Gather Together - Deck the Halls

 

I wanted to make a quick last minute little decor piece for Thanksgiving using some of the new Christmas dies from Tim Holtz and Sizzix, namely the Deck the Halls die set.  You can make this in an afternoon if you have all the items on hand, or substitute for what you do have.

I started by lightly painting the large etcetera Cathedral window and the large Vignette Box with Hickory Smoke Distress Paint.

Once the paint was dry I used my finger to spread some Ranger Opaque Crackle Texture Paste on the surfaces of both.

You can see it was pretty messy and I had bits hanging off here and there.

I lightly sanded off the high bits and loose bits.

Then I sprayed both the Cathedral window and box with some Pumice Stone Distress paint.

Put a one inch layer of floral foam in the Vignette Box.

Hot glue the windows into the center of the foam.

Paint the foam with Distress Walnut Stain or any other brown paint.

Put some Texture Paste onto the Mini Foundations, then when dry add a little color with Distress Crayon.

Put some moss over the foam to cover it all. I got this cream colored moss from Hobby Lobby, but Spanish Moss or Green Moss would work just as well.

Grab some fall colored papers and sand them with 150 grit sand paper.

The spray them with some brown Distress Stain and water to age them.

I have to confess here that when I first saw this pinecone die in the Deck the Halls set, and didn't have the concept art, I thought it was corn. LOL! That's what gave me the idea for this project way back when.
Anyway, cut the pinecone/corn bases and criss cross bits out of the yellow paper. Then blot some Fired Brick Distress Marker here and there on the corn.

Follow the brick color with some Carved Pumpkin. Notice I'm not coloring the entire corn cob orange or red.

Lighty spray with some water and dry. This softens the color.

Attach the criss cross bits to the bases with Collage Medium and rub some Collage Medium over the top of the corn as well.

Cut the "corn husk" bit which is the side of the pine cone and looks like two little canoes, out of cram kraftstock. I get this cream craftstock from JoAnn's cardstock section. It is by Coordinations.
I also adhered the little stems to the corn cobs. The stems are actually for the berries, but they work great for this too.

Then to make them fit with my decor and the fell of this project, water down some Antique Linen Distress Paint and rub it onto each corn cob.

When the paint is dry, rub some Walnut Stain Distress Crayon onto the corn cobs to distress them.

Cut more husks from the greenery pieces that are attached to the holly pieces in the Deck the Halls dies set. There are some smaller bits to layer on these but I wanted to keep it simple so just cut them and aged them a little with some Distress Inks

Cut four of each of the garlands. Two the right way and two back wards. The reason for this is that you will attach the backwards one on the back of the right side one so that it is the same color on the front and back. I hope that makes sense.

Cut four bows and add a little watered down Antique Linen Paint on the bows and the garlands so they match the corn.

After I took this I changed my mind. I used two packages of pumpkins because I love them. Paint them all with a layer of Distress Antique Linen Paint and then wipe it off lightly.

Then just like above, scribble some Distress Crayon on the nonstick mat, wet it and brush it over the entire pumpkin. Then lightly wipe off.

Start decorating the Cathedral window and vignette box. I added one piece of "greenery" corn husk to each corn cob.

Put one of each garland on each side of the Cathedral window. the add the corn and bows.

I arranged the pumpkins so that they looked like they were just strewn around with no arrangement. Add some corn, branch punches, and leaf punches in among them as well.

I added the words Gather on the front and Together on the back in the new Classic Alphanumeric lowercase letters. The title for this piece is from a line from a Thanksgiving hymn "We Gather Together" and the first line says "We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing." It is from a Dutch hymn from the 16th century that we still sing today! I love that so much.

I tried to make this piece one that could be set in the center of a table or buffet or island.

If you look closely you can see that I added four Hardware Heads to each corner on both the front and back of the Vignette Box. To make it look like they were rusted, I put some texture paste on them, then colored the area where I was going to attach them with Distress Crayons. Once I secured them with Collage Medium, I colored the Texture Paste with the Distress Markers as well.

This was a quick, fun little project that I have been thinking about for months and it's a relief to have it out of my head and into real life.
Thanks for sticking with me. This was a long post.
If you have any questions, please contact me through the link in the column on the right. I can't reply to you on here.
I am always so grateful for your comments and support. They mean a great deal to me so thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Tami

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp and Scrapbook.com so the links below send you to one of those stores depending on which logo you choose.  If you wish to purchase something from either store and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order, at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Christmas Greetings - Seasonal Scribbles

There are so many terrific ideas out there for using these delightfully whimsical Seasonal Scribble Stamps from Tim Holtz and Stampers Anonymous. Tags, gift cards, and so many super cute makes. 

When I saw these stamps, they reminded me of the postcards and postage stamps that line the exit of Disneyland's It's a Small World ride.  So I set about making a card that with that in mind. I also used one of my favorite older techniques -- Distress Marker Stamping.

 Pick and image and a sentiment from the Seasonal Scribbles set. Put them very close together on a stamp platform. If you are going to be die cutting this image, you will want to die cut the paper first and then center the stamps on the shape before doing the following steps.

Use various colors of Distress Markers to color in the image directly on the stamp.

When you are done coloring it should look like this.  Now you need to breathe on it like you breathe on glasses when you want to clean them or like you used to breathe on the car window in the winter when you wanted it to fog up so you could write on it.

Then press the image onto a piece of Distress Mixed Media Heavystock. Breathe on it again and stamp again.  If you want the colors to be more vibrant, you can color it again, breathe, stamp again.

For my images I cut several postage stamp shapes from the (now retired) Stacked Postage dies from Sizzix and Tim Holtz. I stamped the snow in Tumbled Glass, then the flakes in Faded Jeans and then sentiment in Chipped Sapphire.

This image is stamped in Festive Berries, Peeled Paint, and Gathered Twigs, with the bit of postage lines peeking from the corner stamped in Black Soot. The postage lines are from a set from two years ago called Holiday Postmarks.

I used Festive Berries, Scattered Straw and Peeled Paint.

This one was fun! Wild Honey, Festive Berries, Chipped Sapphire, Peeled Paint.

The Holly Leaves have Peeled Paint and Pine Needles on them, berries were Festive Berries and then postmark and sentiment were in Black Soot. You may also note that I did machine stitch around all of the stamp shapes after I stamped them. This is completely optional, or you can draw the stitching with a fine tip pen. I was just compelled to do it and I couldn't finish the card unless I sewed on them.

The background was made by stamping all of the various postmark stamps from the Holiday Postmarks onto a piece of Distress Mixed Media Heavystock in Brushed Corduroy. I stamped each postmark individually so that they ended up making a pattern.  Then I went over the whole piece with Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink on a blending tool.

I lightly spritzed it with a bit of water to make some water drops.

Then I sprayed a tiny bit of Festive Berries Distress Stain into a plastic cup, sprayed a tiny bit of water in it and then used the Distress Splatter Brush to add some red flecks to the background. I did the same with Forest Moss Spray Stain.

The final bits were to pop the stamped shapes up off the background, and arrange them on the front of a 4.25x5.5 card. I added some Long Fasteners to the corner and tied some black twine around the edge.
Just a reminder that if you have a question, please contact me through the form in the column on the right.
Thank you so much for stopping by, reading, commenting, and supporting my blog. I appreciate it so much!
Tami

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp and Scrapbook.com so the links below send you to one of those stores depending on which logo you choose.  If you wish to purchase something from either store and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order, at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Season's Greetings - Into the Woods

This card takes us Into the Woods for a holiday greeting card with a rustic feel. Three new Christmas Stamp sets from Tim Holtz and Stampers anonymous work together well for this woodsy card.

To start, lets make the background paper. You will need some Distress Mixed Media Heavystock, some Ranger Watermark Resist Ink, and the plaid stamp from the Lumberjack set.

Stamp the plaid onto the Heavystock with the Watermark Resist Ink.

Dry the ink and then grab a red Distress Spray Stain and a red Distress Oxide Spray.

Spray them onto the stamped surface.

Then add some Ground Espresso for a little depth.

By the time you get all three colors sprayed on the stamped paper, it will look like this.

Spray some water onto it and let it soak in for a minute and then dry it.

When it is dry it should look something like this. The Watermark Ink kind of grabs the ink color and leaves a light image. I really love this technique and have enjoyed using it several times in the last year with various stamps and ink combos. I encourage to experiment with this technique and see what happens now that we have all of the ink colors in Spray Stains and Spray Oxides.

Next I wanted to add a bit of snow, so I put some Picket Fence Distress Paint on the Distress Splatter Brush and splatter some "snow" across the piece. Dry it quickly with a heat tool so that it doesn't have time to soak up the red ink and turn pink.

From the Christmastime 2 set, stamp the Season's Greetings sentiment onto the card in the upper right area. You need to leave room for the fox and trees. Stamp the sentiment with the Black Soot Distress Oxide and then cover it with Super Fine Gold Embossing Powder and heat with an embossing tool.

Stamp the trees from the Into the Woods set in the Forest Moss and Peeled Paint Oxide Inks onto some Distress Mixed Media Cardstock. Fussy cut them out, then ink the edges with the same oxides, spritz them with water to add a little bit of oxidation. Attach one to the background and pop the second one up a little bit and overlap them.
Stamp the Fox in Black Soot Oxide, fussy cut it out and ink the edges. Sprinkle a few drops of water to add some oxidation. Pop it up and and layer it it below the sentiment and in front of the trees.

Add some of the Idea-ology Metallic Droplets across the front. I also added a couple of pieces of greenery from the Sizzix Deck the Halls die set.

Thank you so much for stopping by, reading, commenting, and supporting my blog. I appreciate it so much!
Tami

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp and Scrapbook.com so the links below send you to one of those stores depending on which logo you choose.  If you wish to purchase something from either store and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order, at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!