NEW Tim Holtz Christmas 2020 idea-ology Release Tree Project

Hey friends, I’m so excited to share that today is officially the launch of the NEW Tim Holtz Christmas 2020 idea-ology release. I always love seeing the new products that are coming out. It gets me in the mood early and helps me to actually create ahead of the holidays. Although I was honored to make several projects for Tim’s Facebook Live today, we agreed it would be best not to send this one after what happened to my last Halloween project that was shipped. RIP, literally. Lol. (Go here to see that project). With that said, I am thrilled to be featuring this holiday project here.

So I love creating things that have some sort of decor value or purpose. I don’t have a lot of storage space (well, except in my craft room. See one of my latest instagram posts…lo.), so I have to choose wisely. I would totally put this on my fireplace mantle as you will see at the end of this post.

The arrangement was fairly easy to create. I put “dry” oasis foam (made specifically for dried flowers) in the vintage urn container and covered it with some Spanish moss. I NEVER like to see the mechanics, either in my floristry or my art work. You can see my second base cover of a novelty tissue paper fru-fru or shreddies. I used this as my main base as I felt it went with the era of the piece and also insured adequate coverage. Then I wrapped the container with some wired, looks-like-it’s-branches-but-it’s-not stuff, (available at hobby or floral supplies stores), tucked the ends into the foam and secured it in place. Wrapping the lights around the branches, I made sure to hide the switch at the back of the urn and camouflaged it with the tissue paper.

Oh btw, check out this urn. It was made in Hong Kong, it’s plastic and it’s old. How do I know? Hong Kong. Don’t let me go down the junkin’ finds road. I may never return to this post. Have I got some stories! Anyway, this one was gifted to me by my bestie, Penny. Taught that girl everything I know. Wink, wink.

The next step was inserting the tall branches. These actually had wire in them so I could adjust them to the shape I desired. (Again, available at the hobby store). The alcohol-ink dyed trees with a dusting of mica flakes, and the alcohol ink-painted Santa were inserted and adhered to the inside of the vase. If you have never painted with alcohol inks, it’s super easy. If you make a mistake you can take a q-tip and some blending solution and clean him right up. Make sure to spray him with a sealer when you’re finished!

Because the balls on the trees came as pearls and looked so simple, I embellished those too. For one set of ornaments I gave them a marbled-look by rolling them in alcohol ink Gold Mixative. I also added some silver Stickles for a pop of vintage bling. For the green tree’s ornaments, I used red alcohol ink and when dry, added a pop of white paint to make it look like snow. Easy peasy.

One of the many products I love is the velvet ribbon! The colors are gorgeous and the ribbon is easy to work with. (I’m picky so that says a lot). I tied a bow on the side of the tree, added some die-cut and painted holly (Christmas Festive Stem Die Cuts), some die-cut glittered holly , some alcohol-dyed millinery flowers in red, (a favorite flower I collect) and of course, a mushroom because I LOVE mushrooms too! Tucked behind all of this for height is one of the glittered, embellished, vintage cardstock postcards. It was also matted onto silver glitter cardstock.

And then there was the bottle cap banner, with it’s tiny punched holes to accommodate the red and white twine, and fine dusting of white acrylic paint to make it look like snow.

As for the last few details, they were the “Special Delivery” tag made into a sign, a splattering of “snow” (white acrylic paint) on the branches and more tiny red, alcohol-dyed, millinery flowers located on a few of the branches for added color.

Well there you have it. Not too difficult. Here’s where I think I’m going to put this tree…

So what do you think? What are your new product favorites? It’s hard to choose but I definitely have some I will use over and over again. Interested in some of the products here? Check over at Tim’s site for more information.

Thanks so much for reading!

XO,