Christmas is coming......

Well, as if you didn't know that....
Hi everyone, thanks for dropping in,  Astrid here and yes, - Christmas is now less than a month away, - eek.
Anyway, here is my first Christmas project, a gift card holder, for that special person who is so hard to please....

These are the stamps and products I used:
Mini Christmas 1
Christmas Plate 3
Size 10 Manila tag
Kraft Resist Seasonal (Tim Holtz)
Hinge Clips
Distress Stains, Iced Spruce, Salty Ocean, Stormy Sky and Brushed Pewter, Picket Fence
Distress Inks,  Iced Spruce, Salty Ocean, Stormy Sky, Walnut Stain
Archival Ink Potting soil
From my stash: Flowers, embossing folder, gold embossing powder, hand dyed cheese cloth and ribbon, various dies and punches Treasure Gold in White Fire Core'dinations and smooth white card, scrapbook paper scraps.
 This is how I made the booklet and gift-card holder:
I folded my size 10 tag in half and trimmed the two corner pieces at one end. I then coloured the tag by swooshing it through my chosen colours of stains which I had squeezed onto my craft-mat. I darkened it and blended further with Distress Inks. Next I ran it through an embossing folder. I then crumpled the whole tag up and then unfolded it again to get even more texture.
My chosen stamps were stamped on smooth white card and then layered up with fussy cutting, dies and embellishments as you can see from the photos.

The inside had become very messy, so I covered it with a piece of the Kraft Seasonal papers, which I had first blended some Picket Fence Distress Stain over to tone it down a bit. I created the pocket with the help of the Sizzix Distressed Doily die cut from Core' dinations Kraft Core.

And here you can see what the message and little gift card envelope looks like.

And here they are all tucked in place:

Hope I have not made it too long winded and that you got the basic idea.
Thanks so much for visiting and see you next time

.

Just a Little Note

Hello Artistic Stamper fans, this is Astrid here with my second project for July.

This time I decided to alter a little notebook:

This started life as a cheap little Kraft covered notebook I purchased at my local supermarket.
I started by giving it some texture with the help of a couple of stencils from my stash. When dry I covered it with 3 colours of Distress Paint, Antique Linen, Weathered Wood and Frayed Burlap, blending them together with my most sophisticated craft tool, - damp kitchen roll.... When dry I stamped the Calligraphic Mat 12 in Weathered Wood Distress Paint. When stamping with paint, make sure you clean your stamp straight away!. Next I stamped one of the images from the Garden Plate 1 in Dove Grey Stazon Ink on a piece of smooth card and cut it out. I blended Antique Linen, Weathered Wood and Frayed Burlap Distress Ink over and around it and then painted with a little Weathered Wood and my refillable water brush around the main image to bring it out a bit more,

As I was in a blingy mood I also added a little bit of light blue Stickles to the little flowers and the wings.

Next I mounted this on a piece of corrugated card coloured with the same colours of Distress Paint.

I highlighted all the raised bits with some gilding wax and finally embellished with a  home made rose spritst with various sprays, some die-cut leaves and as this is after all a note book one of the Tim Holtz Pen-Nibs

That's it. Hope you like this and got a bit of inspiration and thank you for visiting!