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Another Day in Paradise


Another day in paradise to me is when I can craft instead of doing my normal 9-5 job. Thanks to a big hearted boss and the opportunity to donate a tree to Carroll Hospice's Festival of Trees it has been paradise in the office (at least for a few hours each week).

Our beach themed tree is coming along great. It is amazing what can be done with a group of crafty people, shells, some hot glue and lots of glitter. Here are some of the cute ornaments we have made.




These crafty signs were hand painted by Erin, a graphic designer at Devaney & Associates. She used inexpensive pre-cut signs from the craft store as the base. The designs were done on her computer and then she printed and traced them onto the signs to hand paint. Then she added little touches, like the rafia and seashells, to finish off these beachy signs.

A beach theme wouldn't be complete without flip flops! We searched high and low for inexpensive flip flop ornaments but everything was $10 or more. So we ordered these flip flop necklaces from Oriental Trading Company and removed the necklace string, spray painted them gold and added ribbon and raffia to finish them off. At $4.99 a dozen this option was much more economical. Often thinking out of the box and making small changes to an item can give you great results.


These cute holiday balls were put together by Art Director Michele using Design Your Own, Clear Ornaments, sand, miniature shells, raffia and ribbon.


This ornament was a true collaboration. We had left over shells and starfish. By themselves they were too small to put on the tree. I added the beads and the wire to the top, Michele used some E6000 glue to attach the starfish to the front of the shell and our Production Manager Kristen (who has a slight obsession with Martha Stewart glitter) came in and added a bit of holiday sparkle to finish it off.

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