The Stamping Owl

Every year my upline Cindy, hosts a wonderful holiday party for her group--Stamped With Aloha.  A highlight of the party is the gift exchange.  To participate, we each create a $10 Stampin' Up! handstamped gift.  It's fun to pick one of the wrapped gifts and then see all of the creativity!

This year, I was inspired by the trees that were created for auction at the Kuakini Trees and Treasures event and wanted to make one of my own on a smaller scale.  I started with a 3 foot lighted tree that I purchased from WalMart.  The first step was to pull down and arrange all of the branches so that it had a nice shape.

Then, I tied little ornaments on the branches using baker's twine.  I tied it in a bow so that it would be easy to remove.  Next I used Real Red 3/4" Stitched Edge Ribbon to tie bows on the tree (I forgot to take a photo after this step).

I stamped over 20 gingerbreads in soft suede that I punched using the Cookie Cutter Builder Punch.  The boys had red glimmer paper bowties and the girls had bows in their hair.  Each had a large rhinestone in the center.  They were easy to place on the tree, just set on the branch.

For the topper, I cut 2 stars from silver foil using the 2nd largest star from the stars framelits.  Then I put a pair of gingerbreads on each star and attached them together by dimensionals on just the top 3 points of the stars so that I could slip it onto the top of the tree.  Ta-da, here is the finished tree!

I was happy that Shelly got my little tree.  I hope that she enjoys it, I understand she has some serious decorating going on in her house already so she can add it to her collection!

It was such fun to make this tree that I got another one to make for home.   Maybe you'll want to make one of your own too.  Happy holidays!

Supplies used to decorate the tree: