Recipe Christmas Card Series #1

Fill your Christmas Card Box - Pt 1

Each year I end up making some cards under pressure and at the very last moment to fulfil my card list. Although this year I have agreed with some more distant friends that we will send on-line cards I still like to send out hand made cards to closer friends. So I thought I would really get making and do a series on my blog of fairly easy cards to make that you might like to use for inspiration and I will give you the low down on what I have used as well as the process steps (or method) and as I was watching the great British bake off when I started it ended up being called the recipe Christmas card series.
So here is my first sample

Ingredients

Stamp Sets

letter to santa, weathered winter, simple sayings

Distress Inks

cracked pistachio, mermaid lagoon, grand espresso

Distress Markers

faded jeans, pumice stone, stormy sky, bundled sage

Embellishing

gold thread, gold pearls/gems, snowflake charm, gold treasure gold

Method

Stamp text across the card.

Dip card in distress inks

Stamp snowflakes using distress markers to get a variety of colours on the stamp and a light misting of water.

Ink the edges of the card, add a gold pearl and gems, tie some gold thread around the card with a snowflake charm attached and add a sentiment.

I've made two of these as I was making them and have now got my box well and truly started.

After a very busy week and weekend I have been able to take stock and get myself into a couple of larger projects this week, they will end up on my blog at some point before Christmas.

Listen to your heART and thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Ministry of Mixology 2015

It has been a very busy week and weekend for me with prepping a workshop project and teaching in Bedfordshire on Saturday and then after I had finished I was able to drive on up to Coventry and meet up with some of my wonderful AVJ sisters at The Ministry of Mixology retreat. 

This amazing event was organised by Di and Tony from Tando Creative and featured the extremely talented Andy Skinner and Michelle Webb as tutors. I also spent 2 hours demoing on Saturday evening before Jennie (Live the Dream) and I could get to the bar for something to eat and sadly we didn't get any photos of this to share. But I was able to meet up with Alison (Words and Pictures), Anne (Redanne) and Julie (Juliz Design Post) as well and spend time with all of them during the workshop on the Sunday. It was so relaxing to then be the other side of the table.

We made covers for a notebook using DecoArt media line acrylic paints and mediums .....

.... and Andy's Industrial Elements.

Each of the cogs, nuts, bolts and screws are from the kit and made of chipboard, but you wouldn't think that to look at them here would you?

Andy was also very generous with give-aways during the day and you can see here a fabulous stencil set that I won from the DecoArt range. Thanks Andy.

I was so busy enjoying myself I didn't take any photos, but here are a couple Julie's husband too of us AVJ teamies.

Off to get some planning done for my next workshops.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Update - I've just nicked this from Andy's FB page - I'm sure he won't mind xxx

Oh Christmas tree for AVJ

Hi Everyone, it's November (eek how did that happen???????) and it's a new challenge at A Vintage Journey with a very unusual but brilliant theme from Nikki. She has called it
'Baby you're a firework' 
and she has described it for us - "Fireworks are a big part of celebrations at this time of the year. Be inspired by them to create a Tim style project; think distress glitter, bold colours, ink and paint splats and fun. Go on, light up that night sky".  Well when thinking about what I could do for this I had some new goodies arrive and in the box was Tim's new 'Sparkle' embossing folder, it immediately reminded me of fireworks and as I am in a mission to get my Christmas cards done I was off making four of them.

Playing with a mix of brushos and distress inks and Tim's new woodlands dies and the sparkle embossing folder I created what was going to be a quick and easy card (so I thought!) that can be sent through the post. However, as always with my 'overthinking' this became a longer project than anticipated. I just can't leave things looking unfinished to me and have to keep playing adding more and more details until I am satisfied with it.

So to begin I embossed a piece of card and painted it with gesso, dried it and mixed brushos and distress inks to get that lovely blended watery look. (1)

I inked the edges with broken china and ground espresso and sanded back the twinkles until they were white again. (This is how I thought I was going to leave them). (2)

Having diecut the tree from dark green card I painted areas with decoart ice crystal glitter paint and when that was dried I added some glossy accents in places and sprinkled on clear rock candy glitter.

When dry I adhered the tree to the card and used watery ground espresso, pine needles and forest moss distress inks to paint in the gaps in the tree. Although you can still see the twinkles through you get a more defined colour to the tree.

It was at this point I felt it need something else (see how I have to add the details?) so I mixed some crystal glamour dust with white gesso and painted on some glistening snow to the tree also adding some to the bottom of the panel to give the effect of snowy ground.

I then used a quickie glue pen to add some glamour dust to most of the top sparkles really making them twinkle. Now things were coming together, but I walked away from it and did something else before coming back the next day.

I wanted to create a couple of borders to go behind the panel, one is Tim's tattered lace strip die the other is the waste from the trellis frameworks die which I dipped in broken china and vintage photo distress inks before stamping Tim's ledger stamp in watering can archival ink.

To provide an embellishment I die cut the snowflake on the edge die using old glitter card I found in the cupboard......

.... but it was rather plain and as I looked around for something to 'pretty' it up I was reminded of the work that Annamarie (of Annamarie Designs) does which looked beautiful on her stand at Ally Pally in September. I had bought some of the natural accents and combined it with a bow and tiny punched flowers. I also added some watery distress ink to it all to make it look a bit more grungy.

With the waste from the glitter card I punched some little stars using Tim's small star punch, edged them with ground espresso and adhered them to the panel. (here I go again adding more detail again!!!!).

Anyway once assembled I am really quite pleased with the overall effects and have made four of these that can be sent out at Christmas - I just hope the snowflake embellishment holds up in the post.

So there's my firework link, sparkles in the background with a wintry tree in the foreground and lots of glitter and bold colours in the background too.

Thanks for joining me today I hope we will see you over at a Vintage Journey and remember the theme is not about fireworks per se, it is more about using inks etc with splats and splashes on your project. With glitter and that twinkle pattern I think I have lit up the night sky.

We look forward to seeing your linkup at the AVJ blog and how you interpret Nikki's fab theme.

Have a great month before the chaos, I mean fun really starts.

hugs Brenda xxx

Mixed media snowflake canvas

Happy Sunday everyone and welcome to November, I really think that time has speeded up again as the days, weeks, months and years seem to be just whizzing past before my very eyes.

Using DecoArt paints and mediums and Tim Holtz dies I am sharing a cold, wintry, blue snowflake canvas today which is my contribution to the new challenge at Country View Challenges.

This canvas has been getting little bits of attention over many days and at last it is finished for Christmas. I didn't get to take too many photos of the process but hopefully you will get the idea of the steps involved.

I began with a coat of gesso then painted decoart 'vintage' chalk paint over (if you don't have this try Fresco Finish chalk paint). When dry I used a snowflake mask and decoart sand paste which created a beautiful gritty texture. For the next layer I rubbed in a little victorian velvet and broken china distress paints to create some colour tone both on the canvas and the snowflakes.  I wanted to create the look of snow on the snowflakes so I dragged gesso across the top of the textured areas which got caught in cracks and on the tops of the highest points leaving a random white snowy effect.

A stencil and gesso added more interest in the gaps and I also stamped with white pigment ink.

After brushing on a little watery vintage photo distress ink I achieved some glistening effects by rubbing some glue over the snowflakes and sprinkled on glamour dust.

 I also added some gold foil randomly around the edges.

The next step was to die-cut some of  Tim's snowflakes using a variety of dies, punches and some wooden shapes shabbying them using gesso, cobalt blue and cerulean blue fluid acrylic paint and making them twinkle using rock candy distress glitter.

The pieces were layered up to create one large and several smaller snowflakes ....

.... creating varying heights and dimension ....

.... and so it all came together with some smaller white punched snowflakes to fill the gaps and create a snowy day feel to it.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by, I love to see the page visits I get on the stats and there are so many of you who obviously take the trouble to share in what I am making, thank you so much.

I hope to see some of you over at Country View Challenges this month, but in the meantime have a spooktacular weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

These are the supplies I mainly used and that are available at the Country View Crafts shop. Please be aware that I have substituted some products for similar ones that will still create the same look.

DecoArt Mixed Media - Texture Sand Paste DecoArt Mixed Media - White Gesso PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics 50ml - Lake Wanaka Decorative Strip Die - Snowflake Rosette By Tim Holtz Tim Holtz Layered Snowflake Tim Holtz Paper Snowflakes Thinlits dies Tim Holtz Decorative strip die - Mini snowflake rosettes Wooden laser cut ornaments - Snowflakes Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Snowflakes Tim Holtz Distress paint dabber - Broken china Tim Holtz Distress paint - Victorian velvet Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Latticework Distress ink pad - Vintage photo DecoArt Mediums 29.5g - Glamour Dust Crystal Ranger Foil Transfer Sheets - Holiday DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Cerulean Blue DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Cobalt Blue Hue Tim Holtz Distress glitter - Rock candy Tim Holtz Sizzix Thinlits - Holiday greens

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