Ohuhu Coloring Gallery Giveaway Challenge

Ohuhu, maker of my all-time favorite water-based and alcohol markers, is sponsoring a coloring contest and you should enter! Why? Well, not only are there fabulous grand prizes for six winners, but EVERYONE who enters earns reward points you can use toward Ohuhu purchases. All you have to do is visit the Ohuhu coloring page gallery, print out your favorite design, color it in, and submit it. You can enter up to three coloring pages. You have until December 15 to enter. 

For fun, I played along but turned it into a challenge. I printed out a cake design, chose 7 colors (plus black, a warm grey for shadows, and the colorless blender) from Ohuhu's Kaala Landscape set (affiliate link), and gave myself two hours to color. This is how my page looked at the end of two hours. 

I love Ohuhu markers. If you've never tried them, buy a small set and see why so many artists absolutely love them. At 55 cents a marker, they are far more affordable than the other artist-quality brands. They make a great gift for tweens and teens who are interested in moving beyond the student-grade supplies. 

Good luck in the contest!

Gingerbread-Inspired Joy Christmas Ornament

I love making Christmas ornaments. This one is inspired by two of the best scents of the Christmas season: gingerbread and pine. The ornament took very little time to make, other than the drying time for the paint. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Affiliate links below. 

Gingerbread-Inspired Joy Christmas Ornament

Materials: 

• unfinished wood letters
• Plaid paint (Nutmeg Brown)
• white paint pen
• twine
• artificial pine tree branch
• wire snips
• red flatback craft pearls
• hot glue gun

Steps: 

Paint the letters brown. When the paint has dried completely, use the paint pen to add the frosting details to the letters. Cut a piece of twine to make a hanger. Snip the pine branch to the desired length. 

Assemble the ornament by first gluing the letters to one another. Glue the connected word to the pine branch, then add the twine. Finish the project by adding pearls in clusters of three. 

Christmas Name Art

Turn on the holiday music and challenge the kids to turn the letters in their names into Christmas icons. Like all good name art projects, this works with any name and is a fun and creative activity. Affiliate links below. 

Christmas Name Art

Materials:

• Neenah Bristol Vellum
• Ohuhu Kaala Illustration markers
• Sakura fineliner

Steps: 

Use a pencil to lightly write your name in block letters on a piece of bristol vellum. Sketch in details to turn each letter into something associated with Christmas. I made my C into a candy cane, the I into a snowman, the N into gingerbread, the D into a gift, and the Y into an oddly skinny Santa. Other ideas include: an elf, snow on a chimney top, an angel, a reindeer, a sugar cookie, or tree lights. Certain letters are perfect for specific shapes, like a stocking for J or a Christmas tree for A. Feel free to mix upper- and lowercase letters to get the shapes you want. Anything goes!

Once you are happy with your design, color it in. Erase any stray pencil marks, then outline your design with a fineliner. 

Football Helmet Christmas Tree Ornaments (or Refrigerator Magnets)

Ever since making the NFL helmet refrigerator magnets, I've been paying attention to helmet designs. I had extra wooden shapes, so I decided to paint some college teams. I turned some into Christmas tree ornaments and others into magnets. Affiliate links below.  

Football Helmet Ornaments (or Magnets)

Materials: 

• wooden football helmets
• Folk Art acrylic paint
• paintbrushes - flat and liner
• hand drill 
• Mod Podge Sealer 
• decorative cord 
• self-adhesive magnets

Steps: 

Use a flat brush to paint the base coat for each helmet you are making. When the paint is dry, you can draw your design freehand. Or, if you need a little help getting the proportions of the logo just right, print out an image of the actual helmet that is the same size as the wooden helmet. Cut around the edges, then use this transfer technique to get the design onto your wooden piece. 

Use the liner brush to paint the logo onto the helmet, then paint the facemask in the appropriate color. The facemask continues onto the body of the helmet. I painted freehand, but you can sketch it out first or use the transfer technique again. 

If you are making ornaments, use a hand drill to put holes into the top of the helmet. If you are making magnets, you don't need a hole. Seal the helmet with Mod Podge. 

Add a piece of decorative cord to hang your ornament or apply a magnet to the back of the helmet. 

Here's a closer look at each of the helmets I made (before I decided which would be magnets and which would be ornaments, which is why you don't see the holes yet): 

Indiana University Hoosiers

University of Oregon Ducks

University of Nebraska Cornhuskers

University of Michigan Wolverines

University of Georgia Bulldogs

I like the versatility of this craft. You could easily have a room full of people working on the same basic craft, but each could choose their own team and whether they want it to be an ornament or a magnet. 

Twenty-One

To document our 21st anniversary celebration in Healdsburg, I did something completely different than I normally do. 

Twenty-One (affiliate link)

My usual process is to print a handful of photos, mat one or more with cardstock, arrange them on background paper, add a title using letter stickers, handwrite journaling, then add sticker or die-cut embellishments. Instead, I chose a single photo and cropped it to 6x3". I added it to a blank 6x4" canvas, which gave me 1/2" above the picture for a title and 1/2" below the picture for journaling. I added both digitally. Then I cropped out our anniversary dessert from a separate photo and put it on a second blank canvas and added a heart with the date in the middle. I printed those two photos, fussy-cut the dessert and the heart, then glued the three elements to the background paper. 

This is as close as I've come to digital scrapbooking. I enjoyed the process and can see doing something like this again occasionally, but for me the true fun of scrapbooking is playing with the papers, stickers, die cuts and other physical products.