And how do I know it's Christmastime? Because I have a Christmas clock of course!
This super adorable Gingerbread House Clock file is from the Bird's SVGs Christmastime collection. Here's a picture of the whole collection - fabulous, right?
I chose to make mine with red accents but could really picture this in a number of different colors.
I changed mine a little bit by adding a gingerbread snowflake to the face of my clock. This is a Cricut image from a cartridge called When It's Cold Outside. I sized it to 3.3 inches wide. I thought it was just perfect for the face of the clock.
I also added a little peppermint candy (from Cricut Joys of the Season cartridge, cut at .75 inch wide) to the second hand of the clock, so as every second passes, the candy twirls a little bit.
The hands that came with the clock mechanism were originally gold, but didn't show up very well against the gingerbread snowflake, so I coated them with some red Stickles and now they show up quite well and sparkle too!
And how could I forget...it's also a luminary! The whole house lights up if you add some LED tealights or a light strand inside. I don't have a picture of mine lit up yet, but here's the picture from Bird's website. So great!
You may have noticed the pretty little white Christmas tree sitting beside my house. This was created using the FREE Swirly Christmas Trees file which is also from Bird.
I sized mine to 7 inches tall and cut out six of them on my Cricut. Then I scored them down the center, folder them in half and glued them together to make the 3-dimensional tree. This was originally Bird's idea, but mine is smaller than her original tree.
Of course the Snowflake Christmas Tree in the Christmastime collection would look great with this project too. I've just been wanting to try my hand at one of the swirly trees and I think the swirls in it match the icing swirls on the clock so nicely.
Last but certainly not least, I made the cute little Gingerbread House Card which is also from the Christmastime collection.
I have family members who are locally famous for their annual gingerbread creations. A picture of their project always seems to end up in the newspaper every year. This is the perfect Christmas card to send to them. I just happen to have an appropriate rubber stamp sentiment for the inside too:
Whew, long post, but hopefully you enjoyed it if you've read this far!
Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out this collection from Bird's SVGs. It's a really neat one. I loved being able to build my own special seasonal clock and it was so easy!
I think this new project has made it to my top five favorites of all time! I grew up in New England where colorful fall foliage is a treat for the eyes this time of year. Combining those wonderful autumn colors with some copper foil and lights just makes me happy.
This was a bit of a hybrid project as I used svg files from three different sources to create this lovely shadowbox:
1. Large Square Shadowbox Frame from Bird's SVGs Picture Perfect Collection
2. Falling Leaves Paper Sculpture from Dreaming Tree's Autumn Calling Bundle
3. The Beauty of Fall Colors, a free download from Love SVG
I created the white shadowbox frame using the size it was designed to be - 11" square. I did not use the acetate on the front to close up the shadowbox, but you certainly could. I love being able to make my own shadowbox frame whenever I want. It's easy to customize and Bird designed it in a way that's very easy to put together.
I sized the Falling Leaves border to be 8.8" wide so it would fit inside of my frame. The leaves were all sized down at the same time. Some of these leaves were cut from patterned paper, some were run through my Cuttlebug with an embossing folder and some were just inked using Tim Holtz Distress Inks. I cut one extra layer of the border to use for lighting - I'll explain below.
The "Beauty" phrase was sized to 4.135" wide and cut from Cricut copper adhesive foil and transferred to the blue background layer. I also used a copper foil patterned cardstock for the front panel of the shadowbox frame, although it's hard to photograph the fantastic shine of it. Here's a closeup where you can see it better:
Last but not least, I added a 5-foot long string of LED lights (I purchased these on Amazon) and sandwiched them between the layers of the leaf border. Because the lights are on a flexible wire strand, I bent them and taped them down near the tips of all of the leaves. I added foam dots all over the top of that layer and added the finished leaf layer on top of it. The sandwich from bottom to top goes like this:
1. blue bottom layer
2. double thick red border layer attached to blue layer with foam dots/tape for dimension
3. light strand taped down to top of layer 2
4. red border layer with decorative leaves attached over layer 2/lights using foam dots/tape
Prior to the layering, I decided where I wanted to mount the battery pack on the back of the frame and then punched a hole through the frame as well as layers 1 & 2 so I could thread my lights in though the back. I wish I had taken a few pictures when working on it, but didn't think of it until after everything was already stuck down.
If I've missed a step or you'd like a more detailed explanation, let me know and I'll try to help. It's really not hard, just a little time consuming. I think the end result is well worth it though!
Thanks for stopping by to check it out! I'd love to hear what you think.
