Christmas Garland #7 by Ranjini Malhotra

When Doris came up with the idea of the entire design team creating individual pieces to be contributed to our Christmas garland, I thought it was a fabulous idea. I've loved seeing all of the girls' gorgeous pieces and it's been a reminder of how versatile and lovely Jenni Bowlin products are!
I wanted to use Jenni's tart tins and a Christmas themed bingo place card and concocted this piece. I chose the "Give" Bingo Card and added the Santa image and bell because it called to mind the Salvation Army Santas with their bells that collect for the needy during the holiday season and I love the giving aspect of the holidays.

The Santa card came from Jenni's new holiday collection papers, and I added it to the top half of the place card, after adding double stick tape and red glass glitter to edge the top of the card. I also backed the card with cardstock so as to prevent the place card from folding in the middle where the prescored fold is.

Glitter and foil are a must for Christmas, so I used the foil bits from the November project kit as well. But the real fun came about when I got out my can of red spray paint and painted the tart tin. I loved the option of custom coloring the tin so much that I can't wait to do the same for future holidays -- I can visualize lovely pastel painted tins all done up with clear glitter for Easter! Tip for spray painting, set the tin inside a shallow cardboard box in a well ventilated area. I used Krylon Short Cuts in Red Pepper, which is a 3 oz. can of spray paint I found at Joann's for $3.99. Use a light hand, hold it atleast 6" away from the tart tin and spray light coats waving the can back and forth as you spray until you get full coverage. It dries pretty quickly. I sprayed the inside first, then turned it over and sprayed the outside and let it sit to dry.

I also found a whole package of real silver bells - 12 for 50 cents (!) at my local thrift store and spray painted the metal bell as well. I attached the tin to the card by using my manual craft drill to drill a hole in the tin and anchoring it with a brad to the card so as not to worry about it breaking or falling off the card. I added one of Jenni's chipboard buttons in the center of the tin to cover up the brad and a white seam binding bow and baker's twine for hanging.

I can't wait to see the entire garland with all the pieces hanging side by side! In the meantime, you can view all of the individual garland projects by clicking on the tag "christmas garland" at the bottom of this post.