A vintage bauble

Last year, one of the craft magazines came with a freebie of a wooden die cut bauble. I think it was intended for doing some kind of decopatch with, as there were Christmassy patterned thin papers with it, but I didn't fancy doing that so I set it aside. And this year I dug it out and decided to see what I could do with it.

A rummage through my bits box came up with half a sheet of an Anna Griffin Christmas paper in cream and green, left over from a QVC kit a few years ago, and various scraps of plain card, lace and ribbon.

I covered the bauble on both sides with the patterned paper, then brushed all over it with something called "Opal Dust" which just turned up in the post unannounced about 10 years ago - it must have been a freebie from a craft mag. It's a kind of gluey substance that dries invisible, with tiny opal-like particles suspended in it. It gives anything it's applied to a very subtle pearly sheen that really doesn't show up in the photo, but should look lovely on the Christmas tree with the fairy lights glinting off it. When that was dry, I edged the whole shape with Forest Moss distress ink.

I didn't have any cream lace and the while looked a bit stark, so I dabbed that with the distress ink too before applying it round the equator of the bauble. Although I was only planning to fully decorate one side, I did everything so far on both sides of the bauble so that if it turns around on the tree it won't show the bare wood.

Next I die cut and embossed flowers, snowflakes to use as flower centres, pine cones and pine branches. I added gold glitter to the tips of the flower petals then arranged  then on one side of the bauble, finishing the flowers with a gold gem. Gold cord to hang the bauble and a cream and gold ribbon bow made the finishing touches.

I'm sharing this with:
Craft Room Challenge - Christmas Decorations - No cards
Winter Wonderland - Dies and punches
and of course the Snippets Playground at Pixie's Crafty Workshop