Even though it’s mid-January now, I still want to share some of the handmade items I created for Christmas gifts this year!
First, a Christmas monogram for my parents. Last year, I made friends (who happen to have the same first letter of their last name!) a Christmas monogram, and my mom really admired it. So I made her one as a surprise to go into the frame where her “rest-of-the-year” monogram goes. I took this photo at the last minute when I was wrapping it, so the lighting is pretty yellowed. The letter “H” is hand-cut from my template, and I added white dots with acrylic paint on a toothpick point. I clustered die-cut pine pieces and holly leaves, then added some red rhinestones and a gold bow for a finishing, sparkly touch!
The letter is lifted off of the background with foam adhesive, and I used some patterned paper from my beloved BasicGrey Nordic Holiday as a background. It was a bit strong behind the monogram, so I toned it back by overlaying a piece of vellum. The red border does not show when the monogram is inside the frame.
Since I was making one for my parents, and I had all the supplies out already…. I went right ahead and made one for myself! 😉 The photos of it are a bit better, since I didn’t have a gift exchange deadline, haha! Again, the background paper is from BasicGrey, and the green mat doesn’t show when the monogram is framed.
In addition to the monograms, I made a photo shadowbox for life-long family friends of ours. They value photographs, and I wanted to make a special frame where they could keep a photo of themselves with our family.
I love frames with 3-D elements, so I embellished the photo with a few dimensional items. I made the flower from a Studio Calico FabRip strip, and added some die-cut leaves and wooden buttons from my button jar. The sentiment tag is from Jillibean Soup, and I finished off each cluster with a curl of paper and some trinket pins from Maya Road. (I had to add just a tiny bit of sparkle!). I mounted everything on some patterned kraft paper, and I think it makes the photo stand out nicely.
The photo I had was from a year ago, and I wanted our friends to be able to switch it out for a new one. Hidden behind each of the embellishment clusters is a large photo corner, and those corners are the only things holding the photo in place. I made sure to take a group photo of our family with them this year when we exchanged gifts, and I’m going to mail them a print so they can insert the new photo!
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Stay tuned for more handmade Christmas gifts!
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