Chickadee dee dee Christmas Ornaments

Brrrr! One of the things I love about winter is how everything slows down - and during this epic cold snap, I'm happy that I don't have anywhere else to be but in my office and catching up on the computer. It's such a rare opportunity to sit and get stuff done! I usually sell cards and magnets at Christmas craft sales here in Calgary. Even though I make Christmas cards, hardly any of them sell. Knowing this, I decided to try Christmas ornaments, which I brainstormed over the summer. Actually, I brainstorm about this every year, but usually at Christmas time, and then I forget by next Christmas :-D This past summer, I sat down and prototyped a cardinal Christmas ornament. It required a lot of steps, but I made 50 of them to give out to co-workers, where they were warmly received. A lot of us take for granted the amount of thought and design that goes into product development. The end result looks effortless, but I can sure you the road to that effortless look is a lot of wadded up paper balls, torn in half prototypes and sighs. However, making the cardinal ornament led the way to a lot of success for the chickadee ornament. I made 12, sold 9, kept one for myself and two as gifts. Here's how they turned out:

Each one is handmade, although I had a little technological help! Here's a rundown:

• I drew and coloured the chickadee, then scanned and reduced it on the computer
• I designed a blue circle fill in CorelDraw and the greeting on the back
• I die cut the circles and affixed them together
• Then I die cut and hand brushed the pine branches with embossing paste, white paint and a glitter brush. I really need to figure out how to make this step better!
• I printed out the cardinals on a laser printer and cut one out by hand. For the cardinals, I printed them on cardstock and made a mask so that my Pazzles could do the job - but the glossy paper would not have worked well in the Pazzles
• I ended up making the ribbons by hand because I could not find small ribbons the right size
• Then I assembled all the pieces and strung it on a gold thread

Whew! I plan on making more next year, along with the cardinals and maybe a third winter bird - we'll see how productive I am! If you want the darling little chickadee for your personal crafts or projects, you can download the clip art which comes with a PDF of chickadees to get you started!