I'm sure that just about everybody making one of these Heirloom Christmas Trees from SVGCuts has a memory of one of the ceramic Christmas in their home when they were growing up. My grandmother made some of the most amazing ceramics projects and we had a beautiful ceramic tree with toys around the base that I can remember from 30+ years ago. I couldn't wait to make a paper version for myself!
I'll try to keep this post relatively short, but include some details on what I did differently. I really like the idea of a tree trunk for the base, so I used an inked embossing folder to run the base panels through my Cuttlebug. I used some lightly glittered green cardstock for the tree which adds a pretty sparkle, and popped on some red bird bulbs in place of clear to add to the woodland character I was going for.
I really wanted my star to have a little glow to it, but was planning on using the candle lamp as my light source, so had to get creative with how I'd throw some light out the top. I added vellum to the backside of both of the star pieces and inserted a tiny little piece, probably only about 1/4" long from a drinking straw in the hopes that some light would carry upwards. It worked! It's not terribly bright, but it does give the star a nice glow I think.
Next up, a red tree for a family member who just adores the color red. I think she's going to love it!
I made a a white glitter star using Tim Holt's Dimensional Stars thinlit die. I cut out two of them and glued them back to back to get one very dimensional star.
After making the trees, I kept thinking about adding some toys under them to mimic the tree my grandmother made so many years ago. Then an idea hit.
I couldn't have a tree without a train!
Yes, it's a real working train and a relatively inexpensive one at that! I found this Westminster Train in a Tin on Amazon and had to give it a try. It's remarkably powerful for a little battery-operated train. I was holding off on this blog post until my train arrived and once it did, I realized that the track wouldn't go over the cord from the candle lamp! So I built a little tunnel that I could lay the cord over top of and the train goes right underneath. It was a quick little project that I didn't even use my cutting machine to do. I'll definitely be dressing it up at some point, but it's good enough for now. I was in a hurry to test out my train!
I have one or two more trees to make, but now that I've done a few, they should go together pretty quickly.
Thanks for stopping by!
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!
