Calico in review

Hello all and welcome! Hope you are having the most amazing festive season!! I certainly am!
Between Christmas and New Year the Design Team over on the Calico Craft Parts blog are sharing 3 of their favourite projects of the year. Today it is my turn. There are links to the original projects and tutorials, but here is a little preview of one of them:

To see the rest of them, all you need to do is click here

Thanks for your visit today and happy 2016 when it comes!!!!!

Last of the Christmas cards

Hello all, welcome and I hope you are surviving this busy time of year.
This will be my last post before the big day as I am taking a blogging break while spending time with my grandchildren and other family.
I thought I would share my final Christmas cards with you today. These were made a while back and are now safely on their way to their recipients.

I have been having great fun experimenting with different kinds of backgrounds this year. These ones were made with the help of foil, using sticky embossing powder, and a mix of Distress Paints and Decoart, both the Media Fluid Acrylics and the Antiquing Creams.

Each one is similar but subtly different and they are all only 4 x 4" in size.

The colours are not traditionally Christmassy, but I have been attracted to Blues Greens and Browns this year for my cards. Unfortunately the weather has been so dark here, it's been impossible to get decent pictures, and of course the gold shimmer of the foil has totally disappeared....

This one uses pretty much the same techniques, just different die cuts and background stamps. Here you can see the additional texture achieved with some Decoart Snow Tex a bit better.

This one is almost the same as number one, just using a different stamp for the background with the Sticky Embossing powder.

For this one finally, I used some of Tim Holtz's Gilded Holidays remnant rubs. Beware, you need to apply these before doing anything else to your background or they are likely to get lost. Tim has a great video of how to use them here.
Below is a close up, I love these rubs, and will definitely use them again!

Well, that's it for today, thank you so much for all your support and your lovely comments, they are always very much appreciated !!!

Thanks for your visit like always and I hope you will have a peaceful, joyful and blessed season!!

Christmas Hanger and card

Hello everyone, I have two quick projects to share with you, both were created with my collection of Victorian Holidays papers. Hope you don't get too tired of them....
The first one is a hanger made from an old 78 record.

I started by covering the whole outside rim of the record with gesso. When that had dried I added a layer of very dark brown acrylic paint and when that had also dried I added some Decoart Crackle paint in some areas and Weathered Wood Crackle medium in some other area quite randomly. When both had dried, a last coat of Titanium Buff paint was added over the crackle and the cracks almost appeared immediately.
Below is a close up:

I added some brown antiquing cream still to give it an even more distressed appearance.

For the inside I cut a very large circle from one of the red papers and then fussy-

cut the girl on the sledge from another one of the papers.

I added some shadows around her and also gave the red paper a light wash of gesso mixed with water to tone it all down a bit.

The "frame" was decorated with flowers and berries that are part of the C'est Magnifique Flower Add ons. I blended some gesso over them to tone them in with the background to the girl.

The Seasons Greeting sentiment is one from Calico Craft Parts.

To give it all more depth I blended some Ground Espresso ink all around the dark red paper still.

I also made a card still, made by layering several of the left over bits of paper over one another. The focal image was of course cut from the papers again.

I framed her by embossing the edges with some Stampendous embossing powder in aged gold and then embellished with more of the flowers.

Before layering the papers, I had also added some texture to the final paper. Here you can just see a little corner of it.The little wreath is part of one of the kits, I painted it with some of the paints that are part of the Mixed Media Kit

Well, that's my final two projects using the kits. You can get a glimpse of some of the other cards I made on the C'est Magnifique blog.

Thanks for your visit like always and for all your lovely comments through out. They are so much appreciated.

A Very Vintage Box

Hello all and thank for dropping in. It's been a busy few days here and I still have a few more projects to share before the big day....

This box was made using a paper mache book box. I'm sorry to say I have no step by step photos, but the old weathered wood look was achieved by painting the box first with a mix of black and brown acrylic paint. When that had dried I added Decoart Weathered Wood Crackle medium and then when that was touch dry I painted it with Titan Buff Decoart Media Acrylic paint. The cracks appear almost immediately, and this is still one of my all time favourite crackle techniques. I just added a bit of Umber Antiquing cream still for an even more distressed look.

The angel was fussy cut from one of the papers I designed for C'est Magnifique's Victorian Holiday Collection.
The front was embellished with some of the flowers that come with the paper kit.

They are from the Prima Victorian Christmas collection. I just added a few die cuts and some extra glitter.

The back was decorated with an other image from my paper collection.

 I left the front and inside quite plains as you can see on the photos below.

I just lined the inside of the box with some of the papers. The little lock is a Prima embellishment that comes with one of the C'est Magnifique kits.

Well, that's pretty much it for today, just to say thill, the corner elements are just two die cuts. Thanks for your visit like always and hope you are getting along well with all your preparations for the big day!

Another Scene for Countryview Crafts

As many of you will know already, the challenge theme this month over at Countryview Crafts is "Make a Scene". For my second project I made a fancy gift tag.

Time is precious at this busy time of the year, but a project like this is quick to do. All you need is a scenic stamp, a tag, a sentiment and minimal embellishments. (Makes it easy to send in the post too).
I used a Graphics 45 tag made from Kraft card.

I stamped my scene, using a Sheena Douglass stamp in Potting Soil Archival, heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I then used a circular mask for the moon and blended Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso Distress inks around it to colour my scene. I then removed the mask and lightly blended some more  ink over part of the moon so it would not appear too stark. With a water brush I then removed a little ink from the buildings to make it look as if the moon was lighting it up a bit.

A die cut sentiment and some little snowflakes finished it all off.

Well, I hope you are up to date with your Christmas preparations and if you have a moment to spare, do join in our challenge. Like always there is a fabulous prize to be won!

Thank you for visiting

Magical snow scene for Calico Craft Parts

Hello all and welcome. Another sneak peek day today, - time to share a project over on the Calico Blog

This sneakpeek just shows part of a little reverse canvas snow scene. Full details are of course on the Calico Blog. I know it's a super busy time of year, but of course I would love it if you took the time to take a peek. Wishing you all the very best with your Festive preparations. All being well I shall be off to Australia in just a few hours to spend time with my grand children, - well away from ice and snow....

Meanwhile wishing you all the very best for a happy festive season!

xxxxx

Secret Santa fun with AVJ

Hello everyone and welcome to another busy posting day here....
Today the team over at A Vintage Journey are showing the gifts they made for a team mate in a fun Secret Santa adventure we embarked on. My gift went to the lovely Tracy and this is what I made:

It's a book box, in vintage style. The outside was decorated by first covering it with strips of tissue paper. I then decoupaged parts of a paper serviette, both to the front and the back and then I painted around it with a variety of blue and white acrylic paints in various blue and white tones.
Here is the back:

And here the side:

The raised bits, achieved by wrinkling the tissue paper strips, were highlighted with Decoart Metallic Lustre in Champagne, I also used some Treasure Gold in Renaissance Gold and some Decoart Antiquing Cream in Burnt Umber to achieve an aged look.

I left the inside quite plain, I thought that perhaps Tracy could use it to store her Christmas Cards in.

I also made a kind of tag holder, out of two envelopes that I slid into each other. I decorated them with my own design papers from my Victorian Christmas Collection by C'est Magnifique.

I added some texture to the front cover with the help of a stencil and some crackle paste, - the sentiment is cut from one of the papers.
Here is the inside:

Each side was enhanced with the help of some die cuts and elements cut from the paper collection:

This is the left side, I used one of the Tim Holtz layered snowflakes to embellish it, I also stamped some snowflakes in Picket Fence Distress Paint, using one of the stamps from Tim's Grunge Flakes stamp set.

On the other side I used the Layered Leaf die, painted to match the elements of the papers, a doily cut from old book paper and some elements fussy cut from the paper collection.

Here finally you can see the tag that fits inside the pocket of this little folder.

Now I was lucky enough to receive a gift from the wonderful Nikki. She made me the most adorable little book.

Inside she had decorated the pages with images taken from my own projects on the AVJ blog. Such a sweet and fun idea. For me it was like a real trip down memory lane, as quite honestly, I had quite forgotten about some of them

Here is just one of the double pages, I just love how she has integrated everything together, so very clever! To see more details of her project for me, please visit her blog!!

Nikki, I absolutely adore the book you made me and I will treasure it , thank you so very much!!!

I also would like to thank Brenda for organising all of this. It was so much fun! Please make sure to check out the AVJ blog and visit all my team mates who took part, I can't wait to see all their projects in detail.

Thank you for visiting here today and have a fantastic week!!

Dreamy journal page for Shimmerz

Hello lovely visitors, thanks for dropping in.
I have a journal page to share over on the Shimmerz Blog today.

Here is just a little corner, if you want to see the whole spread and the process of how I got there, all you need to do is click HERE

Hope you are finding some time to relax during this busy time of year, - I really appreciate you dropping in here, thank you!

xxxxx

Guest Design Spot for C'est Magnifique

Hello all and thanks for dropping in.
Today is the day when I can finally share some of the projects I have created using my collection of Victorian Christmas papers that I designed for C'est Magnifique.

You can get a look at all the projects I made by clicking here.
I will share some of them in more detail here on my own blog in the days to come.

Here is some detail on one of them:

It's a little mini book, made out of one piece of 12 x 12 card that  was then decorated  with my papers and embellishments found in the other C'est Magnifique December kits.

This is how I made the book:
I used some strong dark green card, but any card can be used, though it's best if it is two sided card stock.

Here is how to do it:
1. Take a piece of 12 x 12 and score horizontally at 6".
2. Turn the card 90 degrees and score at 4" and 8".
3. Turn the card back to its original position and cut along the line between 1 & 4 and 3 & 6 up to the middle score line as shown on the diagram above.
4. Start folding like this: Fold panel 1 up to panel 2, then fold both behind panel 3, then fold them down to 4, then behind panel 5 and finally up to panel 6.
5. Turn it sideways so the spine is on the left, - panel 1 is single and will form part of the cover; 2 and 3 are together and can be glued at the top to make a little pocket, or glued together completely for a thicker page; panel 5 and 4 are together and can be glued at the bottom, to form another pocket, or be glued down complete again, finally panel 6 is single again and will form the back cover. If you want you can do exactly the same again to make a fatter book, but I left mine just with one piece of card and made two pockets for tags as described.

This may all sound very complicated, but really when you do it its very easy.
I decided to close my book with a ribbon, so before adhering the front paper I added that as shown below:

After that the rest was fun and simple, just cut your chosen papers to size and decorate as you please. Below are some pictures of how I decorated mine:

Here is the first double page, I made sure that pages next to each other matched in colour and design more or less.

Here is a closer look at the left side, most of the elements were fussy cut from the different papers. I designed them so that they could easily be used as embellishments for cards, little books or indeed scrapbook pages.

One of the papers in the collection has lots of tags and little labels like the one above. The snow flake strip is part of the main December kit, but not on one of my papers, it belongs to a Kaiser Kraft paper that is part of the main kit.

The roses on this page are also not on my papers but are part of the kit, (you can find out the full content of all the different kits by click here)

These to pages are all from my papers again. I added some stamping with a little set of stamps that came as a freebee with a magazine.
Here finally is the back page, kept pretty simple, just some stamping added to a bit of one of the papers.

And lastly, a couple of little tags that fit inside the pockets of the little book:

Well, that's it for today, - like I said, you can see some of my other projects by going to the C'est Magnifique blog and I will post more details of those projects here in the days to come.

Thanks for your visit today, I hope you like my papers and that you are having fun creating your own festive projects!