It's the first Friday in December and we are now on the countdown to Christmas and this is the bit I love, getting the decorations out of the loft, father and son going to the forest to choose trees for our homes, granny and granddaughters baking Christmas flapjacks as part of the family traditions (which are being passed on), the buying and wrapping of presents and the house filled with lights. It's such a special time in the Brown households.
With all of this in mind I had great fun creating my contribution for Annie's challenge at A Vintage Journey, called 'A Vintage Christmas' which she describes as - 'Use your dies, stamps, rub ons- anything you choose to create a Vintage Christmas card, home decor piece or gift for someone special.' Well mine is a gift for our home and will be displayed on the sideboard with other special decorations over the Christmas period.
I had the idea of what I wanted this project to look like but it took me some time to choose specific images to fit on the sides of each side panel so I started by die-cutting and glittering four stars to have one on each side.
The first of the movers and shapers dies I used was the mini skate and I die-cut two of them and used gesso, silver paint and distress ink before making holes in them to sew the lacing mechanism and hanging a small bell from them.
Using one of Tim's duo snowflakes I painted it with bundled sage distress paint and spritzed it with water then dried it. I rubbed hickory smoke DI on the raised areas and then some glue sprinkling with rock candy distress glitter. The tidings token was painted with the bundled sage paint, rubbed off and edged with treasure copper whilst the die-cut 25 was gessoed, dabbed with forest moss distress stain and sprinkled with rock candy distress glitter.
I love the look of the finished mini lantern which was rubbed with raw umber and silver decoart acrylic paint and edged with treasure gold. The little bands were cut from greyboard and painted with paynes grey acrylic paint. The Christmas muse token was painted with picket fence distress paint, rubbed with treasure gold and blended with ground espresso DI. The foliage was also altered with paints and alcohol inks.
The mini bells went through various layers of paints and crackle mediums before I was happy with them and I tied them together with another altered Christmas token and some ribbon.
Here is a close up of the crackle effect on the box which was gessoed, painted with raw umber and given a coat of weathered wood crackle medium before being painted again with decoart lace chalk paint,
Here are the four sides once put together.
As always I carried on adding to it the next day and in the next photos you will see I added some snow details.
Don't you just love Tim's remnant rubs? They went onto the bells and the crackled glass bottle so easily.
Here are the four panels once the whole block had been completed.
And all four of them together.
I hope we will see you over at a Vintage Journey this month with a Vintage Christmas themed project.
But just before I go I thought I would show you some of the photos from our family weekend at Longleat Centre Parcs. We had the most fabulous few days in our own winter wonderland even though the weather was damp and mild it didn't spoil the excitement and enjoyment.
Now to get my own winter wonderland sorted at home lol.
Have a wonderful weekend.
hugs Brenda xxx
