Last project before Christmas........I think!

Because I am giving several theatre /concert tickets or vouchers as gifts this year I was delighted to find a tutorial by Claire Charvill, which details how to make some delightful little gift bags. They are very easy to construct and I think they will be an attractive addition to the gifts. Here are a selection of the ones I made.

Claire has a blog (Mycreativespirit.blogspot.com) and a you tube channel Charliejones2686. she is a design team member for Graphic 45.
Here's wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy and healthy New Year!
Bye for now.
Gillx

A special card for a special person

This is beginning to look like the old joke about buses! You wait ages for one and then three come along together and so it is with my blog posts at the moment.
I wanted to make a card for my OH but a card with a difference and so I came up with the tag card featured below.

The card is constructed from a sheet of fairly weighty A3 card, cut horizontally to give extra width. It doesn't divide into 3 equally, so the remaining few centimetres were folded from the left hand side into  the card to make a narrow pocket for a photo mat tag/journalling tag. The extreme right hand section was folded into the card and adhered at the bottom and central fold areas to create another  tag pocket.

I covered the card with a selection of Bo Bunny rejoice Christmas papers and cut a half circle tag holder to attach on the bottom right hand page. This will hold my Christmas message to my OH. The large tag is a further photomat/journalling spot. 

The front of the card was decorated with a fabscraps chipboard flourish painted in red acrylic paint and some pine cones and spruce made with the Tim Holtz tattered pine cone die and grungepaper. The spruce was coloured with alcohol ink oversprayed with cosmic shimmer in green and the pine cone painted in brown acrylic paint. When dry I used a glue pen on the edges and dipped them in Dazzles prisma glitter.
I thought my OH might like to record the high spots of Christmas along with some photographs as all the family will be together this year.

A Special Gift

Some months ago, my daughter in law saw a wall decal bearing a quote that really caught her imagination and to my mind sums up the kind of young lady she is. Their house is quite small and doesn't lend itself to large wall hangings etc.,  so I decided to make this alternative for her for Christmas. 

I printed out the sentiment in brown on Ivory card, before stamping the corners with a fancy stamp and then embossing them. I used Versafine Vintage Sepia and clear embossing powder. My son tells me that their photo frames are a beech colour so I chose a frame that I hoped would come close to that. I hope she likes it!

No matter how much I try, I still can't seem to post a message more frequently than once a month. I really don't know where time goes. I can't believe we have only one week to go before Christmas. Fortunately I began my preparations earlier this year and so hopefully I have not left myself with a mad last minute scramble!

I have been working on several projects recently but due to Christmas they are still works in progress, however I do have a few things to share with you. The first is the card I made for the Chocolate Baroque Christmas card swap.

The materials used were as follows:-
1    Chocolate Baroque treescape clear stamps
2    Tombow pens in dark blue: light blue: turqoise: and pink
3    Good quality water colour card.
4    Water spritzer bottle
5    Hobby Art stamp of grazing sheep
6    Chocolate Baroque Teeny weeny meadow stamps
7    Very thin neat bleach
8    Frosted lace Stickles
9    Hobby Art bird stamp
10  6 Self adhesive gems
11   Chocolate Baroque Happy Christmas stamp
12   Hobby Art Snowfall stamp
13   Clear embossing powder
14   Mirri Card
15   Nestabilities rectangular die
16   Sheet of A4 textured card.
17   Versafine Onyx black ink pad
18 Waterbrush

METHOD

Cut a piece of water colour card to the required size and stamp with the several of the treescape stamps using the versafine black onyx pad and remembering to stamp off the edge on to a piece of scrap paper at each end as this gives a more natural look. Emboss with clear powder.

Stamp the sheep and birds and emboss with clear powder.

Now comes the interesting bit. Using an old white tile or a large acrylic block, scribble some of the colour from the Tombow pens in separate patches (Using the side of the pen rather than the tip). Spritz well with water and using extra water where necessary, paint onto the card over the image to give snowy sunset effect. Carry right on down to the bottom of the card even over the sheep although it is best to do this with the lighter blue as when we remove it it leaves snow like shadows. 

Before this dries, take a water brush filled with thin but neat bleach (not diluted thick bleach) and paint over the foreground and watch as magically the colour you have just put on disappears leaving shadows. Make sure you clear all the colour from the sheep as I don't think any of us have seen blue sheep! Now stamp in the sky with the snowfall stamp which you have painted using the watercolour brush filled with bleach. Please wash you stamp immediately afterwards to protect it.

Leave to dry. 

Stamp the foreground grasses in smoky grey Versafine but do not emboss.

Using the Nestabilities die and silver Mirri card cut a frame larger than the watercolour card  ready for mounting. When the card is dry, mat it on to the frame and attach to the card with dimensional foam.

Stamp a Greeting of your choice in the lower right hand corner and finish off with the self adhesive gems and a final touch of Stickles to represent frost. Here are 2 more  examples:-

With acknowledgements to Jenny Mayes of Hobby Art Stamps for the original idea.

It sounds very complicated but once you have accomplished one it becomes quite simple thereafter. I really enjoyed it and made several.

I have a few more things to show you, but will save them for another day.

Happy crafting and thanks for looking.