Vintage Santa

Well I know it is early for the Santa thing but when I saw this gorgeous Vintage Santa design ( from Old fashioned Christmas set ) I knew I had to have him and he had to be inked up! I love a proper Santa that looks like I think he should and that's why I love this Santa ... So here is my vintage Santa make:

I know I have made a tag but this could so easily be made into a card, front of a gift box, gift back or lots more...and it also shows the wonderful diffusers which are such a great addition to any crafters stash. 

I started by embossing the tag and using the arched shape diffuser. The diffusers are the same thickness as one of your cutting plates and allow pressure from the embossing folder to be applied in certain areas, which leaves a great flat space for stamping into. This means all your embossing folders can be used for lots more things...the diffusers come as a set of three , allowing for different shaped flat spaces to be created. 

So I used this great flourish embossing folder and inked the embossed areas with some of my firm winter favourites...iced spruce, broken china and a touch of vintage photo.

When dry and main image dry ( will come onto that in a moment dry ) I spritzed with some perfect pearls to give some winter sparkle. The sentiment is from simple sayings.

Now for Santa...

I stamped him in watering can archival and then I added colour using a waterbrush and picking up colour from Distress markers scribbled onto my craft sheet. I love the gentle way this allows you to apply colour. I used iced spruce, broken china, frayed burlap, old paper and a hint of victorian velvet for his cheeks .

I added some seam binding dyed and tied in a bow at the top.

have a fun and inky day!

Trace x 

Apothecary Bottles

As it's (nearly!) Halloween I decided to make a little hanging that will help give our home a 'spooky' feeling later this month! My children love Halloween, a lot more than I do, and so I am trying find ways of decorating the house! Also, this might give you some added inspiration to join in with this month's challenge over on our Challenge Blog as the theme is Something Spooky!

I took a large and small Art Part and sprayed them with Squeezed Orange ink. Then I added Spiced Marmalade and Vintage Photo Distress Inks on the edges. I then sprinkled them with water to make a mottled effect and once dry I embossed a spider and web. Make sure the Art Part is very dry so you don't have any embossing powder where you don't want it! I then added two eyelets and adhered the shelf with Glossy Accents.

I filled a variety of Apothecary bottles by 7 Gypsies (Amber and Clear) with Dylusion Inks and then I took the Domed Bottle and filled it with toy spiders raided from my son's room (why do boys always have gross things squirrelled away?!) and turned the bottle upside down as if it's a Bell Jar. The shark's tooth was bought home from a school trip somewhere - see I told you he had gross things!!! I used some shrink plastic to make the skull as my stamp was too big for my project but you can use Clearly for Art if you have a small sized stamp. I then added Vintage Photo Distress Ink to the skull - I tried doing this before shrinking it - it wasn't very successful! I suspended the skull using jump rings.

I hope you like my latest spooky project! I'd love to see what you have made for Halloween!

Gabrielle

Cobweb moon

I'm loving the new Tim Holtz releases and especially the owl together with the moon and stars. Whether you saw my card a little while ago or not, here's another take on the combination but this time with the cobweb and on a canvas. First I prepared the canvass with Distress paints - Chipped sapphire, Salt ocean and Broken china which was given a wash with white gesso once dry. Finally a gold mist was added.

I cut the moon and stars from gold mirricard using the Cresent moon & stars die. Then I ran it through my Big Shot with the riveted metal Texture fade, dabbed it with copper metallic mixative and then, when dry, dabbed it with black paint and rubbed that off as it was drying. I cut a strip of cobwebs out using Tim's Cobwebs strip die then cut part of it and glued it behind the moon before embellishing it with Crystal ice Stickles. I also used the Stickles to add the 'threads' for the spiders hanging down.

 

I cut out the owl, backed it with gold mirricard and added Crystal stickles over the eyes. He is edged with White fire Treasure gold.

Thanks for stopping by, have fun!

Chris xxx

www.mycornerofheaven.com

InLinkz.com

Using the arch diffuser

If you've been wondering about using the diffusers I can tell you that they're very handy - they certainly breathe extra lie into your embossing folders! You don't have to be an experienced crafter to use them either!  Today I'm blogging a clean and simple Christmas card using the arched diffuser from Set #2 and the Spellbinders Window #3...

You can see that the arch is just the right size for the die (you can use any textural pattern embossing folder, Texture fade or Textured impressions folder)...

You can see the contrast better here...

I've used a Sizzix originals holly die together with this Dovecraft 3" holly punch to create the shapes to decorate the corner and then run them through a dotty embossing folder...

More soon, happy crafting!

Chris xxx

www.mycornerofheaven.com

InLinkz.com

Playing with Blueprints...again x

Well for Today's make I have again played with my much loved Blueprint stamps, I love how these can be used for so many versatile ways and the blueprint lines can be chopped off to create almost another stamp...cool eh?

So here is my Autumn coloured make using Halloween Blueprints 2:

And if you are interested here is the same stamp used with all the blueprint lines in my make here .

So I started by embossing the frame using a texture fade which has a great frame for holding an image and can be used sideways of so the oval runs top to bottom. To house my pumpkin I twisted this and embossed so the frame goes across the card.

I inked the card with an autumnal mix of Distress inks using  spiced marmalade, fired brick,peeled paint and aged mahogany. After a bit of spritzing with water, and drying, I swiped over the frame with walnut stain Distress ink and then treasure gold in whitefire.

For the flowers I cut some flowers and leaves from the tattered floral and tattered leaves dies and then inked and spritzed with water when dry I shaped and curled. I added a small rusty bell to the centre, but all sorts of things look great for the centre. I also spritzed them with a mini mister full of peeled paint re-inker and water.

Now onto the pumpkin, I love colouring my blueprints using Distress markers and a waterbrush, but wanted to show if you don't own these you can still colour them in other ways. For this pumpkin I smooshed some ripe persimmon and spiced marmalade Distress stain onto my craft sheet and dipped some cardstock in and dried and repeated until happy. Then stamped on my pumpkin ( Halloween Blueprints 2 ) in archival ink.

To complete I added a sentiment from the ever so useful simple sayings set.

Well hope you like my Autumnal make and I will be back later in the month x

have a fun and inky day

Trace x

Vintage Santa plus...

How many Christmas cards do you make? Some of us that make cards for friends, family and charity make literally hundreds! Here's a quick vintage Christmas card for you to try...

Use brown card or paper for the base and any piece of Christmas design backing paper for the mat. I used the new Ornate frame by Tim Holtz to cut the frame from Kraft card and edged it with Pewter Treasure Gold. I cut another frame from white card and used the centre as the stamping mat and stamped the Santa onto it using a Ranger Coffee Archival ink pad...

 

The embellishment added to the frame has been made with Brenda Walton's new 'Poinsettia swirl' Sizzlits die cut from white card and silver mirricard.

Finally, a silver hand-tied bow finished it off - a double bow...

More soon, enjoy your weekend.

Chris xxx

www.mycornerofheaven.com

Versatility reigns!

Yes, here is another die that can be used not just at Christmas, but at any time of the year - Brenda Walton's Sizzlit die called 'Holiday greenery'.

This mid-week quickie was made with a tri-fold aperture card with a doily under the aperture. The flowers and leaves have been cut using standard white card, silver and gold mirricard and just layered over the top. I can add a Christmas sentiment, birthday or any other to make use of this beautiful set!

More soon, have a great day.

Chris xxx

www.mycornerofheaven.com