Christmas Clings make a SCENE!

I've been busy making holiday decorations and gifts, but let's review some of the tried and true Gallery Glass techniques. Clings are fun to make and patterns and images are plentiful. All you have to do is open an envelope. Christmas cards, wrapping paper and shopping ads abound with possibilities. Here is a good way to decorate a garden door. This is so simple, just make the ornament shaped clings on the leading blanks, peel and stick them in place and you can even make some triantular shaped "snow". At the bottom of the post, I will include a set of instructions for the Cling process to print out so that you will have them beside you as you work. 

Now that you have the instructions, here are some more scenes that you might want to consider making for the holidays. There a lot of people that prefer traditional themes and the following designs fall into that category. You can make them as Clings and simply adhere them to the window in random arrangements, or you can put Crystal Clear and Etching Medium around them for a real stained glass window effect. I apologize for the partially cut off ornaments around the edge of the image to the left. I couldn't find the original picture of this grouping, so I cut it from a layout in a book. But I think that you get the idea.

One of the subjects that I love at Christmas time is Carollers. These are dressed in their Victorian costumes, which makes them especially charming.

We didn't put clear around the Carollers because it probably is not a motif that you would want to leave up longer than a month. However, here is another idea, that you may like. You can purchase 24" X 36" poster frames and do your scene on the styrene panel that comes in the poster frame. This is the technique that I use most often. Not only is it easy to store and less work to display, but it is wonderfully portable. I often make a big decoration for the office window pre-season, then I take them home and put them in my window for the holiday. I call it "re-purposing" the decorations.  

Here's one that many people like because nativity sets take up a lot of space. The figures are large enough to be impressive. It is a great display to put up if you have small children in the home. They enjoy looking at the figures when you are telling the Christmas story.

Now let's look into another way of grouping the Clings together. I call them "CLUSTERS". It is similar to the Cling Windows, except that you don't fill in the background completely. This is particularly useful in making free form shapes, such as trees or wreaths. I will show you the shapes--then what we did with them. It will be easier for you to see what is cling and what is background. We also added Clings for the Fall season and some of the designs are interchangeable. We created a Wreath and a Fall Swag shape with some of the Clings from each group. The best advantage to this technique is that you can easily peel off the shapes and keep them to make "Clusters" for another occasion. Imagine a Valentine Wreath or an Easter Egg Tree.