ATT Christmas Ornament Exchange

I participated during the 2012 holiday season in a Christmas Ornament exchange.  I used a lightweight small wooden birdhouse from the craft store (from the $1 bin) and decided to cover it with papers.  This was for the All Things Tim Yahoo Group, so use of Tim Holtz products, techniques, and/or stamps was encouraged.  Here is a picture of what I made...

I used ArtQuest Perfect Paper Adhesive to attach a preprinted tissue to the house.  The roof panels are the technique I will describe below. 

1. Take a strip of metallic tape (hardware store purchase) and attach to a lightweight cardstock (either a tag or piece of  manila folder).

2.  Using Ranger Adirondack Alcohol Inks and a felt applicator tool, apply three colors of alcohol inks in layers to each tag.

 The uncut and unembossed sheets looked like this...

3. Using Sizzix Tim Holtz Alterations Tiny Tabs and Tags die cut, cut tag shape. Cut enough tags so that they slightly overlap around the circumference of the roof. 

4.  Using Sizzix Texture Fades Riveted Metal embossing folder, send each tag through your embossing machine (two at a time can fit in the folder).

5  I drew a straight line about 1/4 inch from the bottom of tag to use as a guideline for decorative scissors.  This gave it a nice edge, and trimmed up the length of the tag as it was hanging a little too much over the edge of the roof.  I used the leftover edge pieces to glue around bottom ledge of birdhouse.

This is what the tags looked like before I glued them on...

5.  To apply tags around the roof of house, use ArtQuest Perfect Paper Adhesive.  I applied one tag at a time, keeping pressure on the tag by hand until the glue set (very fast, maybe 1 minute), and waited about 5 to 10 minutes before gluing down another.  This allowed me to be sure each tag had conformed to the shape of the roof and had no loose ends.

For finishing touches that I did not get a picture of (unfortunately), I bought a piece of fake floral pine, berries, and tiny real pinecones and I force the stems of that into the hole at the top of birdhouse where the rope for hanging is coming out.  I also used Ranger Stickles (Stardust) in a light coat over the preprinted tissue to add some sparkle.  I was very happy at how it turned out and my swap partner told me she really liked it.