good deed accomplished, now to make more Christmas ornaments to continue spreading the season.

2013 Miniature Tree

Almost finished with the tree. Just have to finish the bottom, rise the tree an inch or two and wrap a skirt around to hide the battery packs and straighten the star. Has 80 miniature rice lights, swagged garland has silver feathers and spike alternating between connection points. 54 enameled charms, pearl drops and globes, AB white and Silver 'disco' ball ornaments, a cookie ornament in memory of Chuck's father "Cookie".

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Even though I went out and bought supplies for 4 miniature trees and then decided I wanted a year off, after making two last year in less than 3 months, I was asked by a co-worker to-day (11.13.2013) and I couldn't refuse. I made the second miniature tree last year which was given to his wife. She adored it and has refused to allow it to be put up. She told me that she and her mother-in-law would lie in the dark with the tree lights aglow. I stopped back by their house last Christmas to see her what she thought and Chuck's father commented that both he and his wife couldn't believe I made the tree.

In late July of this year, Chuck's father passed away and Chuck asked me today if I would consider making a tree for his mother so she could set it beside the urn containing his father's ashes. Chuck wanted to know if I could make a smaller tree, as the 32" tree I gave his wife would be too big. I purchased a 16" tree and have fluffed the branches. The next step will be trimming some of the branches to make the tree more symmetrical. After turning down the top ‘branch' the tree is just over a foot tall.

 For lighting, I could put two outlet powered strands or five sets of battery-operated, 20 bulbs per strand. I am thinking about using only battery operated lights for this tree. I then remembered I have a bunch of Christmas charms I haven't used in four years from bracelets, key-chains and ear-rings I bought at the wholesale show back in 2009. I have 24 different designs that I will re-purpose as ornaments. The collection has presents, 5 different snow-flakes, holly, stocking, candy canes, reindeer head and wreath, snowmen and 6 different Santas. Thinking about using up to six of each although I have only 2, 3,or 4 of maybe half of the designs. I should over a hundred charms which I will use, and since the charms are silvered finished, I will be using silver-plated findings instead of my traditional gold-toned.

There will be fill-in ornaments from white pearls, and maybe some other jewelry accessories but nothing over 1.5 inches though. From another shopping trip I have some silver-plated rhinestone sprays which I will add as sparkle and maybe I can find some rhinestone chain in silver-finish I can use as garland. I will set everything aside for the next week to work on this tree, trying to get it done before heading to North Carolina on the 22nd.

The ornaments for gifts to friends and family are almost done, have about 6 left to do, plus a set of miniatures for the first miniature tree I gave to a friend. Some will be mailed around Thanksgiving, others given out while I'm in NC at Christmas, and more after my return but before the 12 Days of Christmas are up.

Joined an ornament exchange a few days again and the person I was partnered with, said she didn't like glittery or gaudy ornaments, but she did like Santas.  There's a little glitter, but not as much as I could have done.

2013 Exchange Ornaments

Been toying with different color combinations for the 2013 exchange ornaments.  Need to do 15 total for the three exchanges I am a member of.  Six will go to the Yahoo! Group Christmas_All_Year.  These have to be the same and are shipped to a central processor who then re-boxes the ornaments and ships them to the other participants so you will get a box of six different Christmas ornaments.  Eight will go to the two groups I signed up on the Yahoo Group Yearly Christmas Ornament Exchange.  Each group will have a total of five people (me and 4 others) and since I will be in both groups that makes me and eight others (hopefully no overlapping will occur, but if it does I can make versions in metallic red, green and blue along with glittered red, green, blue, pale gold and bright pink).  The fifteenth ornament is the one I always make for myself.

I’ve made several of the onion-shaped glittered red/blue/green ornaments in both 4- and 6- spoke versions,

but I think the one I will do for the exchanges will be the 6-spoke onion-shaped pale gold with pearl teardrop dangles.  One of the main reasons is the pale gold comes 12 to a package instead of four each of three colors.  Have four packages (so far) of the pale gold, so I’ll only be using a little more than one package.  The first package I opened had one ornament which had some glitter missing and was showing the base ornament underneath.

There are also marquise shaped ornaments in both glitter and metallic of the red, blue and green as well as glitter gold.  I have been thinking about making those up and gifting them as a set to some of the people on my “A-list” for Christmas. 























The “A-list” people received either “A”n ornament or “A” set of ornaments.  To people I gave the 6-spoke chandelier to last year, I’m seriously thinking about doing 6-spoke suspended chandeliers this year.

I also have a “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament to do in light blue.  Also have a couple sets of upholstered ornaments in Crimson Tide (Alabama) and Tar Heels (UNC-Chapel Hill) with maybe some individual Wolfpack (NC State University) thrown in for good measure.  Of course this mean I’ll need to check the number and shapes of papier mache forms along with seeing how much of the collegiate licensed material I still have.

Third Quarter Exchange

I am a member of two ornament exchange groups through Yahoo! Groups, the first one I have exchanged with for over 15 years and is an annual exchange.  You sign up and are given four other members to exchange with.  Everyone makes ornaments for the others, so each year I receive four handmade ornaments from my group.  You can sign-up for two groups and opt for domestic or international groups.  I usually sign up for two groups which means I need to make 8 ornaments.  There have been times when I would make four identical ornaments to send to one group and then make four similar ornaments for the other group.

The second exchange group is similar with the exceptions of exchanging only with one person, and the group exchanges on a quarterly basis but only 3 times.  The groups are moderated by the same people and most members cross-over.  For the Third Quarter (July-October), I made the ornament below.  Using some of the same concepts from earlier designs I had a rough idea of what I would do for this exchange.  The only thing missing was the miniature ornament I would be using at the bottom.  While shopping I found the miniature I used and bought several packages.  The ornaments come in packs of 12 with three different options (that I have found so far).  They are available in packages of 12 bright glitter pink and another in medium glitter gold, then there is a package of 4 each glitter red, glitter green and glitter dark blue.  The gold have golden tops while all the other colors have a silver toned.

I am thinking of using this ornament design for the annual exchange but changing out the silver tops for golden tops that way I can use gold-plated wire, findings and beads.  I find that the gold toned gives a ‘warmer’ feel.  I will most likely make enough of one color to satisfy both groups I have signed up for.  Though it rarely happens, occasionally, I will have the same person in both groups.  Not wanting to send them a double set of the same ornament I can either use a different color or use the alternative design of only 4 arcs instead of the 6 arcs in this ornament.

I am a member in another Yahoo! Groups which has an ornament exchange, but it is not the groups primary purpose.  In the ornament exchange in this group the crafter is expected to produce at least six of the same ornament, send them to the co-ordinator and she will take one from everyone and send then out so when the participants get their box, there are six ornaments inside.

One of the things I also do is make the same ornament to keep for myself.  If I decide to do all the ornaments in the same color scheme I will be making at least 15 of the same ornaments.

It's THAT time of year again.

Guess what time it is? It's FLUFFING TIME. Michael's have their miniature trees out and I have bought four (so far), that's right four miniature trees that I will be fluffing out and trimming to start lighting and decorating. Possibly five, I have to excavate the closet but I think I have one in there. I have lots of beads which will be turned into miniature ornaments over the next couple of weeks. Already have some new designs I want to try along with some of last year's designs still being used. Most likely one tree will be Rainbow, another tree to be white-clear-gold, another silver-clear-blue. 

Updated 2013.09.12:

Here are a few of the miniatures I have designed for this year's mini trees.

These are made from mesh beads with glass rondelles being used to reduce the size of the openings in the mesh beads.  To get additional ornaments from the designs, I added the dangle of a Clear AB teardrop.  Traditionally, I will have the teardrop with the tapered end pointing downward.

Wholesale Gem & Jewelry show

On July 26th, I drove 2.5 hours (150 miles) into North Carolina to attend the wholesale jewelry show in Franklin.  It is held twice a year, Mother's Day weekend and the last weekend in July.  Both weekends there are about 5 gem shows but I only go to the wholesale show.  I got back from spending more money than I should have, but it did feel good. Got lots of beads and necklaces which will be made into Christmas ornaments. Got peridots, emeralds, sapphires, and amethysts to be made into earrings for various and sundry people. One of my co-workers asked me to pick something up for his girlfriend, found a sterling silver flip-flop with rubies across the bands and a swiss blue topaz pendant. Picked up 2 dozen plus earrings in a wide selection of styles and colors for another co-workers young daughters.  Now they can go to school stylin'.

Picked up mesh beads in both globe and oblongs, in silver and gold.  The globes are 12mm and the oblongs I was able to pick-up in 2 different sizes an 8x12mm and a 12x24mm.  Also picked up several silver and rhinestone beads, again in two sizes.  Some silver spiral cages, again in two sizes.  Stopped by one tent and picked up more of the marblized wooden beads from Indonesia in a wide assortment of colors.  I stopped by the vendor tent where I had picked-up three different sizes of what they call "disco beads", globes with rhinestones bumps.  They had 2 strands of white which I picked-up in May from them, but they said if I called their home location in Miami, they would still sell them to me at the show price and would ship free.

Once I separate the beads, I'll start making ornaments.  Lots and lots of miniature ornaments.  One woman told me to make several of the miniature trees and she would sell them for me to some of her clients.  So when I start making the ornaments, I'll need to keep track of with beads and various supplies I use to come up with a cost for the tree.  Then triple the cost of the tree to cover my time.  Just need to find more of the miniature trees with small 'needles'.  Have lots of the miniature lights and can get them locally so as I need them I can go out and buy a strand or two.

Fun with Wood

One of the themes in the exchange group one month was “wood”, had to produce an ornament which was wooden or used wood.  I took a couple of the wooden turned eggs which you can find at craft stores and used finger nail polish to create my ornament.  The polish produced a shiny enamel coating.  Using pieces of painter’s tape I created resist strips and applied several coating of the polish. 

I also used additional wood turnings to create wooden drops, again using nail polish as the coloring medium.

Have thought about doing more with the polish, but have not gotten around to it yet.

Getting closer to returning to making ornaments.

Have been slammed at work.  I have had to do my regular job plus pulling together and producing the updated corporate catalogue.  When I asked earlier this year if I needed to start planning the catalogue out, I was told that it would be out-sourced to a local company and wouldn’t have to worry about it.  On June 26th, I was handed the initial design of the catalogue and was told that I would need to do it because the company was not able.  They would still be doing the printing.  With a few days for vacation and holiday, I began work on July 8th and was ready to printing a couple of galleys on July 12th, worked 45+ hours.  So I have been frantically producing said catalogue with only a few photos left to take to update product look.  I was able to go from a 32-page to a 28-page piece, have galleys produced for editing.  Have three photos and one product description to do (with place-markers holding position) then I hope I can be finished with the catalogue and I can send my creative juices back to Christmas ornaments.  Have several ideas forming for some regular sized, some miniatures.  I also have several branches made for the proto-type of the German-style feather tree, need to take photos and make more branches.

Update 2013/07/08

Have had to work on other items recently and not had a chance to create any ornaments, but that hasn’t stopped my brain from imagining.  Was up until the wee hours of the morning doing “What if I did this?” and the “I wonder if this would work?”  Which is usually how it works but when the first alarm goes off at 5am, it makes for a long morning.

During the ‘vacation’/holiday I did purchase several items for not only miniatures but also full sized ornaments.  I also have been looking at a couple of sites which I want to try and incorporate their techniques into my Christmas ornaments, but those will be a couple years away.  The next ornament will be for friends who got married several months ago.  They are expecting their first-born sometime this month and I have two gifts for them.  The first are two 6mm square cut rubies, the second will be a light blue ornament with ‘2013' date tag. 

My god-daughter still hasn’t decided which ornament she wants to do for her Senior Project.  She told me she wanted to do hand-made ornaments but didn’t think there was enough information for her literature review.  I chuckled and told her I had more than enough information and reference books to satisfy her teacher.  I’m trying to get her interested in the Cracker Box ornament kits for several reasons.  The first being that I can hopefully help her long-distance when she has questions, so she can work on it when I’m not in North Carolina.  The second reason, I have always wanted to do them since I first found out about them in the late 70s.  I thought I would let her pick an ornament and then, I would order 2 so that both of us do them on different colored balls.  I told her that if she liked doing them, I would buy her a couple more.  She has told me she wants to learn to make some of my ornaments and while I am flattered, I think she may just want to be able to raid my ornaments and pass them off as her own work.  In the past, when I have helped her on school projects, she would take my beginning of the work and then turn it in, receive a good grade and then fail to complete the assignment.  I have told her that she HAS to do the work, I would help her, but I wouldn’t do it for her.  Six years ago I helped her older brother with his senior project, but he did do 98% of the work.  His project was Gem-Stone faceting and I would start the tier and let him finish.  He was a quick study and he picked-up the operations fairly quickly.  Only when a new procedure such as transferring and re-aligning the stone from working on the bottom to beginning to work on the crown was help required.

I purchased the Cracker Box catalogue and on my last visit to NC told her to look through it to find a simple one.  Everyone she looked at, I felt daunted at the complexity, thinking I would find it challenging and completely overwhelming for a 17 year-old who has never done anything like them.  I may go ahead and order a couple so that when I go to NC later this summer I can give her an ornament to work on (and I can go ahead and order a couple for me).

"Plastics....There's a great future in plastics." The Graduate (1967)

Back in the January 2010, I started designing some new ornaments.  A friend’s company had purchased an industrial laser, and having had access in the past to one, I knew what it could be used for.  I had seen lots of 3-dimensional ornaments made with wood, paper, fabric and glass which had been joined together.  We had talked about the possibilities and I had even gone so far as going through the drops looking at the different types of materials I could get out of their recycling bins.  During January and February I designed over 24 ornaments which I called “vaned” ornaments.  The ornament would be made up of 6 or 8 vanes which were secured around two cogs with either 6 or 8 cut-outs.  The vanes would be notched as well so alignment would be fairly easy.

Mainly geometric shapes: globes, penta-, hexa-, octo-gons, with a couple of star shapes and ovids, all designed around a central axis.  There were several ‘fanciful’ shapes as well.  After converting to the laser CAD program and cleaning the designs on any extraneous lines, the parts were cut and I received 2 heavy boxes with roughly 16 of each design in clear and translucent blue, then a couple months later, I received a couple more boxes with parts cut in opaque orange, white, ‘glo-edge’ yellow and opaque yellow.

The ornaments are somewhat cost-prohibitive as the laser time itself is measured in seconds.  The cost to cut an ornament is more than the acrylic used.  Although I did receive enough parts that I will have a nice collection of modern ornaments.  As long as I don’t request too often, my friend said he would cut more for me when they are not using the laser even to the point of allowing me to run the machine to cut more as long as I also help with their product (which I have done in the past).  The initial boxes are still being used and I have unique ornaments for several friends.  One a year in a color combination, after several years a collection on the tree.

Earrings or Ornaments?

When looking for ornaments to go on a tree, I had created ornaments which have been inspired by jewelry.  There are times when I have purchased pieces of jewelry to use as ornaments.  A crystal necklace can be used as a swag between branches, or ‘floating’ pearl necklaces linked together with chain can create a garland.  More than once I have used large shiny, dangly earrings as ornaments.  The miniature tree can easily be decorated with earrings, especially these with french-hooks instead of posts or clip-ons.

When I belonged to a group where miniature ornaments would be exchanged, many months I fell back on my years of making costume jewelry and made ornaments which could easily be worn as earrings if you had a pair and a couple of french-hook style ear wires.

 


 Some are made from an earring base such as these larger  ornaments.  Using Delicas® as spacer beads, I was able to fill the space between the chain lengths and the faceted glass beads.  With the wide variety of glass colors, the combinations were almost endless.

The drawback to these being earrings are the weight.  These ornaments were easily 2 to 3 ounces, which most people think is very little weight until they are hung from a single thin wire and have a tendency to swing when you walk and smack your head when you turn your too quickly.




Others are made from a mixture of bead caps and earring findings.  This group of 5 are all under 2.5" in height.  And are limited only to the colors of the accent beads or the finish of the findings themselves.

 

Designing with constraints

One of the exchange groups I belonged to would send out an item which everyone who choose to participate had to use in making an ornament.  I enjoyed these challenges as there were times I would never had used the item(s).  I had in the past done similar challenges in jewelry where everyone would receive a bag of beads which had to be used.  The first came in the school year of 1977-8, when Rezunit® came out with the cone shaped air freshener.  They had a national contest open to high school students to use the cone to create something “Christmassy”.  The design which I submitted was turned the cone into a tree but using seeds, pods and spices.  The final piece had anise stars, cloves, cinnamon bark, sweet-gum balls, cardamom and cumin seeds.  Various shades of browns, but smelled of cookies and pies.  It took First Place.  Being limited to what you can and cannot use can be liberating, forcing you to think outside the normal,

In 2012, one of the challenges was to create and ornament using a compact disc.  I thought several days when I was looking through a scroll saw magazine and found some scroll saw ornaments.  Using one of the patterns as inspiration I called a friend and asked if I could send him a design to cut on his industrial laser.  I knew I wanted to ‘sandwich’ a piece of color between 2 CDs to create a ‘stained-glass window’.  After cutting the surface, I turned the next CD over to cut from the reverse.  I cut several pieces as I wasn’t sure how the final piece would look.

Two CDs are glued together with a piece of red lighting film sandwiched between.  To continue with the dilver reflectiveness, a silver-toned chain and jump-ring were used as a hanger.

Another media is heard from

I have worked primarily with beads, but other media has been used to create ornaments as well.  I have created several 3-dimensional designs from plastic canvas.  Being able to customize the ornament by changing the fibre can change not only the color but the texture of the finished product.  I enjoy working with plastic canvas for its ability to hold its shape and the variety of stitches which can be incorporated into the design.  So far I have been using a simply cross-stitch for most of the ornaments.  The last ornament was done in pink and purple and was constructed from three squares of plastic canvas.  I have also done the same shape but in a fleur-de-lis pattern.

I have also used rings of the plastic canvas to create chandeliers.  The first was completed in the late 1990s using fringe, 3 concentric rings of plastic canvas, chain, a bead cap and trim to hide the stitches.  One month the theme in the exchange group was fuzzy, so I used eye-lash yarn to create an ornament.  I always create 2 copies of the ornament for exchanges so I can send one to my partner and can keep one for myself.  I decided to “gild the lily” for mine by adding chain and beaded drops.

October 2011 the theme was “Pink” in honoring “Breast Cancer Awareness Month” and that month I used plastic canvas to create an “Awareness Ribbon” ornament, as well as the miniature for the month.