Chinese New Years Eve Celebrates Family and Ancestors

Chinese New Year or ‘Spring Festival’ is China’s most important festival and holiday. The dates changes every year and are decided by the Chinese lunar calendar, but it’s always between January 21 and February 20 of the Gregorian calendar.

Traditions and Activities

In China, Chinese New Year’s Eve is a time for families to be together. Wherever they are, people are expected to be home to celebrate the festival with their families. On New Years Eve traditions include  remembering the ancestors and giving red envelopes that contain crisp new paper money to the children and seniors in the family, and watching fireworks and firecrackers which scare off the evil spirits.

Looking at the Hung Bow Red Lanterns crafted from the red envelopes to decorate for Chinese New Years, I decided it would be a simple matter to make Red Lanterns with family and ancestor photos on them to personalize the decorations and show respect to the ancestors on Chinese New Years Eve as well as year round.

These are traditionally made by folding and stapling red envelopes.

I have modified a simple 6 panel Hung Bow Lantern by using photographs of Chinese Ancestors.

READ MORE – CLICK HERE !

How to translate Chinese Caricatures into Computer Fonts

READ MORE – THERE IS AN APP FOR THAT !!

Chinese Caricature Generators

Screenshot from the Chinesetools.eu Calligraphy Generator

CHINESE THEMED PEDIGREE CHARTS

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I hope my tutorial has inspired you to create one of your own. Please leave any comments or questions below. I would love to hear about your genealogy crafts.

If you are interested in ordering from Amazon.com, please click on any of these ads to be directed to their site. Any purchases, while there, will give us a small bonus, at no extra cost to you. This will help fund the Genealogy-GenCrafts.com website. Thanks ~ Jackie

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These instructions are for making a very simple 6 panel photo lantern. I am making this one out of 4″x4″ photographs trimmed from 4″x6″ prints that cost 15 cent each, so including the cord and some dabs of glue the entire project cost less than $1.50.

Supply List:

• • 6 Square photographs of any size
  • 1 Piece of scrap paper the same size as photographs
  • Piece of Ribbon or Cord
  • Pen or Pencil
  • Scissors
  • Glue

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  Cut a paper template the same size as your photo squares

   

  

  A) Fold the paper in half and then half again, as shown by solid lines in this picture. B) Cut 2 sides as shown in the photograph on the dotted lines.

   

  

  Normally you would fold the red envelopes to determine the fold lines that make the square or diamond shapes, so as to not bend the photograph we will use the template to draw the fold lines on the back of the photograph.

   

  

  To ensure the template is square, we are only going to draw 2 corners at a time.

   

  

  Draw around template and then turn around.

   

  

  Trace around the template again.

   

  

  The back of your photo should now have a perfect square drawn on it to use as fold lines. Repeat on the backs of remaining 5 photographs.

   

  

  Gently fold each photo along your template lines forward

  

  Crimp a crisp edge at each line, on each photograph.

   

  

  Each photo should look like this.

   

  

  By now you should have decided which 3 photographs are going to be on top and which 3 will be on the bottom. The top 3 photographs should all point to the center when you glue them.

   

  

  Glue the top left edge of one photo to the top right corner of the second photo you want on the top.

   

  

  I recommend using tiny clothes pins to hold each section together as it dries. They will not leave marks on the photographs like some other methods might.

   

  

  Line up and glue the 3rd photograph to the second photograph.

   

  

  You will need to place your ribbon or cord, coming out of the top before you glue the final corner of the 3rd photo to the 1st photo. In order to keep the ribbon or cord from sliding out of the photo cube you must secure it by either tying several large knots or gluing and or stapling a piece of scrap card stock to the ribbon or cord. If you are only making one lantern you could cut a corner off the template you made earlier.

  

  Position the knot of your cord in the top corner and glue the final top corner of the 3rd photo to the top corner of the 1st photo. This should secure the ribbon or cord in place.

   

  

  Secure all of your glue joints and set aside to dry.

  

  The 3 photos for the bottom half should be arranged where you glue the bottom point of all three photos together.

   

  

  While you placed your hanging ribbon or cord at the center of the top half, I made a small loop of cord (again stapled to card stock) to come out of the bottom so that I could hang embellishment from the bottom. This step is not necessary if you are not going to hand a tassel or other item from the bottom. Let the glue dry securely before moving on.

   

  

  The glue on the top half and bottom half must be thoroughly dry. Then you will glue the 2 haves together, securing each joint as you go, until they are dry.

   

  

  I found it easiest to put glue on all of the flaps on the bottom half and secure each flap around.

  

  At this point you can add any embellishment you might want to the little loop if you put one in. If you did not put a bottom loop on your project you are complete ! ENJOY

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  Since I had 4″x6″ prints made, in order to get the 4×4 photos for the project, I was left with a 2″ x 4″ area. I reduced the 4″x4″ photo and made 2, 2″x2″ copies of the larger photo. I chose 12 photos instead of 6 and for my embellishment  I am adding a 2″x2″, 6 panel photo lantern, below the 4″x4″ photo lantern. – Was easier than it sounds.

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  I looped the cord to hang the small cube through the bottom loop of the large cube.

  

  I continued making the small cube just the same as the larger cube.

  

  I secured the photos and let them dry well as I went.

  

  I even left a small tail coming out of the bottom of the small cube for an additional embellishment.

   

  

  I am extremely happy with the small photo cubes as embellishments. The bottom embellishment is a tag with the name, age and birth location of grandmother Yuntie Chin Leo.

   

  

  If you enjoyed this project leave a comment below and I will post the tutorial for making the 15 photo panel Hung Bow Lantern!

  

  See Also

  Converting Handwritten Chinese Fonts to Computerized Character Fonts.

  

  HANDWRITTEN SIGNATURE

  

  READ MORE !

  There is an App For That !

  “Genealogy-Gencrafts.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking from/to amazon.com.”

  If you are interested in ordering from Amazon.com, please click on any of these ads to be directed to their site. Any purchases, while there, will give us a small bonus, at no extra cost to you. This will help fund the Genealogy-GenCrafts here on the web. Thanks ~ Jackie

CHINESE THEMED PEDIGREE CHARTS

The Chinese have a complicated structure as to how they address their family members and ancestors based on whether the person is from their father’s side, mothers side, whether the person is older or younger than their parent, grand parents etc.

Many Chinese individuals never know or learn their ancestors actual names because they refer to them by these names. If you have old photographs, these nomenclature may require you to determine WHO wrote the name on the back of the photo.

Chinese are more likely to display Family Charts than individual Pedigree Charts.

For more information read further explanations on Wikipedia.org (You will be leaving my site)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_kinship

When Chinese married, it was most often a prearranged marriage, and the first time the bride and groom saw each other was when she was carried from her fathers village in a sedan chair and arrived at the door of the grooms house in a sedan chair and he opened the curtain after throwing firecrackers at the sedan chair to ward off any evil spirits.

If you are VERY, VERY LUCKY your parents or grandparents may be in possession of the three generational chart that would have been exchanged by the families prior to marriage to make sure they were not to closely related.

This document (not a generational chart) explains the woman’s birth date, and birth location, presented to the grooms family to determine if the marriage will have compatability.

If you want to be able to read, understand and display the information, for your family, you may want to create your own personal Chinese Themed Pedigree Chart.

Note: I am not Chinese, and this is a “Chinese Themed Pedigree Chart”, that I painted. Not to be represented as something you would find in China.

Information that may be of interest, regarding Chinese naming patterns.

Each village had one primary family all related to each other. Everybody in the village thus had the same family name. Chinese naming traditions dictate the Family Name comes first, then the individuals name, and then (to aid in the confusion of everybody having the same family name, each generation of a particular family, all had the same (third) generational name.

EXAMPLE:

Family Name: Wong

Individual’s name: Hung

Therefore “Wong Hung Yin” and ALL of his brothers generational name was Yin. All his sisters would have the same generational name also but may not be exactly the same middle name as their brothers.

So any individual in a village whose name was Wong Something Yin, would be siblings. No question about it. And all the men whose generational name was Yin had fathers, whose generational name was the same. So you could group generations but not necessarily figure out whose son they were.

Each family had an 8 generation “Family Poem” So they knew 8 generations in advance what first letter they would use to pick the generational name for their children.

This makes grouping the male ancestor moderately accurate. Until the men get married and take a “Married” Name, unrelated to their birth name. And when they came to America they might adopt and English name.

Take into account the various accent with which they talked and how the person heard what they said, and finding ships list with the correct ancestor on the list has issues.

On the other hand, while the women had childhood names,  once they married they often took their fathers family name added “Shee” (wife of) then her husbands name. Thus a female named Chin Yuntie who married a man who was of the Leo Clan, Would become Chin Shee Leo . . . Taking into account the Chin Village was probably fairly near the Leo Village, you end up with a large number of women named Chin Shee Leo. After coming to America some Chinese women went back to there childhood name. As an example the woman above took the name  Yuntie (her childhood name), Chin (her father’s clan), Leo (her husbands family name). Yuntie Chin Leo.

Prior to the 1930 each village had an “Ancestral Hall” that housed all the generations information, however the Communist did their best to destroy all of those records to break familial ties making standard genealogy research much more difficult.

This post is still a work in progress.

Basic Red Chinese Lantern Photo Cube

Whether you make the basic Chinese Lantern or embellish yours with tassels or dragons, this photo cube is simple to put together and versatile. And if you don’t have any Chinese ancestors all you have to do is change the color scheme and embellishments and you can make this lovely “Mothers Day Tulip” shaped photo cube.

Simple lantern decorated with Dragon Heads, A Tassel and the Chinese Character for “Wong”.

For Bright Red Chinese Lantern template CLICK HERE

For Dirty Pour Chinese Lantern template CLICK HERE

For Tulip Lantern template CLICK HERE

I would recommend printing several copies at home on your printer if you have one to practice your cutting and folding.

Cut out the Chinese Lantern Template.

Fold each section of the Chinese Lantern template and press crisply.

Repeat the folding process at the bottom of the photos and press crisply.

Lay on the table and press firmly with your finger.

Gently flatten the Chinese Lantern Template.

Fold all of the Vertical lines of the template.

Pinch the vertical lines crisply.

Fold each of the glue tabs.

It is important that the fold is pinched crisply.

Use double sided tape on all of the glue tabs and the side tab. It is important that the tape cover the entire tab. Either use glue tape which I found worked best or hot glue. Trying to use contact cement was frustrating (for me) and it was next to impossible to hold position while regular craft glue set up.

ADDITIONAL STEPS INSERTED HERE

Examples Of  Various Embellishments

Chinese knots and tassels make great embellishments for the Chinese Lanterns.

More complex tassels are easy to assemble.

See a wide variety of Family based arts and crafts

HERE

How I use a vintage postcard to make this custom matte for a Civil War Ancestor.

I found this vintage GAR postcard on ebay for $3 plus $1 postage

You could use the original, but I have another project in mind for it, so I scanned the card and deleted the area where the soldier was.

Then using the clone tool to keep the original color and texture, I deleted the words “To My Comrades” on the banner

I added D. McArthur on the banner in a color I picked up from the eagle.

I put the photo of David McArthur in the opening where the soldier had been.

Instead of enlarging the card to fit a 5×7″ frame, I put a matte behind the photo in the shade that was in the shadows under the banner and put a drop shadow on the card layer to make it pop. Now it is ready to print and frame.

A military tribute to your families veterans makes a memorable addition to your family history scrapbooks.

I cannot believe I passed my high school history classes. I remembered just enough to pass the test and the dates and events flew out the back side of my head faster than the chapter on the next war. Now with those date put in relationship to each generation of my ancestors, I cannot believe that my brother fought in Vietnam, my father in WWII, my grandfather got out of fighting in WWI somehow (I wish I knew the answer to that), and my great grandfather was a cook in the Civil War because of a bad back and his brother died in Andersonville Prison (a very bad place where most died of disease.

Somehow that puts war in another light. I think if they had all the students make a chart that showed which generation of their own families fought in which war, maybe they would pay more attention in class.

Even if they did not do anything heroic or get wounded, any individual who served during any conflict or war would have received a Campaign Medal or Commendation that are a colorful addition to a military collage. If the collage is for a page in a family history book and you don’t have the actual medals, photographs can be found online. If you are doing a shadow box it is possible to order replacement medals online.

A Timeline is a great way to show military service. If a person were in the Navy it is a simple process to search for the name of the ship and get photos (for personal use) and list of dates of where the ship was and the conflicts it engaged.

Fold3.com is your one stop internet site (for a fee) for millitary records, Revolutionary War through current conflicts and among other thing it has photos from “Cruse Books” from the Vietnam conflict that has unit photos and information on the various Navy ships of the era. It is a simple matter to find information on the internet regarding a given ship after you narrow down the dates your ancestor was on it.

For a fee you can get your ancestors entire military file from the National Archives online at: https://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records which will list everything you need for timelines and searches for appropriate photographs if you don’t have any. If you are lucky enough to already have discharge papers or any other documentation regarding your ancestors service, there is huge amounts of data that you can find for free online to add spice and variety to your collage.

There were and are also many veterans organizations for veterans of every war, starting with Daughters of the Revolution, The GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) and currently Amvets that retain many records and photographs.

For step by step instructions on how I turned a vintage postcard into a personalized photo mount – CLICK HERE

Celebrate your Mexican ancestors with this Simple Shutter Frame Ofrenda

Perfect addition to your table top family alter.

To make the shadow box Ofrenda, I started with a Plaid brand Shutter Frame, a wooden laser cut oval frame and some packing material that came with a small hard drive.

I wanted the shutters to look like “Papal Picado” so I painted each one different tissue paper colors. I painted the shadow box black, so I painted the frame in front a contrasting bright color.

I pulled out all of my Day of the Dead themed notions.

The oval frame needed a way to float in front of the shadow box so I used hot glue to glue a couple tin flowers on the front of the frame.

I used hot glue to suspend the oval frame over the shadow box hole.

Center the oval frame in the space where the photo usually goes.

Oval frame in place.

I glued a photograph of my great grandfather onto a piece of scrap cardboard I painted black to give it a stiff support to suspend behind the oval frame. I wanted a 1/4 setback between the photo and the oval frame but it would have been simple to just hot glue or tape the photograph behind the oval frame.

I glued 4 beads onto the back of the photo to space the photo away from the back wall of the the shadow box, but keeping it 1/4″ from the oval frame.

I was happy with the placement of the photo, but I did not glue the shadow box to the back of the frame yet.

I used my assorted notions to decorate the frame.

I used a small plastic cross and glued a skull to the cross to make a candle holder. Then I melted a one inch section from the top of a gold birthday candle, using a bit of hot glue.

I had originally thought I would make tiny cut tissue paper Papel Picado for the shutters, but I found and used decorative tape to make the shutters look like Papel Picado. This was much easier and far more intricate than I would have ended up with had I followed my original plan.

I made miniature Papel Picado banners to hang across the open Ofrenda.

Side view

I had intended on tucking paper marigolds in the shadowbox behind the picture but I decided the black was much more dramatic and so I left it flat black and glued the shadow box with the photo behind the frame.

I hope my tutorial has inspired you to create one of your own. Please leave any comments or questions below. I would love to hear about your genealogy crafts. If you need any of the supplies from Amazon, please click through using the Genalogy-GenCraft affiliate links below.

If you are interested in ordering from Amazon.com, please click on any of these ads to be directed to their site. Any purchases, while there, will give us a small bonus, at no extra cost to you. This will help fund the Genealogy-GenCrafts here on the web. Thanks ~ Jackie

Supplies for this Project

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Other “Day of the Dead” themed items you may be interested in…

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Because of the overlapping dates, “The Day of the Dead” decorations have become very popular recently for use while decorating for Halloween, without the people using the boldly colorful skeletons and skulls being aware of the true meaning of the holiday.

“The Day of the Dead” originated in Mexico 2000-3000 years ago. It was originally a month long celebration around August by the Aztec Indians, and is currently also celebrated in other parts of Latin America and the United States but is not part of any Halloween tradition. Instead it is a fusion of Spanish Catholic and Mexican traditions and beliefs, to honor ancestors, family, friends and sometimes even pets, who have died.

Mexican traditions hold that each individual dies three times. Once when their bodies quit functioning. Once when their bodies are put into the ground or cremated. And once when they are forgotten.

Unlike it’s spooky cousin Halloween, The Day of the Dead is a joyous holiday celebrating the ancestors, family and friends who have passed on to their next lives.

People from Mexico believe souls have the ability to travel back and forth between this world and the next and during the Day of the Dead celebration their souls come back and visit. So there must be preparations and accommodations made for the returning spirits.

The Day of the Dead is Celebrated on October 31st, November 1 and November 2.

On October 31st the food is cooked, the home alters are constructed (see below), the cemeteries cleaned and the graves decorated with Ofrendas, or offerings. These decorations include wreaths of marigolds, which are thought to attract the souls of the dead toward the offerings, and toys brought for dead children (los angelitos, or little angels) and bottles of tequila, mezcal, etc. for adults.. After cleaning all day, they party all night long at the cemeteries where stories of the deceased are told and excess of food and the alcohol consumed. On November 1st while the Roman Catholics celebrate All Saints Day, the Mexicans celebrate “Dia de los Santos” to honor the children which is called “Dia de los Inocentes” or “Day of Little Angels”. November 2nd “All Souls Day”, “Dia de los Fielles Difuntos” is celebrated by the Roman Catholics and in Mexico they celebrate “Dia de los Muertos” or “Day of the Dead”

As a part of the Day of the Dead celebration, families build altars in their homes for loved ones who have died.

“Day of the Dead” altars have many traditional elements representing the elements of nature. Water, Wind, Fire (candies) and Earth (food and marigold flowers which are yellow or gold like the sun, representing life and hope.) are represented, photos, candy and chocolate or sugar skulls, skeletons of all kinds, mementos and cut paper decorations called papel picado.

At only 5.5″ x 8″ this little Ofrenda packs quite the punch of Day of the Dead Symbolism.

• Calaveras: Brightly decorated skulls, made of sugar, paper machie or ceramic and can represent specific ancestors, family or departed friends, inscribed with the names of the deceased on the forehead. They can be used alone or with other traditional decorations to embellish Day of the Dead altars.

Sugar Skull Cookies

• Food: particular favorites of the ancestors, including tamales, empanyadas, candies,  pumpkin seeds and amaranth seeds which were used by the Aztecs to make the skulls instead of sugar.

• Monarch Butterflies: Monarch Butterflies migrate to Mexico in the fall and are believed to be the spirits coming to visit.
• Candles: Representing fire, candles are burnt on the family alter to guide the spirits back from the afterlife.
• Alcoholic beverages: Used to toast the departed. The Aztecs had a beverage called pulque made from the sap of agave that they served for special spiritual ceremonies.
• Papel Picados: Hand cut tissue paper represents the wind and how fragile life is.
• Dogs: Believed to guide the ancestors spirits to the afterlife.
• Milagros:  The flaming heart, is a popular symbol for expressing love and passion on the home altar. Milagros translates to “little miracles”.

This simple 10″ tall ofredas was simple to make using a “Shuttered Picture Frame”.

For complete instructions/inspiration

Click Here

You can take these traditions one step further by incorporating entire pedigrees of your ancestors into traditional Day of the Dead art projects.

Day of the Dead 4 Generation Pedigree Chart

Help support the blog by downloading a copy of the 4 generation Adult Coloring Page

CLICK HERE

Here is a short video of my Alter Display at the Anchorage Dia De Los Muertos Event.

UNESCO has declared the indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead as an intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (Unesco.org).

NOTE: I am not Tlinget. This art project is to demonstrate making a pedigree chart based on family tradition and/or art created by one of your ancestors. I am just lucky enough to have offered to help a friend with her genealogy and do a pedigree chart for her, only to find that she possessed the most fabulous tunic created by her mother.

A similar project could just as easily be done using the fabric of your mother or grandmothers apron or favorite dress and bits and scraps out of their jewelry box or junk drawer.

I sat down with my friend Julia, and started asking her all the standard questions to fill out a pedigree chart to the best of her abilities, as far as she knew so I could continue and confirm the information.

Then I asked her if she had any photographs of her parents, grandparents, etc and she produced this incredible portrait of her parents.

Rachel “Dixie” Johnson and Peter Charles Johnson Sr.

I commented how cool it would have been if the photo were in color and she said she owned the tunic that her mother was wearing in the picture.

Front of Julia’s mother’s tunic

Back of Julia’s mother’s tunic

I set to work taking lots of photographs with my iphone of all the detailing as well as a large solid area of felt on the back. Here are only a few of them.

Bead work on tunic

Bead work and fringe on tunic

Large solid area of felt on back of tunic

Button boarder on sides of tunic

First I made color swatches from the photos of Julia’s mother’s tunic

One of the first things I did was replicate sections of the bead work and make Julia some scrapbooking paper using the colors and textures found in the tunic

Using Photoshop filters I made more abstract digital scrapbooking papers based on the bead work and colors found on the tunic made by Julia’s mother.

Using a traditional Tlinget Button Blanket shape, I copied buttons and beads off of the tunic to make a simple Pedigree Chart for Julia using the digital scrapbook papers I made in Photoshop using the colors and textures from her mothers tunic.

But the project that exploded in my mind when I first saw the tunic was this chart, using more of the elements from the tunic. The felt from the tunic, the fringe on the bottom with the button borders, the beaded flowers, and the beaded eagle head.

Every element on this artwork, turned pedigree chart, was created by Julia’s mother, Rachel “Dixie” Johnson, I just rearranged it and included the portrait that led me down the path to this finished product.

I did the entire project using digital images in Photoshop. There was no fabric, bead work or eagles, damaged to create this artwork.

Final artwork designed using elements of fabric and bead work from Julia’s mother’s tunic.

I hope this inspires you to create a pedigree chart that jumps out of the frame instead of the same old, same old, chart they have been photocopying down the ages.

Get Inspired !

Jackie Whedbee-Mattingly

The bead work designs above were created by Peter Charles Johnson Sr and executed by Rachel “Dixie” Johnson. I received permission to put the photographs on this post, and to do the pedigree charts. Please respect their creative copywrite and mine and do not reproduce without written permission. © 2017 Genealogy-Gencrafts.com

Particularly well suited for Valentines cards and decorations, the concept behind these projects are taking the initials from your pedigree, and carving the initials in a tree and interpreting them into Valentines Art.

Carved initials on a box of Chocolates

Colors, Initials and embellishments to suite your style.

I started by purchasing a set of alphabet stamps that were suitably small enough to stamp the wooden hearts.

I stamped the “&” symbol first on each heart

They don’t have to be perfect, but even if you have not painted the hearts you still have 2 chances to get the perfect look . . . if you don’t like it turn it over and try again.

Either before or after stamping you can color and or embellish the hearts any way you please. Or trace over the stamped initials in alternative colors.

Hot glue your hearts onto the chocolate box or Valentine . . . .

Snip some pieces of twigs to go between your hearts and hot glue in place. If you don’t like their color you can paint them either before or after glueing in place.

This same style of “Carved Initials” Pedigree makes a great Valentines Card

If you are interested in ordering from Amazon.com, please click on any of these ads to be directed to their site. Any purchases, while there, will give us a small bonus, at no extra cost to you. This will help fund the Genealogy GenCraft site, here on the web. Thanks ~ Jackie

“Genealogy-GenCrafts.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking from/to amazon.com.”

Everybody has their own style of scrapbooking, and it is easy to translate that style into decorating the top of boxes of chocolates making them suitable for anything from Valentines decorations to holding trinkets and memorabilia.

Does your family have a love story?

The most romantic story in our family is that of my Uncle Everett and Aunt Velda’s 50th wedding anniversary. Their children sent them to Hawaii, since they had never went on a honeymoon. Mid-flight, my uncle talked to the stewardess and she let him have the microphone where, at 32,000 feet, on a plane full of people, he beautifully sang, “Let Me Call You Sweet Heart” to his blushing bride . . .

Here I used tissue paper and doodles, with a rosette made from cupcake liners to embellish this small box of chocolates that I picked up at Walmart for $1.

I featured my grandmother, Anne Bethel Hoyt, on a Crazy-Quilt-styled piece of scrapbook art on the cover of a box of chocolates. I used a variety of textured papers, as well as lace and pearl embellishments, to create this chocolate box with a vintage touch.

After the love of my mother’s life (my dad) she loved anything Glittery, Gold, Red, Hearts, Roses and Elvis Presley. This box top is a wonderful combination of all of those in a digital scrapbooking style, without any additional embellishments.

Here is the art which I used as the base layer to create my moms “Box of Chocolates”.

Notes for the Digital Scrapbooked Heart…

• I used Photoshop to assemble this digital scrapbook image.
• I started by putting my box of chocolates in the scanner to get the precise size and shape of the top of the box.
• I added interest by having the photos going in different directions.
• I got “texture” photos by searching the internet for Gold and Red Fabric (for personal use only)
• I put a copy of her marriage certificate as a top layer, at 70% opacity. Erased wherever there was a body/faces or other important images.
• I used a bevel and drop shadow on the marriage license newspaper clipping and the rose and crochet hearts.
• To add variety to the photos, I used “photo filter” to shift the tone of several of the black and white photos, some warm, some cool, and hand-colored one of the black and white photos.
• I was able to put 2 completed hearts on an 8×10″ file (that I then had a high quality commercial print of) so I could keep one box and give my sister the other.
• Between New Years and Valentines day, I found small boxes of chocolates at Walmart costing as little as $1-$3. That is less than an empty heart-shaped box from a craft store.

Merry Everything and a Happy Always

20 years later the decorations are still hanging. Some old some new.

One for Christmas I decorated the archway into my kitchen. I used 2 simple expandable curtain rods (the kind with a spring you just squeeze and put in place) I wrapped one string of 50 tiny red lights that are so cheap at Christmas and a string of 50 multi-color lights around the rod and plugged them in behind the refrigerator.

First I wrapped clear and white beaded garland around the rods. I hung up some non specific ornaments, including little pictures like ones I have tutorials on Genealogy-Gencrafts.com. found Here and Here Then I tucked white garland loosely around the curtain rod, and then red garland was added. . . super festive . . and yes, dare I say, Christmasy.

After Christmas I left everything up except a couple definite Christmas items, and replaced them with Hearts. Not even fancy hearts, just red and pink paper hearts. And I unplugged the multi Color lights, but left them in place.

Shortly after Valentines day I took down the hearts and red garland (note –  I put the white garland up first so removing the red garland was easy.) I unplugged the red lights and plugged the multi-colored lights back in. It was almost like I had a plan. I made and hung some family egg panoramas across the rod. (family egg panoramas are found on the blog here) note – I did not remove the other items on the rod.

After Easter I was at a partial loss. .  .Next Holiday was 4th of July . . . even the white garland was a bit much so I took it down along with the Easter Egg panoramas.

Ironically I had gotten use to the lights framing the kitchen door arch .. . I could navigate upstairs without turning on any lights.

That was over 20 years ago . . .I never have taken down the rods . . .and the lights stay on. Sometimes I unplug them in the summer but most years I don’t. . . .

I had one 4th of July item that I can’t really call an ornament, added to the menagerie and it still hangs there.

Hope everyone has a Merry.

Jackie Whedbee-Mattingly

When you are lucky enough to have photographs of multiple generations you need to show them off in ways that get the most mileage.

And Coffee Cups often fit the bill.

Unlike whipping out your smart phone to show your latest selfies to people who don’t care, having your family photos on your coffee cups inspire people interested in genealogy to perk up and ask questions. Or not.

This cup shows photos of my sisters grand children, her daughter, her, our mother, our mothers mother, and her mother . . . and her mother . . . . .

Some layouts are handy because at a certain point you can swap out the younger generations and use the same design for sisters and cousins like I did here.

Susan’s Mothers Day, Coffee Cup

Noma’s Mothers Day Coffee Cup

The first layout being my sister’s cup and the second cup being for a cousin. I had to change out their moms, them and their children and grandchildren, but the grandmothers, great grandmothers and great great grandmothers remained the same.

Mothers, Mothers, Mother

Since I had one printed and mailed and the other cup was printed locally I had to change the dimensions. This is something you have to be careful about. Even between cups from the same company the dimensions are different for 11 oz cups vs 15 oz cups etc.

Tin Ornament with the photograph of John L Whedbee Sr and his grandson Charles in approximately 1930, in Arkansas.

Creating Beautiful Vintage Looking Ornaments

Supplies Needed:

• Tin Ornament
• Mod Podge
• Paint Brush
• Photo Printed on LASER PRINTER
• Desired Embellishments

Coat Tin with a generous layer of Matte Mod Podge

Carefully place photo or art, toner side down onto the tin.

Starting at the center, gently press the paper against the tin, working out wrinkles and excess Mod Podge.

Press out from the center until it is as smooth as possible.

Once you have pressed out the wrinkles to the best of your abilities, set the ornament aside for 3 to 4 hours or overnight to dry. The longer the better.

After the ornament is completely dry submerge in water for about 30 seconds.

After 30 seconds gently rub the paper, if it starts rolling off, continue gently rubbing, if it does not dip back in water for a few seconds at a time until it does start rolling off.

Rub the paper away.

Dip back in the water.

Continue Rubbing the paper away.

You are going to want to get all of the paper to rub away, just keep dipping and rubbing, this takes patience.

When you have rubbed all of the paper away let it dry. if you see any paper fibers left you can use wet fingers to get the last of the fibers to roll away.

I decided to slightly color the photograph with pearlescent watercolors.

I painted a little peach on the skin, blue on the shirt and green in the trees.

After I was happy with the color I dabbed another layer of Mod Podge over the entire ornament, dabbing instead of brushing so I did not move the watercolor paint around. Then I sprinkled on some gold Mica Chips and glitter to sparkle it up a bit.

I tied a piece of ribbon around the top of the ornament and it was ready for the tree.

Other Examples

Paul Benton Hoyt and his first wife Amelia Long

Albert Mattingly, husband of Louise Catherine Ryan

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Make the most of grandmothers cookie cutters or make new family treasures from thrift store finds !

Tools and Supplies

Tools:

• Drill to put a hole in the top of the cookie cutter. You could use a nail and hammer.
• Block of wood to drill into
• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun and Glue

Supplies

• Cookie Cutters
• Photo Prints
• Pen and Paper
• Glue squares
• Jump Ring and Ribbon to hang the ornament, options below.
• 3 dimentional paint, I used a glitter color on this ornament, works as both glue and grout to cover any mistakes. Tin cookie cutters I use a pewter color that looks good with the silver cookie cutter.
• Whatever Embellishments you desire

Trace around your cookie Cutters and then scan the page so you can use it for sizing your photographs to make them the perfect size. If that is to complicated, get 4 x 6 prints of your photos and pick a cookie cutter to fit the picture instead of the other way around.

I used the scan of the cookie cutters as the bottom layer in Photoshop and made sure the pictures I wanted for the cookie cutter ornaments fit. Then I sent one 8×10 print to have a matte print made. Glossy printes end up with fingerprints on them. The final print I was able to make 9 cookie cutter ornaments.

Make sure your photos fit the cookie cutters by making a print at home before sending to get a photo quality print.

Drilled a small hole in the top of the cookie cutter to put a ribbon through. You could also epoxy a loop of some sort to hang from or tie a ribbon to.

Hold the cookie cutter behind the photo to get perfect placement.

Trace around the cookie cutter

Since the sides of this cookie cutter are tapered, i drew a second line 1/8 of an inch smaller than the outside so the picture would be perfectly positioned.

Make sure your photo fits perfectly.

This was a very shallow cookie cutter so I only used the 1/4″ x 14″ mounting squares.

Place the mounting squares all the way around the cookie cutter.

Once you get the mounting squares in, but before you put the picture it you must install the ribbon hanger. I tied the ribbon securely to a jump ring.

I put the ribbon down through the hole I drilled at the top of the tree and then hot glued the ribbon to the back of the cookie cutter.

Place the photo in the cookie cutter where it sets nicely on the mounting squares.

Make sure it fits perfectly.

Put a tiny amount of glitter glue or 3 dimensional paint on the edges of the mounting squares to adhere the photo to. You could also use any simple paper glue.

Put your photo in position and run another line of glitter glue around the edge of the cookie cutter and embellish as you please.

The tiny Christmas lite strand make this tree even more festive !

A grand way to pass down the family recipes are to turn them into practical kitchen artifacts.

When I was a child, I thought “salad dressing” was this recipe. The recipe was on a 3 x 5 card in my moms recipe box, it said “Lois’s French Dressing” at the top of the card. I was a teenager before I learned there were other kinds.  And not being a fan of salad in general, I did not think much about it over the years unless I was in a situation that I had a plate of lettuce put in front of me. When my mother passed away one of my disappointments was that this recipe was no longer in the recipe box.

When I decided to do a post about handing down recipe’s I was reminded of this tangy memory of my aunt Lois and I called my sister and asked her if she could go through moms recipe boxes and look again for me, to no avail. I even contacted Lois’s daughter.

You were almost reading a post about the worlds best pecan pie, made out of walnuts, but that is a long story in itself.

You have to consider the fact that I have moved several times over the years since mom passed away, and to my knowledge I have never had a copy of the recipe. About 2 weeks ago I moved a box in my dining room and a piece of paper fell out. While I do believe in miracles I doubt that they get wasted on salad dressing recipe’s, but there it was. A very old xerox copy . . . Aunt Lois’s French Dressing . .

Pecan Pie will be on a dish towel. . .

Step One – Design your Pot Holder in your choice of layout programs and print the design on some cotton fabric with a laser printer or write out the recipe directly onto fabric with a waterproof pen.

8″ x 8″ is a practical size.

I made a salad and poured on the dressing, and took a photo and printed it, to put on the back side of the pot holder. You could do similar or use any cotton fabric of your choice. Maybe even use some fabric from a heavy cotton item belonging to the recipe owner?

Step 2 – Assemble your pot holder. You will need some padding. I used 2 layers of an older towel but you could purchase some fusible fleece for padding. I have not sewn in years so I sprayed the back sides of the front and back fabric with some spray basting. A shot to both pieces of towel and stacked them appropriately. Then used some 3/8″ heat bond to iron on the hem tape. In the top left corner I added a loop to hang the pot holder.

Step 3 – Embellish. Depending on how durable you want your pot holder to be you should either use a sewing machine to secure the pot holder together or do as I did and use a blanket stitch to go around the edges.

The perfect gift for children moving away from home !

Whether you choose to make this simple and inexpensive version of my creative Headstone Necklace . . . . with typed data. . .

Or this version, with actual headstone rubbings reduced down to a fraction of their original size, with extra embellishments and photos. . . . Either one is made more special by the information being from your own ancestors !

Supplies you are going to need for the headstones are:

• Paper and or towel to protect your work surface
• Small wooden tags (half again more than the number of headstones you need)
• Pens and Acrylic Paint to color headstone
• Print of the information you want of the headstones
• Mod Podge
• 2 chains – plastic or metal
• connectors or jump rings and extra links of chain

Tools you will use.

• Soft Paint Brush
• Bowl of water
• Jewelers pliers.

Making Your Headstones –

You need to pick small wooden tags available in most craft and many department stores with the hole already drilled, or find tiny headstone shaped wood blanks (available during Halloween craft season) that you will need to drill later on. The small wooden tags come in a reasonable variety of shapes. I would recommend doing several extra in case you are not happy with the results of a given headstone you can do it over.

For the Mod Podge to work properly you need to have at least a basic layer of paint or primer on the wood. . . What I did was start by saturating the wood with water on a soft bristle paint brush.

You can paint your headstones any way that suits you. . . I outlined each headstone with a Gelly Roll pen which is water-soluble and has a ink which was a lot faster than a layer of paint since I did not just want plain white or grey headstones.

However you choose to paint your headstones, do all of them the same way, here I put red on top left, purple bottom left, blue top right and green bottom right. . . some a little more, some a little less, but primarily the same.

The ink on each little headstone bled from the water, and I exaggerated this action by adding more water and swirling the brush around immediately after I inked up each one.

I wiped each piece with a piece of tissue. . . rubbing the center a little extra to stop the bleeding of color, and let them dry.

To lighten the center a little more I swirled a watered down brush with just a little antique white acrylic paint on each headstone to lighten up the center. The color bled up through the wet acrylic paint.

Color added some fun to my headstones, but I believe grey would look more spooky for Halloween. . . . The more unique your color scheme, the more extra headstone you should paint.

Type the information you want on your headstones to fit and then flip your print when you print the information.

Cut to fit your headstones

Put a nice layer of Mod Podge on your print.

Center your prints on each headstone.

Use an outdated credit card to smooth any air bubbles under the paper. Don’t get any Mod Podge on top of the paper if you can help it.

Toss 2 headstones in a bowl of water. As you pull one of the headstones out of the water put another one in so they get a head start wetting the paper good. . . you should be working fast enough that they should not be in the water more than a couple of minutes each.

As you pick each headstone out of the water soak, rub it with your thumb, and the paper will roll right off. . . rub in all directions.

Get all the paper off but don’t rub so hard the type comes up.

This is where you start mumbling about needing to have painted more blanks.

Even after the headstone dries you can re-wet and rub off remaining paper.

After all the paper is up dry with a soft cloth.

Here are the headstones of Susanna Fields Whedbee, William T. Whedbee and all of their children.

After the headstones have dried, you can put a 1/8″ hole in each one with a drill, if the wooden blank does not already have a hole in it. . . I don’t drill the headstones before this because the paint goes on easier, the Mod Podge does not build up in the hole and until now you don’t even know that you are going to be happy with each individual headstone.

Assembling the Necklace –

For this low budget version I used 2 packages of plastic chains and 1 package of connectors (total $3).

Cut off 2 or more inches of one of the 2 chains so your headstones have plenty of room to hang.

Connect one end of both chains together.

Connect the other ends.

If you want to add a center photo to the simple necklace you can do it using the same method that you used to put the words on the headstones. Here I put a photo of Susanna on a wooden tag that I had prepared with the same colors as the headstones. I then doodled around her picture with gold and silver metallic markers and black fine line Sharpie.

The plastic connectors do not require any tools to connect to the plastic chains.

I found the little headstones hung from the chains much better if there was an extra link and jump ring connector between the chain and the headstone.

Hints –

You are going to want to lay out the necklace chains and figure out where you want your little headstones before you put them on the chains, but don’t be surprised if you have to adjust them once you try it on.

Add extra embellishments to make your “cemetery” more interesting

Finished Simple Headstone Necklace –

Advanced Headstone Necklace –

Three comments and I will do a tutorial on making this necklace.

Hope You have a creatively blessed day !

Jackie Whedbee-Mattingly

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Creating a Family Word Cloud Pumpkin

Our own version of a word cloud celebrating family.

susans-word-cloud-pumpkin
I went to my sisters house with a plan. I brought 2 pumpkins that I had already painted to choose from and a word cloud I created in photoshop as a starting point. But like many plans some just take on a life of their own, and this cloud changed in the wind.

Susan had a large selection of letter stickers to choose from and we decided we wanted every name to be different. While that sounds great, it is more challenging than you would think. Even if you choose to make all the fonts the same style I would recommend using different colors alternately over the pumpkin to make each name stand out. For our pumpkin we tried to have a half and half mix of all one color fonts and mixed color fonts.

Right off the bat (yes Halloween pun) it was determined if we wanted my sisters first and maiden name and her husbands full name to be the largest words on the pumpkin, that if we were going to even attempt to start the word cloud like I had designed in photoshop, that we would have to shorten Robert to Bob . . . and besides I liked the way “BOB” looked in those stickers.

After getting the first name on the pumpkin you have a starting point to work out from. For the second name (Susan) we started with the “N” and worked backwards so we would not have to figure out letter spacing.

For longer names it helps to use something as a guideline to keep the names straight. Here we set a ruler on the table and turned the pumpkin as the name wrapped around the pumpkin.

Once the word cloud that I had designed was thrown out the window we worked from the largest names down in order of importance (or perceived importance).

We positioned each name on a pencil or ruler so we could move it around on the pumpkin to decide where we wanted it to go. And have the letters convenient as we placed them on the pumpkin.

After placing all the larger names we started filling in the spaces with the smaller names. It helps to use a poker or spatula to place the smaller stickers.

You need to only choose letter stickers that are flexible enough to stick to the contours of the pumpkin.

We added 2016 to commemorate the date.

After putting all the names on the list there was some room left so we added a couple more peoples names ( Including mine ! ) and still had 2 blank holes which we filled with some Halloween stickers. I especially liked the wiggly eyes.

My name ( Jackie ) being one of the last names added to the pumpkin had to be in a letter sticker rejected because the style was already used for Whedbee.  The letters were black which made it harder to see at the bottom of the pumpkin, so we were going to have to do something to spice it up and make it fit my personality, like we attempted to do with all of the other names.

This is how we finished my name with Magic Puff Pens –

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