Tuesday Tutorial: Christmas Bauble by Melinda Spinks

Thanks to Melinda for creating a great Tuesday Tutorial for us! 


Who doesn't love a Christmas bauble, especially one that is home-made and slightly different than the store-bought baubles? Today I'm going to share a fun way to create a Christmas decoration using the Santa's Workshop Collection, Doodle Twine, balloons and glue... but be warned, it's a messy project, however that's half the fun!

What you will need: 

Small Baloons (water bombs work well); PVA glue or fabric stiffener; Doodle Twine - Christmas; Santa's Workshop - Little Helpers, Pretty Poinsettias, Holiday Tweed, Assorted Cut-outs, Candy Cane lane; Happy Holidays Mini Jewels; Sugar Coating Glitter Assortments; vellum; snowflake punch.

Step 1: 

Blow up your balloon to the required bauble size and then spray with cooking oil spray or coat with a thin layer of vaseline (this prevents the twine and glue from adhering to the balloon).

Step 2: 

Once you've worked out how much twine you require to cover approximately three quarters of the balloon, place the twine into a bowl of liquid fabric stiffener (which is what I used) or a mixture of 50% PVA glue and 50% water. You may need to use rubber gloves for this step as it gets quite messy. Leaving the twine in the bowl, start wrapping your twine around the balloon (wiping the excess glue off as you go). The more random you wrap your twine the better the effect, so don't be too concerned with an even coverage.

Step 3: 

Hang your bauble out to dry completely. Using the fabric stiffener and hanging mine outside on a hot and windy day the bauble took 4 hours to dry completely. You risk your twine collapsing if it's not 100% dry. Once it is dry you can pop the balloon using a sharp knife and remove the remaining balloon pieces using tweezers and pulling through the largest holes. Some pieces of the balloon may stick to the twine so gently peel those pieces off using the tweezers. You may also have some obvious pieces of glue between the twine which will also need to be gently cut off.

Step 4: 

Using spray adhesive, lightly coat your twine ball and then place over a bowl and sprinkle with glitter. Do not use a glue for this process as it will wet the twine and make it collapse, it must be spray adhesive. Spray again lightly with hair spray to set the glitter in place. Allow to dry.

Step 5: 

Now it's time to decorate your twine ornament. Using a small piece of twine attach a string to the top of your ornament for hanging then arrange your embellishments around the top and adhere using a hot glue gun. Again - do not use glue to prevent your ball from collapsing. I decorated my ornament using hand-cut holly leaves with jewels, rolled roses and vallum punched snowflakes.

GIVEAWAY: 
If you'd like to enter to win at the end of the week, all you need to do is jump over to Melinda's blog and follow her or tell us something you found inspiring on her blog. We'd also love to know what holiday things you're making...anything from holiday treats to gifts for your family or friends. Please share! Each comment is an entry to win!

Show & Tell: Santa's Workshop Collection

WINNER: Last week we had Laurel Seabrook Guest Design for us on our blog. As part of the fun we had a fun giveaway. The Winner is....April.

Today we are excited to featured our Santa's Workshop Collection. This fun and whimsical collection featured darling icons that you'll instantly recognize as Doodlebug..little Helpers like this guy! 

Doesn't he make you smile?? He's actually one of the new Doodle-Pop Stickers and coordinates perfectly with this fun collection. Today we're going to show the collection pieces and the rest of the week our Design Team will join us with fun inspiration featuring the Santa's Workshop Collection. But of course we'll have a giveaway or two (it is the holidays)...scroll down to find out the details.

Santa's Workshop Essentials Kit: 

Santa's Workshop Stickers: 

 Die Cut 12x12 Paper: 

12x12 Santa's Workshop Double-sided Papers: 

And of course so many more products from Doodlebug coordinate with this collection...from twine to jewels!! 

GIVEAWAY: 

Like the 12 Days of Christmas we're going to give you 12 things you can do to enter to win. We're going to announce those winners this Friday. So be sure to visit our blog each day to learn a new way to enter. We're going to giveaway samples of this collection, combined with coordinate products like Storybook Albums, Twine and even our Create-A-Card Collection. We'll create a bundle for bunch of lucky winners. So here's the details for today....

On the First Day of Christmas....It is simple, let your friends know about the Santa's Workshop Collection and it being featured on our blog this week. You can post it on your Facebook wall, email, call or tweet about it. Just leave a comment telling us how you did it today. Feel free to do one or all of those things and enter each time you share!! 

Guest Designer: Laurel Seabrook + giveaway!

We would like to thank Laurel Seabrook for jumping in to share her ideas with us without a whole lot of notice. You might have seen her posting her cute ideas to our Facebook page (we love that). And she's agreed to come back and share more of her creative projects with us after the holidays. So we'd love to introduce you Laurel in today's post.

Laurel Seabrook
http://want2scrap.blogspot.com

HI! I LOVE Doodlebug products, they just keep getting better and better.  My favorite products to work with are the fun, happy colorful items and Doodlebug products certainly are in keeping with that style! I am an active card maker, scrapbooker and altered art crafter!



I am married with 2 girls.  I teach grade 1 full time and my hobbies are paper crafting (especially card making and scrapping), photography, blogging and painting.  My passion right now is anything using paper.  My girls are the inspiration for my scrapping and I am into card making as I love how quick, easy and satisfying they are... not to mention I am addicted to Challenges and participate in as many as I can.  I have also dabbled a bit in altered projects and mini albums and am slowly becoming addicted to them too!  Although the job and family life keep me busy I try to make time for myself daily by going for a run and of course playing in my craft room.

Please stop by my blog and say HI! 

GIVEAWAY: To celebrate Laurel joining us today, we're going to giveaway a box of her favorite collection to a lucky winner. Simply check out Laurel's blog and leave a comment about something you saw that inspired you. We'll announce the winner on our Blog on Monday!!