Tim's Tags Day Four - May Your Christmas be Merry

 Big challenge today with  Tim's Tag 4, I had to do a lot of improvisation.

The background is created by mixing the Ranger Distress Stains - Picket Fence, Faded Jeans, Broken China.  I added a dusting of brown chalkboard mist to the surface and distressed with vintage photo.  The music (Artistic Outpost - Ephemeral Backgrounds) was stamped using the weathered wood Distress Stain. The children are from Artistic Outpost - Sleigh Ride and are stamped in black ink and watercolored to coordinate. The snowflakes are die cuts from acetate and painted with the picket fence distress stain. I added a row of glitter around the edges behind the snowflakes.  The little tag contains a sentiment from Artistic Outpost - Snowy Woods and uses the same background as the main tag.  The snowflake on the tag is chipboard and crackled using the technique from Tim today.

I have a few more pieces crackled and drying so I will have to see if I can create a few more tags using the techniques from today.

Have a lovely day!

Suzz

Christmas Home Decorations - AO style

I have had this wonderful metal star that was on sale after the fall because it had decorations that were fall related. I removed them and went to work to transform it into a Christmas decoration.

It was really tough getting a picture of this. Way too big for my light box. :)  I ended up hanging it on the door this morning and tried to get a picture of the entire star.

 Here is a close up of the center.

I spent most of my time embossing the snowflakes all over the metal.  Couple of notes:  1. They aren't going to be perfect and that is okay. Nobody is going to get up close to your holiday decorations and look for imperfections. At least I hope not! :) 2. Your fingers will carry enough oil to leave imprints that will pick up the embossing powder so make sure to keep your cornstarch or embossing buddy near by.  3. The metal will get hot from the heat gun so don't pick it up right after embossing. :)

After I got the snowflakes on I spent a good 15 minutes looking for my thin wire to wire on the holiday berries and leaves.  Then I spent a good 20 minutes wiring on all the pieces including my bow.  It was like sewing weaving in and out of the holes on the star. ACK! (No Sewing for me).

Then stamping coloring and cutting the pieces all was the easy part for the front of the bow.  I used watercolor markers to color the images and archival ink to stamp the images. The dies are all from Spellbinders. 

The images are all from the Artistic Outpost Sleigh Ride stamp plate.I am creating this for the Moxie Fab World Challenge Glitter is Glam. There is glitter everywhere from those branches! :)

Hope you are gearing up for some time off over the holidays. Thanks for stopping by..

Suzz

Artistic Outpost September Release

Today is release day for Artistic Outpost.  I was so excited and pleased to receive this lovely stamp plate in my mailbox.

This is the September release called Sleigh Ride from Artistic Outpost. I love that it  has the lovely images of children in their holiday finery.  I also love that it includes some favorites of mine (snowflakes, trees, pinecones) as well as beautiful sentiments.


These stamps are available both as an unmounted sheet of red rubber measuring 8.5" x 5.5" or  mounted on EZMount clingfoam, pre-trimmed, and stored on a printed cling card.

I was inspired to create a lovely ornament using the children:

The picture was taken with the ornament against a lovely burgandy colored paper to showcase the white transparent layer and gold snowflakes.

Recipe:

Cut the Spellbinders Fleur De Lis from gold cardstock. With the Fleur De Lis die cut I find it really helpful to place wax paper between the die and the paper you are cutting. It helps when it comes time to pull the paper out of the die.  The other big advantage is you end up with a beautiful snowflake in wax paper which looks very much like vellum! 

Layer the snowflakes on top of each other on an angle to show both snowflakes. 

Stamp the children on white cardstock  using versamark watermark ink. Heat emboss using Ranger Queen's Gold embossing powder. Cut  a 2 1/2 inch circle around the top of your embossed image.  Sponge the edges using Versafine Toffee and Memento Rich Cocoa.

Add a few Memory Box gold pearls as accents and  a little ribbon for the hoop and you have a beautiful Christmas ornament or tag.

The design team has created some really beautiful projects and cards which you can go see in the Artistic Outpost Gallery. The design team is also sharing fabulous projects on their blogs:  

*Lisa Somerville *Gerrie Johnnic *Lynn Stevens *Judy Hayes *Barbara Washington *Connie Paxman *Stephanie Severin*Suzanne Czosek

Have a lovely day!

Suzz