Merry Christmas!

After missing out on linking to TSTR #40 on Sunday night, I wanted to make sure that I met the deadline for this week's TSTR challenge, Scandinavian Christmas.  I was so excited to see this theme as I am of Norwegian ancestry.  Ever wonder about my "odd" SCS user name, embjorg?  It's actually my middle name!  I'm named after my 2 great-grandmothers on my mother's side of the family, Sarah and Embjorg.  Anyhoo, here's the inspiration photo.

For me, this was one of those photos where I knew right away what I wanted to do with it.  I already had the sketch for the WaltzingMouse Sketch Challenge 28 floating in my head and the "We Three ..." guidelines for ODBDSLC42 fit in nicely, too!  We were challenged to use three of the following:  gold, silver, blue, red, snowflakes, ornament, and Our Daily Bread Designs stamps.

From all of that inspiration, I knew I wanted to make a woven heart basket Christmas ornament in red and white with some paper piercing and a silver jingle bell accent.  I went with a sideways interpretation of the WM sketch.

Here it is.

To make the basket, you actually weave the loops of the strips around and through each other.  It gets a little bit tight toward the end, so all of the unevenness is then covered with some white paper punched with the MS doily lace border punch, some red trim I found in the dollar bin at JoAnn's, and some accordion fold flowers I made to hide all of the intersections. 

The handle is red paper with the same MS doily punch on both edges and 1/4" red satin ribbon on top.  I edged all of the white paper with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.  I added a clear button to the top of the smaller flower and then topped it with some hemp and a jingle bell.

The Merry Christmas sentiment is from ODBD's "Christmas Verses" set.  I notched the end to give it more of a tag feeling.  The paper piercing was done using an Ornare template from ODBD.

Here's a closeup of the embellishment cluster.

I also finished the back of the ornament with a smaller medallion and a vintage button from my stash.

Thanks for stopping by!
Blessings,
Sarah

ETA:  I'm so honored that my ornament was chosen to receive a Shining the Light Award.  Thank you ODBD!