Countdown to Christmas!!

When I say countdown to Christmas.....I am really saying...countdown to Christmas being over for another year!!!.....before you start calling me The Grinch!!...I love Christmas day, family get togethers, Christmas dinner, I just hate all the commecialism that comes with it!!!!. Now that I have done wingeing..LOL... I will get on with showing you another card that I have made....

Good ole Brushos and a few Artistic Stamper stamps and bobs your Uncle!!

Stamps used:

SNOWFLAKES

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS#1

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS#2

Hope to see your Christmas projects in this months challenge

JANE

Christmas Hearts by Jane

Hi All, Jane here!!...with a question, Who loves Christmas, and who is a bit of a bah humbug??.. well, I think I fall into both categories, I love Christmas day, but absolutely hate all the commercial part that starts in |September....tut!!!, I am sure a lot of us have lost the sight of the real meaning of Christmas. No lectures from me today tho, so you can relax.
I love Christmas day because that is the one day in the year when all my little hearts, well, the four people that have my heart, my two sons with their partners,and my two grandsons all come to my house, it is so lovely to have them all together, then after a full day of making dinner, playing with jack and Billy, a few Christmas games...and it is just as lovely to see them all go back home...lol.
So I think this card that I have made for this months "Christmas" themed challenge is appropriate for me.

The stamps I have used are;

SNOWFLAKES

ARCHITECTURE

Hope you can join in the fun. 

JANE

The "C" word!!!!!!!

Yep.......It's that time of year!!!....The "C" word!!! ..All you crafters will know what I am on about!!!....."Christmas card making"!!. LOL...I can hear some of you saying that I am being a bit premature, and for a gal who if there was no last minute then nothing would get done!!!..I am pretty much organised, so yes, as the theme for this months challenge is BLUE, it was the perfect opportunity, so I have made a start on my Christmas cards.

I am obsessed at the moment with my gelli plate, so that is the route that I decided to go down. I started off with a gel printed background, then made some "bauble" shapes with my small round gelli plate, then with several Artistic Stamper STENCILS & MASKS I did prints over the top, then using paint on the gel plate as a stamp pad, I stamped the SNOWFLAKES then finished off with the sentiment from the CHRISTMAS GREETINGS stamp set.

I hope you can join in this fun challenge, and maybe start your Christmas cards too..hee hee. 

Upload your "BLUE" creations HERE

JANE

A Trio Of Christmas Tags

Hi hope you are all well, and have done all your Christmas prep! Craft work aside 

I tend to be last minute dot com when it comes to Christmas.

Today I bring you three tags from the Artistic Stamper's

Christmas selection of stamps.

My products used are

Distress inks faded jeans, wild honey, spiced marmalade, aged mahogany, fired brick & walnut stain

Distress stains in Fired brick, Dylusions spray in tangerine dream, cherry pie, pomegranate seed  & ground coffee. Deco art multi medium gloss & media crackle glaze. wooden snowflakes, glass beads, black Fimo clay,

Crafty notion guiding flakes in Autumn gold, craft card (mine is the back of a box of Pepsi packaging),  

3 x tags, black card. 

Artistic Stamper stamps are The snowflake's, Victorian Christmas 2, mini Christmas 2, Victorian Christmas 1 & Christmas greetings.

So here we go

Firstly I coloured the three tags with blending wild honey, spiced marmalade & 

aged mahogany distress ink onto the tags. 

I then stamped the snowflakes and the merry christmas on to them with fired brick and chipped sapphire. I covered the tag in gloss multi medium and pressed them all against each 

other to create a texture into the medium.

 I then sprinkled glass beads onto them and also crafty notions guilding flakes, and allowed to dry

once dry I sprayed each tag with the delusions sprays and allowed to dry.

Tag 1

For this tag I used the snow flake stamp,  the season greetings from the Victorian 2, 

 and the little girl at the fireplace from the mini Christmas plate. I stamped them in 

black archival onto craft card tags. The wooden snowflake coloured with distress

 ink and coated in media crackle glaze. The top star was black fimo clay stamped with the bauble pattern and a star shaped cutter was used to cut it out, once baked it was highlighted with treasure gold.

Tag 2

Father Christmas of the mini Christmas 2 plate and the snowflake stamp.

Wooden snow flake same as above merry Christmas stamped into 

black fimo clay baked and highlighted with treasure gold.

Tag 3

Same as above for snowflakes and stars stamps used were snowflake stamp, merry Christmas of the Christmas greetings and father Christmas of the Victorian Christmas plate 2. string on the tags was swiped with fired brick distress stains. All tags were glued on using my hot glue gun as had trouble fixing them on with other glues. 

they were all attached with a mini attacher to the back of Pepsi packaging which had had the sides  treated with distressing blade and then finished with walnut stain distressing ink.

I have done it again I must try to make much simpler posts with less products. Thank for popping by

and don't forget to leave a comment or two.

Cheers Dee x

A winter tale - Chris

Hi everyone, Chris here with you today to share my last guest designer project. I've thoroughly enjoyed my month on the blog being able to work with the gorgeous Artistic Stamper stamps.

I decided to go for a Christmas home decor project this time and I've created a scene on a deep edge canvas which I'll be putting out with my other decorations in a couple of weeks.

I love the vintage images in Victorian Christmas 1 # 005 and particularly the snowy cottage scene which reminds me of my favourite winter poem by Robert Frost. I decided to combine the images indicative of the ideal Christmas onto a mixed media canvas.

 I've given my background a snowy feel with texture paste, die cut snowflakes and doily, Tim Holtz Composer tissue wrap

 and my handmade clay embellishments which are all bound together with

DecoArt paints, Frantage embossing powders, pearl pen pearls and stamping with the lovely Snowflakes stamps in the background and around the sides of the canvas.

The focal images were stamped with Archival ink in coffee and given a little bit of colour with distress markers. 

Thank you again Jenny and Emma for your kindness and to everyone on the team for the constant inspiration. Not too long until Christmas now so if you celebrate I wish you all a wonderful time.

Chris x

Christmas Surprise by Emma

Hi everyone...

Hope you've all had a great week and looking forward to the weekend. Well, if you're looking for inspiration for your Christmas cards or gifts, then I hope that I can inspire you with the piece I'm sharing today ~ my little altered matchbox, with a big surprise when you open it up! As always, I hope you love it...

To begin with I made my own matchbox from kraft card, measuring approx 7 x 11.5cm in size. I then cut pieces of cream card to fit the outside of the box, inked them with Old Paper DI and stamped each piece with the Music Background stamp. I distressed the edges of the paper with Walnut Stain DI before attaching them to the outside of my box. I then added a Idea-Ology Hitch Fastener on the front of the drawer, to enable you to pull the box out of the cover easily.

I then cut more cream card to fit the base and the sides of the box and again inked them with Old Paper DI before stamping the Santa image from the Mini Christmas 1 stamp set onto the base card. 

I coloured the image with Distress Marker Pens and then inked up the Snowflake stamp with Tumbled Glass DI and stamped the flakes onto all my pieces of card before attaching them to the inside.

I then raided my own stash of dies and used the Festive Greenery and the Tattered Pine Cone die from Tim Holtz for Sizzix to die cut card and coloured each individual die cut with Distress Inks, adding highlights of Rock Candy Distress Dry Glitter to each piece. I then added these to decorate the inside of my box, together with a small Bottle Brush tree and some fake snow before finishing the inside with a couple of Tim Holtz Chit Chat stickers.

To decorate the outside of my matchbox, I used the Tattered Poinsettia die from Tim Holtz, again from my stash and made a large bloom from cream card, inked around the edges with Distress Ink and spritzed with Biscotti Perfect Pearls Mists. 

I attached the flower to my box and added die cut holly leaves, inked with Iced Spruce Distress Ink and rusty wire coils, smeared some Rock Candy Distress Stickles over the top of the leaves and then die cut the number 25, painted it with PaperArtsy Snowflake Fresco Finish paint and covered the numerals with Rock Candy Distress Glitter.  

So, that's it from me for today...thank you so much for stopping by and I'll look forward to reading your comments! Don't forget we still have our Christmas challenge running until the end of the month, so if you would like to enter, with a chance to be the lucky winner, then just click HERE for all the details.

See you again soon...Emma x