Clay Christmas Ornaments

 Hi!  Happy holidays to you!  The past few weeks have been very busy here with lots of Christmas projects and preparations, but we are just about finished with everything and that means I finally have a few minutes to sit down and write a blog post!  Yippee!

When I first saw the Stampin' Up! Holiday catalog, one of my favorite projects in it was the Simply Pressed Clay ornament on page 14.   And, there's even a great video by Stampin' Up! with tips and tricks for how to make these.  You can see it here.   So, I had to try creating some!  I started with some circles as in the catalog (didn't have a circle cutter in the size I wanted, so just used a glass with the right size circle opening).  I also tried mixing some Gold Glitter into the clay, which is hard to see in the photos, but lends a subtle sparkle.

This ornament has snowflakes from Endless Wishes stamped into the clay, and the "joy" from Endless Wishes is stamped in Encore Gold.  I also added some Rhinestone Jewels:

A few others I made (though just shaping the ornaments by hand, so that's why they are not perfectly round):

For the next ornament design, I decided to step things up a notch with more layers.  I used the starburst stamp from Kinda Eclectic, stamped in Gold Encore for a background, then stamped one of the stars from Bright and Beautiful, again with Gold ink, onto another piece of clay, and used my snips to cut it out.  I have to say, I was surprised how easy (and fun) it is to cut the Simply Pressed clay.  I did that again for the three stars along the top, which are from the Get Your Santa On stamp set.   And, again, I added some Rhinestone Jewels.

Here's a close up so you can see the "joy" better (and also the glitter specks):

And, a close up of the star:

Then, I was having so much fun with trimming the clay, I decided to stamp one of the Bright and Beautiful stars and cut it out.  I added a bunch of Pearl Jewels as well.  Here's how that turned out:

I packaged a couple of ornaments up to send to my friend Marlene as part of a swap we did, and had great fun creating a special box using the Gift Box Punch Board and lovely Under the Tree Designer Specialty Paper (which I notice is on the Year End Clearance, so if you haven't gotten any yet, you'll want to be sure to do that before it sells out!   I'm almost out, so may have to take advantage of that great deal as well!!!)

And, all wrapped up with Cherry Cobbler 1" Sheer Linen Ribbon and a fun tag from the Letterpress Winter stamp set (also part of the year end clearance):

And, Izzy making sure everything is just right (and wondering why I didn't bother to add any catnip to the package?!):

Thanks so much for visiting!!!  I'll try to be back soon with more Christmas projects!

- Michelle