More Christmas Decorations

After completing the advent calendar earlier this weekend I was in the mood for continuing to make more Christmas decorations. I had seen an amazing frame and bauble set up on Pinterest and decided to try my hand at re-making it. My frame is a lot smaller but this was such a simple project to make and looks so effective. I actually made this in the time it took my husband to play a game of basketball!

I also decided to re-make the centre panel for my old Advent Calendar. This is a pretty simple design but I think it works. I made all three of the trees at the bottom and I have to say they were all SUCH a pain. There is no way I will be trying to make similar ones ever again. How good is that gold glitter tape at the bottom? Love $2 store purchases some times. :)

 

I am entering this into the Use It Tuesday challenge which is Anything Goes! All the challenges require you to use hoarded supplies. I have re-used the calendar I originally made in 2010 and updated it using some left over Christmas papers from previous years and twine I have kept from various flower bouquets I have received.

2013 Advent Calender - UnstampaBelles DT

Ben and I used to buy advent calendars from the supermarket when we first moved in together. Back in 2010 though I decided I wanted to have a more lasting calendar which we could fill with whatever lollies we wanted so I grabbed a Kaisercraft kit and set to work, you can see the end result here. Recently I started to feel like committing to another in-depth project and remembered how much fun it was to create the calendar. I thought I might be able to showcase some new techniques and skills I had picked up in the last three years so decided to buy another kit and create a second calendar.

I went with a silver/white/blue theme this time around rather than more traditional red/green/gold. Painting all the MDF pieces really added to the construction time, project took me two weekends this time around. Most of the embellishment chipboard is from Scrapmatts. Regular blog-followers will know how much I love their products and their Christmas designs are always my favourites. I've used a mixture of old designs and new ones, like the chipboard tree which I just had to pick up as soon as I saw it.

This is also my DT piece for UnstampaBelles this month, our theme is Christmas so I'm really hoping to see lots of entries this month. This will be most last month on their DT as I've decided not to renew my position. The owner, Merry, is also stepping down by one of the other DT members will be stepping up continue running the challenges.

Prize for December Challenge includes:

Laser cut cards and card fronts - Christmas Designs

Card front designs pre-holed ready for stitching.

Card front designs with the stitching pattern printed on the card.

Christmas stickers.

3 types of star brads

Christmas foil shapes

Four pads of Sticky Notes

I am also entering the calendar into two more challenges:

Inkido's December challenge is to use stars and/or snowflakes. I've used multiples of both in this project.

Frosted Designs have a 'Pick 11' challenge running at the moment. From their list of things I have used Stars and Buttons.

Blog Candy Giveaway

It has been quite a while since I've shared a blog candy giveaway on my blog but I couldn't go past the one currently on offer over at Scrapfriends.

 

Timeless Love - Scrapmatts DT

The second design team brief of November was 'Gift Giving', I chose to create a present for my Nana. The Scrapmatts painters trays make fantastic gifts or keep them for your own home decoration. This tray features photos from my Nana and Pa's wedding day and a photo of the two of them taken a couple of years ago.

 

The green vine is from one of my favourite packs so I'm a little bit sad that I have now used it all up. I also used up some bits and pieces from various class kits I have accumulated. I always used to do a Scrapmatts class whenever I went to a craft show and they always give very generous packs so you have enough chipboard to make some extra cards when you get home.

Here is a close up to show of the crackle finish of the frame and light gloss on the title pieces.

Scrapmatts pieces used: CB2020 Vines 01; CB1134 Assorted Words 01; CB1199 Scrap Words 07; CB7006 Printer's Tray 02.

Frosted Designs has their fortnightly challenge as 'Give a Gift!' so I thought I'd enter this there too.

Hanging Stars - Scrapmatts DT

Chipboard has long been one of my favourite scrapbooking embellishments for two simple reasons: it is versatile and you can often use both sides. This Christmas ornament utilises both aspects. The hanging stars kit has a pretty standard way of being assembled but if you want to think outside the box you can also use it in so many different ways. I encourage you to check out the Scrapmatts gallery here for further inspiration.

 

I chose to use the filigree pieces separately to the solid stars and have them all hanging at different heights from silver thread. The filigree pieces have all been coated with silver embossing powder for a metallic shine.

Scrapmatts pieces used: CB5097 Hanging Stars 01, CB1185 Christmas Ornaments 11.

Life is Better When You're Laughing

Wow, it's been quite a while between layouts for me. Oops! I have been trying to re-organise my craft room in the hopes that will get me re-motivated. I'm about halfway through so still looks like a bomb has hit it but hopefully I'll finish it off this weekend. Of course, after playing my all my supplies I got the urge to create something so took a quick break to come up with this layout.

 

I was inspired by the current challenge over at Once Upon A ... Sketch. The challenge is 'My Happy Place', so I knew right away I wanted to use a photo of myself and my husband because my happy place is always next to him. This photo was perfect because we had such a good day at the Pet Porpoise Pool. Ben got to play catch with a dolphin and I got to swim with a seal! Here is the sketch:

Don't forget, the challenge for this month over at Unstampabelles is vellum. I recently saw two amazing layouts (by Fiona and Jennifer Grace) which used vellum/transparency to create shaker pockets and I just had to give it a go myself. You can see in the close up the wood veneer and sequins I have included in my pocket. If you want to try it yourself my tip would be to make the vellum slightly larger than the backing paper so it bubbles up slightly. I didn't do this and so my sequins don't have much room to move around in.

Celebrate Beautiful Life Tag - UnstampaBelles DT

The challenge for November over at UnstampaBelles is to use vellum in your project. I have created a happy little tag using Scrapmatts chipboard and some die-cut vellum flowers. All of the colouring is done using Gelatos. I'm still learning how to use these but they are a lot of fun.

 

Here you can see a close up of one of my flowers. I rubbed the edges with the Gelato, then spritzed with water and then lightly scrunched when dry. 

Here is the fantastic prize pack from Beth - Huggies Crafts

 consists of:

·         15 x A4 Sheets of card-stock

·         Jenni B Ovals

·         2 pkts of 12 Felt Christmas Icons

·         1 x Making Memories Sheer Frame

·         1 x 1mx9cm Wide Burlap Ribbon

·         1 pkt crafty bitz

·         1 pk Forever Friends Elements

·          2 Pks say it with Crystals

·         1 Pk Bazzil Basic Organza flowers.

Weekend Away at Beechmont

My husband Ben and I decided it was time to take a quick romantic break after realising the last time we went away was in January this year. We live on the Gold Coast in Australia, which is known as a tourist destination for it's beaches and theme parks but it is only about an hours drive before you are in some lovely mountains and rainforests. We decided to head to Beechmont and stayed at the amazing Old Saint John's Church.

 

The renovation inside was lovely, with a bedroom on a mezzanine level and open plan living area on the ground floor. Just across the road was this fantastic view out over the mountains

 

I had never previously been up to see the sun rise but I figured the view would be so amazing and the church didn't have any window coverings so it got light inside very early. Even more suprisingly though, Ben also got up with me at 4.30am (he normally gets up around 10am on weekends) so we drove 5 minutes down the road to the look out and waited from the sunrise. It was magical!

Christmas Artist Trading Cards - Scrapmatts DT

The second Scrapmatts DT brief was to create a Christmas theme ATC. I love the range of different shaped bases available so I decided to use three different ones and decorate them in a similar style.

 

Pretty quick and easy design:

1/ Cover chipboard and words with gesso and let dry.

2/ Spray red and green dylusions ink from opposite ends, sprinkle with salt to get fluctuations in colour.

3/ Run a gold ink pad around the edges.

4/ Stamp versamark flourish design over background and emboss with clear UTEE.

5/ Heat emboss the amazing reindeer designs in gold.

6/ Adhere film strip and chipboard to bases.

 

The film strip was a bargin item I picked up from Reverse Garbage in Brisbane. I got two 10 meter rolls, one green tinged and one red tinged, for $4 each! So much cheaper than getting the Tim Holtz versions. :)

Scrapmatts chipboard used: ATC10-004, ATC10-008, ATC10-010, CB5050, CB5097.

Snow Season - Scrapmatts DT October

This is the first layout I created at the Noosa Retreat however it is also one of my design team pieces for Scrapmatts so I couldn't share it until my reveal day today. The photos are from my holiday to America in late 2012/early 2013, specifically Boston Common on 30 December 2012. Ben and I were scheduled to drive from Boston to New York that day so it was the ONLY day of the holiday we didn't want snow, in typical fashion a snow emergency was declared the night before and that ended up being the only snowfall we saw all trip. :P

(Removed for publication consideration)

 The brief for this one was to take something old (chipboard) and make it NEW. I took the old leftover chipboard negative from the snowflake design and turned it into a feature of the layout by painting it with gesso and Gelatos and backing it with gyprock tape. I have also painted up so of the cute snowflakes to run down the left side, used the tree and typewriter letters and used just one half of the 'Seasons Greetings' piece for my title.

The overall technique here was using one I learnt from Georgia Heald's online class. So versatile and a great way to use up the scrap pieces of paper you wouldn't normally use. I was also inspired by the current sketch over at Creative Scrappers #252.