Christmas Tree Swirl

 A couple of weeks ago, various relatives and I attended Witches Night Out at Gardner Village. While there I walked through the Celebrations store. 

The first thing to catch my eye were large, glittery, swirls poking out of a Christmas tree. (of course, no photo) I loved them. The rest of my walk through the store I was thinking about how I could copy them. Even when my witches hat nearly became tangled in all the low hanging decor. 

Witch (ha) a random, non employee, lady got all in my face about.  

also, 

I'm not the only pointy witch hat wearing shopper on Witches night. 

So I would call that an oversight on the store. 

ok seriously, heres how I made swirls.  

In "the Hebes" I lived by a pharmacist. He heard me say the word "Chipboard" once. The pharmacy delivery boxes all come with 2 pieces of chipboard on top and bottom that generally gets thrown out with the cardboard. He brought me all of the chipboard from about 6 months by the look of my stash. I figured it would be a perfect way to make these. I penciled in the basic shape I wanted and while I was drawing it I realized I could get a smaller one in there as well. Using an x-acto knife, I cut them out. By about the last few, I wondered if a scroll saw would work and was wishing I had one. 

I painted a base coat but decided it was too light

So I added a deeper color stippling for texture. 

Then I found glitter spray. 

My design consultant on this project was my 12 year old son. We wanted a wintery finish on the edges, so I mixed a little bit of white embossing powder mixed with Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel. I "inked" the swirl edges with a Versamark pad to hold the powder and heat set. 

This gave it a sort of glossy, icy look. I'm not entirely sure it was worth the effort. 

Of course now that this is all done, I found the perfect thing that would have made this faster and easier. 

Oh Martha, I have avoided you for so long. I didn't even notice you sitting there on the Home Depot shelf, whispering "Hey there weird, red head that likes to make projects harder. I'm right here"  

There are some great colors. I'm trying to find a project to use the awesome Green and the Red. They totally match my Christmas decorations.

But it's all good. I pulled out my tree Just so I could get a beauty shot. 

My co designer said he liked the swirls but the tree just didn't look right.  

Silly boy,  I only "decorated"the top third of the tree, used 16 little "pick" decorations, and it's in the wrong room. 

I'll take more photos when we actually decorate. 

Halloween side note:

Since moving, I have gone from 10-12 bags of candy to 2 and they are done by about 7:30. I kind-a like it. I Hope your Halloween is fun and that the little spooks are nice.