Its Snowing in my Living Room!

Last Christmas, Mark bought me a new play toy.  He knows that I am all about crafting so when he finds some new tool that he thinks I can use, he knows that he has the best gift ever.  I hate things that just sit on a shelf with no apparent use.  This tool/toy was something that his sister, Linda, was using to create all sorts of fanciful things.  Mark bought me a die cut machine.  This thing is great!  I so wish I would have had it back in the day when our kids were still in school!  I used to do so many art projects with the kids in their classrooms that this would have been a boon. I, also, would decorate a number of the classrooms for the different holidays.  Back then, I had to hand cut everything.  This thing would have made it so much easier and would have saved me hours and hours of tedious cutting.
 
This afternoon, I decided to pull out the machine and give it a go.  Michael came in to watch but soon was doing all of the cutting.  We made frilly little snowflakes and cut out the pieces for some folded stars.  I am probably the only person that has brown paper snowflakes and stars on their Christmas Tree but, hey, we are going for the rustic look here.  After cutting a few single snowflakes, we found that an entire three foot strip of brown paper could be folded and cut at one time.  This would produce six snowflakes with each pass through the machine.  After cutting the first one, I was intrigued by the "leftovers".  The background "trash" piece of paper after the snowflakes were removed reminded me of the old paperdoll chains. I knew right then that I would find a use for this remnant from the cut snowflakes.  After we finished the cutting, I hung the flakes on the tree and was pleased with the look.  The stars will take a bit longer as I have to glue the five points together to make a star shape.  It was that long strip of paper that was demanding my attention, though.

  Yesterday, I had hung an old clock door on the wall not sure of what it would frame.  I just liked the way it looked.  Low and behold if the strip of paper (minus the snowflakes) didn't just fit!  I backed the brown paper with some unprinted newspaper and mounted this in the clock door. The door was rehung underneath a picture of snowmen.  Aha!  I love it! This was perfect!  Since we are going for a simplistic and rustic decorating theme, I figure making use of something that was headed for the trash would be perfect.  Brown paper and an old door!  How much more rustic can you get?

This die cut machine could very easily become something that I use on a regular basis!  It is fun, easy to use and such a time saver.  Yep, Mark hit it good last year..now, I wonder what tool he will find for this Christmas?