Believe!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "House Rules".  I took the opportunity to use a lot of Tim Holtz vintage Christmas imagery for this piece.

My Christmas memories of a 60s childhood in the USA feature imagery perfectly matched by Tim Holtz's seasonal stamps and papers.  Some of my tree decorations are even in the original Shiny Brite boxes that feature in his designs!  Wishing to echo that style, I decided to create a vintage themed Christmas house to display here at home each holiday. 

I started by painting the house with A Dash of Red paint, which I darkened a little with Gathered Twigs distress ink.  I stamped snowflakes from the Winter Sketchbook set on the sides with gesso.  The triangular panel was cut from a piece of Dear Mr Claus paper and it acted as a base for the stamped ticket and the "Believe" lettering, which I had cut on the Cricut.  The Twinkle Tone Santa was taken directly from the Seasonal paper stack, with added Rock Candy stickles to highlight his beard and white fur.  The numbers were metallic numerals coloured with Tarnished Brass distress Stain and sanded in parts for extra texture.

The two Santas at the bottom were stamped then coloured with Promarkers.  I used distressed copper brads to add interest to the wooden frame, first using a craft pick to create a hole for each one.

The roof tiles were cut on the Cricut, from a sheet of Retro Grunge card stock, and edged with a white pen for a snowy effect.  The icicles on the front and sides were given a liberal application of Rock Candy stickles for extra sparkle!

I'm really happy with how this turned out, now I just need to make sure that I pack it away securely each year so that it will last a good few years!

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!

Don't leaf me this way!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Summer Distress".  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it's nothing without a nice frame around it.  When I started decorating this frame for my niece I decided that I wanted it to have a subtle element of childhood memory to it, which hopefully is there in the hint of Cavallini abc tape you can see through the gesso.  I used all 3 Summer Distress colours on the leaves, painting them with a water brush - I used to use that technique a lot with distress inks, it was nice to revisit it again!

I'm sorry for the short post this week, family events have overtaken me and that has taken up all of my time and attention.  Hopefully normal service will have resumed when you next see me.

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com
Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!

I wait...

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Favourite Technique".  One of the things I've always loved doing is scraping paint onto card.  I've tried using an artist's palette knife in the past but I find that I keep coming back to the Ranger craft scraper for this technique - it just feels better and I think the results I get are more successful with it.  Add to that the fact that the Claudine Hellmuth Studio paints are so packed with pigment that you get great coverage with the smallest amount and it's a great combo!

I started out by using the Ranger scraper to apply layers of paint onto my manila tag - teal, red, tan and finally white.  I stencilled the circles with Fired Brick distress ink applied with an ink blending tool.  To get the patchy effect on the black stars I applied ink to the stamp in a haphazard way and repeatedly stamped them with my acrylic block at an angle so only part of the stamp made contact with the tag.

The pointy bit along the bottom is an old wood mounted stamp of Tim Holtz's, which he has now brought out in cling form in one of the Classics sets.  It was stamped separately and coloured with blended distress inks, cut out and fixed in place.  The circle stars were stamped seperately and coloured with distress stains then cut out and stuck to the tag on 3d foam for a little added dimension.

Finally I took my trusty white pen and drew on the lettering of "I wait".  Oh, and of course I blended a little Gathered Twigs ink around the edge for a slight aged feel.

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!