Christmas Decorating

Mantel in the Family Room

Lately most of my creative energies have gone into decorating our home for Christmas. It's a lot of work, but I really enjoy the finished product! I usually get going right after Thanksgiving and it takes me 2-3 days. Here are some glimpses of Christmas around here...

Baker's Rack 

Vintage Dresser in the Dining Room

Coffee Table (the Fostoria bowls belonged to my grandparents)

Kitchen (the "tree" is my mom's old jelly strainer)

Top of Piano in Living Room

(Mostly) Vintage Ornaments

I hope you enjoyed this little tour!

Immi

ps - Can you guess what I like to collect???

Getting in the Holiday Mood

I have a couple of projects to share for this week's Monday challenge from Simon Says Stamp.

First is a card I made, inspired by this card.

I started with a kraft cardstock panel. I stamped the sentiment first to be sure that the snowflakes would fit around it. I combined snowflakes from multiple sets (Stampin' Up! and Inkadinkado) so that each one would be different. I used a silver pigment ink and covered that with silver embossing powder. After heat setting, I wanted to use some kind of thread or ribbon to make the snowflakes look like hanging ornaments. I remembered that I had some thin silver cord, so I tried that. I put down tiny dots of Glossy Accents to hold the ornament strings in place, then tied teeny little bows and glued them above each snowflake. I put a heavy book on top until everything dried. Then I wrapped the cord to the back of the panel and taped it down. The stamped panel was mounted onto a navy card base. I was surprised how quickly this came together. In retrospect, though, I don't know if I'd use the silver with kraft again. I'm not sure there's enough contrast. Live and learn, I guess.

Next is an ornament:

To make this, I cut a scalloped circle from watercolor paper using a die set from Spellbinders. The stamp I used is an old one from Stampin' Up! that I've had for many years. I used Versafine Black Onyx ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder. To color the image, I used Distress Inks diluted with water and some Stampin' Up! markers in a few spots.

I cut three more scallops and glued them all together, using a book to weight it down until dry. I decided to run a Versamark marker around the edges and dip them in silver embossing powder. I really like the way that turned out. Then I used a bookbinding tool to punch a small hole in the top and used some of that thin silver cord to make a hanging loop.

That's it for now. I hope your week is going well!

Immi

Take It, Make It Challenge : November

The November Make It Take It challenge from Craft Stamper Magazine just about had me stumped. The challenge is to use non-Christmas themed stamps to create a Christmas or holiday card. I enjoyed seeing the examples from the Design Team, but I was drawing a complete blank. And then...it came to me! Alphabet stamps in the shape of a tree! Now I was getting excited to see if I could make it work.

I knew I would need to use a clear stamp set so that I could see exactly where each stamp was being placed. I pulled out Typewriter Alphabet by Stampendous which I thought would be about the right size. I tried at first to stamp each letter individually, but I quickly saw that it would be very uneven and messy looking. I decided I would use a stamp press, and tried laying the stamps out on a piece of paper but they kept getting bumped out of position. (Insert sounds of frustration.)

I finally figured out that I needed to arrange them directly on the stamp press so that they would stay put until I had them all in position. Ahh! That's much better! I stamped them on my paper and then used some low tack tape to mask off a triangle around the "tree". I heat set it to be sure it was dry and began blending some Distress Ink in Evergreen Bough over the letters. To my dismay, the letters began smudging. Blech!

So, determined to make it happen, I turned the paper over and taped off my triangle area again. I blended the Distress Ink over it and decided to flick a little water over the surface to create some lighter spots. After drying the paper, I inked up the letters again and stamped - much better this time!

Next I took a small stamp that looks like an asterisk and stamped in Stampin' Up! Real Red randomly over the tree. I cut it out and brushed the edges with some more Evergreen Bough and a little Vintage Photo.

Next up, the background. I took another sheet of paper - by  the way, I used Strathmore Bristol for this project - and inked the entire thing with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. After heat setting, I used the little asterisk along with a couple of others to stamp "snowflakes" with Versamark. I poured some sparkly embossing powder over them and heat set again. It's hard to see in the photo, but the snowflakes have some nice sparkle to them.

I cut a scrap of white to make a hill for the bottom of the card, along with a scrap of brown for a tree trunk. I stitched the hill down and used adhesive for the tree and trunk. I had a little silver star in my stash that I glued above the tree with Glossy Accents so it won't budge.

Finally, I colored some scrap white cardstock with Festive Berries Distress Ink and stamped the sentiment which is from a new set called Winter Wonderland from Walter & Winnie. The sentiment comes as a single line, but since it's a clear stamp I was able to cut it apart and stamp it as a two-line sentiment. That fit my card better. I cut the strip of paper in a banner shape and adhered it down to the background panel. The entire panel was then adhered to a top-folding white card.

I'm happy that I was finally able to come up with something for this month's challenge. Hope you enjoyed  it!

Immi