Two Turtle Doves

They say old friends are always the best and over the past few days Ive reacquainted myself with one of my old familiar pals - Mr Big Shot!
He'd sat lonely and unloved, gathering dust on the bottom shelf of my craft cupboard - well not anymore!
Mr Big Shot and I are friends again - long may this new found love last :)

Two Turtle Doves
1. Cut an 8 inch circle with a 6 inch aperture from a piece of chipboard.
2. Using Festive Greenery die, cut enough pieces to completely cover the 8inch circle. I used 3 sheets if coordinating Bazzil cardstock.
3. Arrange and layer Festive Greenery die cuts around the circle and adhere in place.
4. Add clusters of Holly with berry centres punched from red cardstock. I used my CropaDile to punch out the berries and the Holly leaves were gently bent to add dimension.

5. Using the Sizzix Snowflake #21 die, I die cut three snowflakes from white Bazzil and adhered these in to place. The remaining star centres from the die cuts were dotted around the wreath.
6. Using the Caged Bird die, I die cut the cage from black foam board and attached it to the centre of the wreath using red thread. Thread red cotton through a bead and then thread through the hole at the top of the cage. Stitch the thread through the wreath to keep the cage in place and for it to be nice and secure.

7. The two turtle doves were die cut from white Bazzil, using the Bird #5 die.
I cut 2 dies per bird and layered them up using 3d foam pads before attaching them to the cage.
8. Finally to finish of the wreath, I added a red voile bow and additional beads were adhered to the bottom of the cage.

We are going for the "brown paper packages tied up with string" look for our Christmas presents this year - for the little ones in the family we are using red bakers twine with candy canes to decorate - for the adults I'm thinking red hessian bows with fir cones and cinnamon sticks - the above wreath I plan to use to decorate the front of a Kraft coloured gift bag, which will be for my Mom's gifts to sit inside  - because Mom's are special and need that extra little something to show them just how much you love them :)

Thanks for dropping by,
T.x.