An Easy Decorating Tutorial, Some New Pillows and Drummer Boy Cutouts

Today I am guest-posting over at Traci's for part of her "Simple and Inexpensive Christmas" series. I am showing several of the cardstock projects I have done for Christmas decorating this year and thought I would share a tutorial here on how I made the most recent one. We have been getting a lot of requests for a tutorial on how to make the cardstock photo ornaments but because that requires photoshop I thought instead I would do a tutorial for something really similar that does not require any photo-editing programs. I had to get some photo corners, brackets and some brads so this one cost a little more (the last one was less than $1.50) but it still cost less than $10!

Sorry for the horrible quality of the photos below for the tutorial but I did this project in the wee hours of the morning and had zero natural light so they are pretty grainy and yellowy.

First, here is everything you will need:

Photo Corners (I prefer the old fashioned original kind but they didn't have any)

Metal Book Plates

Mini Brads

Cardstock

Photos (I had some 5 by 7's in black and white and some 5 by 5's in a more sepia tone and figured I would use whichever looked better when I started putting them together. Once I started I thought the black and white looked much better).

Scissors (or a boxcutter and ruler)

1). Put on the four photo corners on your photo.

2). Then place the photos with the photos corners on them down onto your cardstock. I as able to put two on each 12 by 12 piece of textured cardstock. Then once they are attached place the metal bookplate where you want it.

3). Position the metal book plate just how you want to and then add the brads.

4). Now trim the cardstock down.

5). Next I wrote the names on little pieces of cardstock.

6). And then slide the little piece of cardstock down into the book plate.

Then I just hung them up in the kitchen to replace the little turkey projects we did for Thanksgiving. You could also punch holes in the top of them and add some twine and hang them from your tree. I would recommend making them a little smaller though.

I think this would look best using just Christmas photos but seeing how we didn't have very many that didn't work this year. I am hoping in the years to come, though, I will have more family shots of us at Christmas and can swap these photos out for them.

Also, although we are officially sold out of the black sets of our Silent Night/Holy Night pillow covers we just finished up a bunch of red ones and they are now for sale!

We are also excited to finally be offering some silhouette cutouts! We are selling them in sets of six. Right now we just have the tan color available.

They look great added to cards or gifts or you can frame them:

Or even decorate your tree with them (I did mine in ivory which we don't have right now)

And here is a little peak at the tree in our living room that I am working on. I plan on finishing it this weekend and sharing more pictures of it with you on Monday including some shots of some of my new favorite ornaments from two fabulous Etsy shops!