Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Wish Upon A Star...

Hello Blogland inhabitants! Some more Christmas crafting to share today. Last night I finally finished a make-your-own-Advent-calendar project I was working on....after working on it since Thanksgiving! I was feeling a little burnt out on "projects" and just wanted to play. So I decided to see if I could put together a piece for the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week, where the theme is 'stars'. As it turns out, there is a serious lack of stars in my stash. I had to dig quite a bit before I found a Jenni Bowlin chipboard piece that was a circle with a punched out star in the middle. I thought it might make a cute bit of Christmas decor if I decorated it and had the punched out star hanging from the bottom. Here is the final result:


I went quite grungy with this one. The first thing I did was cover both pieces with some paper from Tim's Seasonal Stash. Then I sanded the edges and inked them with Vintage Photo. To add a little vintage sparkle I painted both pieces with Rock Candy Crackle Paint. After the paint dried I embellished the small star with some Grungeboard numbers (from the Alphabet Soup set) that were colored with Fired Brick Distress ink and then glammed up with some Rock Candy Stickles. The embellishments on the large piece are bits from the Festive Greenery die cut from the Kraft Core-dinations stack (also covered with Rock Candy Stickles) and a word from the Seasonal sticker stash. I needed a short word, because I didn't want to cover up too much of the star, and I thought "wish" was appropriate, what with the star theme. =) The hanging hardware is just some hitch fasteners and a hinge clip and some Peapod twine that's been aged with Antique Linen Distress Stain. Here's some close ups so hopefully you can see some of the sparkle:



I think that's it! Thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*


 

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Grungy Monday #28

Oh my, my poor neglected blog! I keep doing crafty projects and then not blogging them, I have been such a bad blogger. I had to have a go at this week's Grungy Monday though, even if I am doing it at the last minute. =) This week the challenge was to do a project inspired by Tim's pumpkin for the Ranger Great Pumpkin Challenge. Tim's gorgeous project involved a lot of foil tape and alcohol inks, so I decided to try and do a tag with some embossed foil tape. Here's my finished project:




I covered a manila tag in Ranger's foil tape, and then embossed with Tim's Snow Flurries embossing folder. My idea was to color the background with blue alcohol inks by just dripping them on and letting them spread through the debossed sections, and then possibly coloring the snowflakes somehow to have them pop out even more. I ended up using the Snow Cap mixative on the snowflakes, but because of the unpredictability of the "dripping" method, the background didn't turn out as great as I'd hoped. I actually almost gave up on the tag, but I'm glad I didn't because after it was all embellished I was pretty happy with the overall look. The Winter Wonder die was cut from Core'dinations Whitewash paper, which was sanded down quite a bit, especially along the edges, to bring out the blue core. I stamped it with the snowflakes from the Reindeer Flight set in Iced Spuce ink, and then a sentiment from the Mini Holidays 3 set in Chipped Sapphire. I LOVE using the Iced Spruce for more subtle background stamping, it's so beautiful. =) The tag was finished off with some Sparkly Fluff and this pom-pom ribbon I got at Michael's along the bottom, and some Idea-ology Baubles and Trimmings dyed with Iced Spruce at the top. Overall it's quite sparkly and "snowy". =)

Along with Grungy Monday, I will also be entering this into two other challenges: the Simon Says Stamp challenge, where the theme is tags, and the Inspiration Emporium challenge, where the theme is tools. I decided to enter it in the second challenge because I used my favorite tool, my Big Shot, twice for this tag, plus I got to use the Tiny Attacher and the Sanding Grip. =)

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*



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