Shabby Christmas Card - Holly - and Christmas Greetings

This was the second of my shabby seasonal stand up cards which has almost the same technique as the first one I made ( which you can find here if you missed it).

I did a make and take at Ministry of Mixology and created a shabby vintage card which you can see here. The boards were cut for me by Di at Tando Creative and I have been using to make a set of cards to put into the Pack House.

I dribbled and daubed some watery washes over the chalk paints to create some contrast and depth of colour.

I added Tim's easel die-cut as the stand .......

... and used this die-cut for the sentiment, cut from textured card like core'dinations, sanded and inked.

Well the big day has arrived, I hope it is one filled with love, happiness and some quiet peaceful moments for reflection.

**********************

My Christmas tree this year in the conservatory, I love it.

Ella, my 11 year old Granddaughter on stage at the Yvonne Arnaud theatre in Guildford in their pantomime for this year - Dick Whittington.

So proud of her.

And from me to you, with my family and Santa, I wish you a very 

Merry Christmas.

hugs Brenda xxx

Shabby Christmas Card - Santa's Wish

I have so enjoyed making this selection of cards with chalk paints, chipboard pieces and die-cut card. Others can be found by scrolling back (or clicking Reindeer Wish or Snowflake Noel) and you will see completely different designs but more or less the same technique to make them.

The backgrounds are painted with the DecoArt media acrylics ......

..... and the white is chalky finish paint stippled over. The sentiment is a Tim Holtz die.

I die cut an easel from mountboard using the Tim Holtz die and added it to the back to give it the support it needs to stand up.

My wish for Christmas is for a peaceful world where people live happily and in harmony together.

Only three more sleeps.

hugs Brenda xxx

Shabby Christmas Card - Reindeer Wish

The fourth in the first series of shabby cards for the Packhouse, this time I used one of the large Reindeer from Tando Creative and some of their snowflakes with a die-cut border, stars and sentiment. I actually taught this card yesterday at Let's Be Creative and had a fabulous day full of fun, laughter, fabulous outcomes and festive cheer.

I really love this one as I really like the varied the background colours using the DecoArt media acrylics and chalky finish paints. They really stand out quite strongly on this card.

You can find a few more photos and details over on the Tando Blog today.

Have a fabulous weekend, only one more week or 10 more sleeps till the big day.

hugs Brenda xxx

Shabby Christmas card - Snowflake Noel

Following Andy Skinner's class at Ministry of Mixology where he used layers of chalk paint for the base layers I came home and tried out using those layers as the actual technique for a set of shabby stand up Christmas cards to put into the Pack House to see if they would sell. (Fingers crossed).

I used DecoArt Chalky Finish Legacy with a tiny amount of black and Everlasting for the two layers with some beautiful tando Creative snowflakes and some die-cut stars and a border and I also used the Tim Holtz Vintage Tidings sentiment words.

I'm not going to share the exact technique here but it might well come up in one of my Technique Tuesday posts that will return in the new year.

I love the very shabby, snowy effects ........

.... and the wintry feel to this card.

The sentiment has been die cut from coredinations card and sanded so that it is in keeping wth the overall effects.

A Tim Holtz easel die cut means this card can stand and be a piece of Christmas art in it's own right.

There are a few more details over on the Tando Creative blog and I've got another couple of designs coming up before the big day arrives.

I hope you're snug and warm at home if you've had the snow this past couple of days, I am on the Surrey/Hampshire border and apart from some sleet showers have not seen any of it. 

Take care and have a good week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Winter Wonderland stand up card

It's Winter Wonderland over at A Vintage Journey with this being the theme for the December challenge.

My sample for the challenge is one of my Tando stand up cards.

Di at Tando Creative has cut me boards to the exact size I wanted to make these cards using the white backed greyboard. The grey side was painted with a thin coat of gesso and when dry dipped into watery decoart dazzling metallics crystal green and ice blue paints and dried, then stamped with archival cornflower blue using a stampendous vintage text stamp. As always I distressed and inked the edges.

The snowflake background and snowflake have been created the same as a card I made in 2015 which can be found HERE. You can see I added some shabby seam binding ribbon to it before adhering it to the background.

The stand is soooo easy to make out of two pieces of card.

 I added the Lin Brown sentiment from PaperArtsy which fitted perfectly across the board and when all was assembled I splattered with some titanium white media acrylic paint.

I hope we'll see you enjoying entering your winter projects with us at AVJ and now I need to get myself in full Christmas mode with getting cards made and out, decorations up and some traditional sweet treats made for my kids and grandchildren.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Dear Santa, I can explain ...

Hello from Santa

I made this stand up card as a sample for my demonstration session at Ministry of Mixology and I'm also using it for my project sample for Country View Crafts. Di at Tando Creative cut me the boards the exact size I wanted them and I'm hoping she will be able to make me some stands too.

I had decided to use decoart chalky finish for a change and for this technique I pulled out the brayer and had some fun layering the colours thickly so that I achieved alot of texture. Of course all the colours are opaque so we have to be careful where we brayer the colours as each one blocks out the one below, but by being careful and using less of the colours as we go we can achieve texture and colour. I finished this one with some subtle stippling using a natural sponge and then lightly brayered some white over the top.

I sanded the edges and inked them and dipped in some vintage photo DI before stamping with the chalky finish paints.

I brayered some white card with titanium white, titan buff, light grey and raw umber to achieve a light and slightly textured look for Santa's beard. This is the St Nick bigz die by Tim Holtz.

A shabby bow, stamped and cut out holly and some berries with a self generated sentiment and we're done.

I love the retro look to this card.

Thanks for popping in, how are your Christmas preparations going? We're still in the throws of decorating the bedrooms and have also done the dining room and changed it round as well, so I will get to Christmas preparations at some point!!!!

Take care and have a great week ahead.

hugs Brenda xxx

Products used -

DecoArt Chalky Finish paints

St Nick Bigx die

Seam Binding

.... the snowflakes fall .....

..... each one a gem .

This is my Tando DT sample for our theme of embossing this week, there have been some lovely projects with great ideas from my teamies. Di had kindly cut me some boards exactly the size I wanted to make stand up cards - you'll see some more coming up soon.

I prepared the greyboard with two coats of gesso and then stamped the snowflakes with versamark embossing ink and covered white embossing powder ......................

well I thought it was ordinary white embossing powder but it turned out I had picked up the sticky version instead ..... so my plan had to change!!!!

I decided to use gold foil on the snowflakes and had success with some of them but others didn't take much of the foil at all, but I didn't worry as I was seeing nice variations of the random touch - and I always look for the random interest in my work lol.

I then took a piece of blending foam and using the black side I blended over titan buff, raw umber and burnt umber decoart media acrylic paints, rubbing away at the snowflakes quickly with a piece of dry kitchen roll.

Inevitably some of areas of the snowflakes got covered whilst other bits still show some shine.

Next came some dips in brown .....

and splatters in white and of course drying them heated up the embossed snowflakes again so I rubbed more foil over them and got an even shinier coverage than I did before.

To finish off I diecut a snowflake painted it with gesso and ran it through the embossing folder and used pritt stick to foil it. I painted some Tando snowflakes with dazzling metallics champagne gold and punched a gold one too.

I had stamped some of the beautiful Winter quotes from the brilliant Alison Bomber's new collection of stamps and mounted this perfect one on gold card.

It really looks fabulous mounted again on some canvas type material daubed with white gesso and some rustic ribbon, string and a shabby bow at the bottom.

 So I layered up some snowflakes and added some champagne coloured gems.

You can see the stand I have added to support it, made very easily from 480 gm white card.

I've realised now it's all together and photographed I have been influenced by Alison's style too, I wonder if she would think so?

Well Christmas is well and truly fixed in my mind and I need to get some cards made. As I'm at the Ministry of Mixology retreat this weekend with Di, the inimitable Andy Skinner and Nikki Acton that will be my next job when I get home.

Do pop over to the Tando blog to see the other embossing creations this week and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx