O Christmas Tree

Hi, there, friends! I'm bringing you a fun little piece of Christmas decor today. This was inspired by a challenge over at Emma's Paperie... clever chipboard. I was a little stumped by it at first, but I am totally into these Jenni Bowlin chipboard buttons right now so I decided to start with those. Of course, I am... as if I was affection for buttons was not deep enough, I apparently also love faux buttons. They're not even real buttons, and yet, I find them adorable! At first I thought I'd just use them as an embellishment on a card but in the end, I decided to make something I could use in my holiday decor year after year. That way I can enjoy this button fascination at Christmas, too. It's sick, right? The frame came in because I had recently rummaged through my decor stash and saw the poor little glass-less thing (bought it that way for super cheap) and realized that I bought it thinking, wow, I can think of 100 things to use this for! and then, of course, had never used it. Yeah, I know all of you have done that, too {insert affirmation here.} So to really make the buttons all fancy and holiday-ish (laughing a little bit cause I can just feel my two English teacher friends out there cringing over "holiday-ish") I first inked them up for some extra depth, then covered them in, oh, maybe 3 coats of Ultra Thick Embossing Powder. Kinda messy, but worth it.

To put everything together, I stitched a paper base and glued it onto chipboard backing that had been cut to fit inside the frame. Made a little tree trunk out of patterned paper, threaded the buttons with a bit of seam binding ribbon, then arranged them in a tree pattern and stuck them on with lots of foam tape. I slipped the stitched sentiment under the tree at the end. This was a fun little project! Made me kinda wish for hot cocoa and Christmas carols. But, I'm a southern girl at heart, and winter gets in the way of the heat, so I didn't stick with that thought for very long. It's around 85° these days and a wee bit chilly for me. Later, friends!

{O Christmas Tree} frame

Patterned Paper - Home for the Holidays December Journal Paper (Webster's Pages); The Holly and the Ivy Paper, We Wish You a Merry Christmas Paper (Christmas Past by Graphic 45) Buttons - Wallpaper, Office, & Polka Dot Chipboard Buttons (Jenni Bowlin) Stickers - Tiny Alpha in Brown Ledger (Making Memories)Ink - Old Paper Distress Ink (Ranger) Ribbon - Seam Binding Tape (Martha Stewart) EP = Clear Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (Ranger)