Day 2 - Kelly Snelling

Day 2 of the 12 Days of Christmas brings a whimsically charming ornament from Kelly Snelling, who lives in Irvine, CA.  Kelly is a very talented jewelry and mixed media artist who co-authored a wonderful book with Ruth Rae titled A Charming Exchange: 25 Jewelry Projects To Create & Share. It is one of my favorite books that I refer to a lot for inspiration.

Kelly's gift came wrapped so nicely - and as usual, she created an original piece of artwork to use as the gift tag. A gift in itself! The shape of the package gave a tiny hint as to what might be tucked away inside... do YOU have any guesses as to what it might be?

If you said a house, you would be correct.  It's a house!  And a charming one at that!  Don't you love the vintage portrait of the 2 sisters holding hands - looking out the window? Perhaps they have been reunited at their childhood home after a long separation to celebrate Christmas together and are gazing out the window expectantly for the other family members to arrive. It reminds me of the saying "All hearts come home for Christmas".

My photographs don't do this ornament justice -- but if you look closely, you can see that Kelly has added colorful, whimsical doodles and drawings of flowers, polka dots, etc... along with a  great vintage eustachian above the photograph.  Vintage meet whimsy - I love that.

 

Kelly wanted these ornaments to reflect an old and well loved house. These ornaments are made from three layers of heavy corrugated board and Kelly has worked the paper away on the outside layer to reveal the ridges in the corrugation...to imitate an old clap board house, wallpaper worn off the walls... you get the idea. Kelly has hand journaled the words to "Oh Holy Night" on the back.
 

Layers of papers, trim, hand drawn details..finished off with a hand-stitched blanket stitch around the edges...Kelly, what a lovely ornament, it's charm and whimsy are so reflective of you!

It's a beautiful addition to my Christmas art tree, Kelly. Thank you, friend!

Yall be sure to check out Kelly's lovely blog to see all 13 ornaments she made for this exchange.. each house is a little bit different... all made with lots of love.