Little Yellow Bicycle Photo Ornament Kit

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Reported by: Katie Renz

Today I'm reviewing a paper photo ornament kit made by Little Yellow Bicycle which is part of the Sharon Ann Christmas Collection. I am not a huge kit fan of any kind. I generally think I can make whatever I want myself, but to be honest, I was looking for something to review, and due to cosmic circumstances I purchased this kit to check it out, plus it had the word glitter describing the kit - I figured I couldn't go to wrong if bling was attached to the description.

So the kit consists of 2 12"x12" sheets of die cuts, a photo size guide (1 1/2" x 1/2"), and 3 photo mats. What you will need to complete the three ornaments are your own small photos, ribbon for the hanger, and any other embellishments of your choice to add to the kit, plus adhesive.

Here is a picture of the 2 sheets in real life (IRL). When I first saw this kit I was pretty impressed. The glitter accents on all the pieces were really pretty and the colors were what I had expected but even better. The directions are simple and straight forward.


As I said earlier, I'm not usually a fan of any type of pre-cut or die-cut kit. It's not because kits are bad, it's just that I don't tend to buy them. In the past, if I have gotten a kit one of the most annoying things about them that can occur is that the pre-cut pieces don't fit right. To me, it destroys the most important aspect of a kit - the simplicity of putting one together. Another aspect of die cuts that I don't like are those little tabs that are always left over after punching the pieces out. Just like this one. Fortunately, a pair of sharp scissors or sand paper will take care of those.


Well, after I got all the pieces punched out and folded on the score lines... here I will digress just a tad. From my understanding of scoring (mostly via the information from the lovely Diana Crick and the Scor-pal) scored lines should be folded into the "puffy" or "raised" part of the score line. This is to prevent breakage of the fibers that make up the paper (I'm no scientist here either). So anyway, it just bugged me that the score lines were what I considered backwards for every single piece.

Anyway, back to the folding. Once all the pieces were folded then I was ready to put them together. I used my ATG gun and some tape that I purchased from Tape Depot. I want to make a note here and let you know that the tape I received from them was a substitution from their normal tape they send out for the ATG. This stuff is extremely sticky and worked wonders for my project. All you will need to do is put adhesive on the triangles of each cut out.

The sections of each ornament are labeled and the top and bottom have a punched hole in the center of each one. Pay attention to this since you don't want to accidentally use one of those for a side piece. You will also want to thread your ribbon through the top before putting your ornament completely together. I would recommend that you use a thinner ribbon, but I muscled my ribbon through with just a little bit of tearing, but no one would be the wiser.


Here is a picture of the majority of the ornament put together. I marked each triangle with a dot to represent the pieces with adhesive on them. Just match the corners and edges and you are good to go.


Once I got that last section on I had a very presentable ornament. Now, the title says photo ornament kit and in the kit there are lovely photo mats to adhere those adorable little pictures onto and then place them right onto your ornament to adorn your tree or the tree of friends and family.

Can you tell where this leading? I am a mother of 3 lovely boys and I had every intention of slapping their ever-so-cute faces on each ornament, but I have to tell you that once I got my 3 ornaments all put together, I honestly felt that my boys' likenesses would mar the beauty of these lovely, glittery paper ornaments.

So instead of embellishing my ornaments with my lovely children, I opted to embellish with stickles and rhinetones instead. To assuage my guilt, what I did was order a couple more ornament kits so I could have some with my preferred embellishments and still have some to put my next alternative embellishments and send to family.

Here is a picture of all three ornaments on my mini tree since as of yet we don't' have a big tree up (sigh).


Close up photos. The first of which I added my stickles to and the 2nd one the rhinestones.



In the end, even with my personal bias against die cut kits, I have to say that I was very happy with the outcome and overall appearance with these paper ornaments. I am going to proudly display them on my tree just minus the photos, again a personal bias.

I also have a couple of suggestions to enhance these ornaments that I didn't get around to trying. As I mentioned earlier, there is a small punched hole on the bottom pieces of the ornament. This is a great place to attach pretty beads, dangles, or fringe to your ornament. I also thought it might be a lovely idea to attach some jingle bells to the inside where the ribbon is attached for some auditory interaction.

Pros:

• Well Designed
• Super affordable
• Quick to put together

Cons:

• All those little nubbies on the pieces
• Need to be careful with the one ornament that has the score across the glittered section. It might have a tendency to flake and chip if you aren't careful with the fold

Online Stores:

• Limelight Papercrafts
• Scrapgal
• CP Scrapbooks

Retail Cost for this kit is $3.79. I couldn't find an actual retail price on the Little Yellow Bicycle website, but that is the price I saw the most often listed as the sale price at the web stores.

I found this kit very easy to use and really the value is awesome considering how pretty they are all made up. I would rate this item a 10 out of 10, forgiving my small range of kit experience.

I bought one, and then bought some more. Are you a yes fan or no fan of this kit or kits in general? Please share... inquiring minds would love to hear your take on the kit question.