Bah Humbug!

I made this card for Country View Crafts  December challenge called Bah Humbug.  I was lucky enough to win the October challenge and they asked if I wanted to be the Guest Designer for the month of December.  As soon as I heard the challenge theme, I signed right up! It took us a while to get all the details together with the time difference and all, but we made it work!

To make this card you will need the following materials: 

• 1 piece of white cardstock
• 1 piece of black cardstock
• 1 pieces of red cardstock
• “When Santa got Stuck in the Chimney” cutfile by Bird
• 1 piece of cardstock to stick the card onto - optional (I used the light blue to simulate the sky)
• Pop Dots - optional (if you don't stick the card onto another piece of cardstock you don't need these)
• Wendy Vecchi’s Bricks Stencil
• Wendy Vecchi’s Archival ink in Red Geranium
• Distress Marker in Fired Brick
• Distress Ink in Walnut Stain
• Adhesive of your choice

 I put the card together by doing this:

1.  Cut “When Santa got Stuck in the Chimney” cut file card by Bird 3 times:

1 in white cardstock, 1 in black cardstock & 1 in red cardstock (I used my Silhouette CAMEO, but she makes files so practically any machine can cut it or if you need to you can access the file in Adobe (pdf) and hand cut it). Also, now that I know how to put the card together I wouldn’t need to cut out 3 entire designs but I find for my first time it is easier to have all the options available (and as you’ll read, this was a good thing).

2.The black cardstock is what I used for my base card and where I attached all the pieces.  

3. Before I added the chimney base, I stenciled bricks on it using Wendy Vecchi’s   Bricks stencil & Wendy Vecchi’s Archival Ink in Red Geranium.  Because the color was so subtle, I outlined the bricks with Tim Holtz’s Distress Marker in Fired Brick.

4. Then I attached the top of the chimney & the snow that goes on the top.

5. I then edged the chimney with Distress Ink in Walnut Stain to give it some depth.

6. For some reason I could only find one of Santa’s pant legs in red, so I took the red base card and cut his legs off and used those instead. Then I put the snow on the legs in between the pants and his boots.  I think a bit of glitter would look cute to sparkle up the snow (I may do this later). 

While you don't have to add the card to a base I thought since I am going to mail this (in fact, the person should have it by now!) I wanted the card to be a bit sturdier so I attached the cutfile card to the light blue cardstock "background".

Monster inspecting the card without the backing

And the finished card!

I can feel Santa's frustration about being stuck in the chimney - I know I feel that way sometimes when the crunch of the season is upon us! But, if it isn't done by today, then it isn't going to get done in time (that's my theory anyway) and I can always make Happy Winter cards and such for the people I didn't get to.

I wish all of you good health, good cheer and a wonderful holiday and a happy New Year!

Ornaments

Since it is my week to post a project for Anything But a Card Challenge Blog and the current challenge is “Anything Goes, with a Holiday Twist” I thought these ornaments I made fit the bill perfectly.  I love to decorate chipboard and book board shapes and I have built up quite a stash of them over the years.  Classic case of “I like these SO much that I don’t want to use them” - I am really bad at that when it comes to paper; but I have employed a trick to make me use it – I just cut it. Even if I cut off a small square, it’s been cut and therefore loses some of its power and allows me to use it. It seems to work with other items, too, but instead of cutting, I open the package.  Whatever mind games I play with myself, it works for me!  So I tore open my drawer of shapes and dug right in, determined I was going to use something I had hoarded. 

I searched in the stash and found a pack of Buck Naked Ornaments from Cosmo Cricket.  When I searched the Cosmo Cricket website, I couldn’t find them, but if you do a search on the internet, various suppliers will come up.  I must have had these things for at least 10 years and had forgotten all about them.  I opened the pack and selected a few of the ornaments and snowflakes to play with. As always, I gessoed the board before I did anything. As usual, I knew I wanted to use them, but had no clue as to what they’d become. 

All gessoed up & ready to party!

I started the Angel Ornament the week I lost my cat Spike and before I knew that I’d had to send Boo to join him at the Rainbow Bridge (for those of you who aren’t familiar with the Rainbow Bridge click HERE, it will take you to a site where the poem is – but be warned – it is emotional! You may want to bookmark it and read it after the Holidays!). I first painted the ornament red but I didn’t like it at all.  It wasn't a deep red like I wanted, more like an orange red –

The red I didn't like

Blue is one of my favorite colors and JacquardProducts makes the most beautiful blue paint called  Lumiere Pearl Blue, so that is what I decided to use, ditch the red and go with the blue. I painted it and set it aside to dry while I searched for an image to put inside the circle.  I found the beautiful angel in my pile, and it is actually wrapping paper that I picked up a while back at the wonderful dollar store.  I cut the image to size.  I also felt that since it was wrapping paper I wanted to protect the image, so I used my Silhouette CAMEO to cut a circle that fit in the ornament out of acetate.  Once my ornament was dry, I glued the image and the acetate down and covered it with the other ornament.  Glued that together and finished off with a piece of gold ribbon.  Now I have a tribute of my kitties (although I do plan on making something else with their pictures and names on it).  I am very happy with how this turned out and I have it hanging in my craft room since we won’t be having a holiday tree.  We had decided that with the kitten (and now 2 new cats - more on them later) having a tree is just too much this year but I will have one next year!

Sorry I didn't take many pictures while making this!

 The snowflake came from the same pack of Cosmo Cricket book board ornaments.  There are few other snowflake shapes, but this one called to me.  Wasn't sure what color I wanted to paint the snowflake, so I dug through my acrylic paints and found paint by Folk Art called Metallic Champagne – I loved champagne when I was younger (hic) and I like the subtle sparkle of this paint, so the red became metallic champagne.  

I often leave works in progress on my tables so I can see them and when an idea strikes I can work on the project, providing I can find it – my room is organized chaos, but my two female cats have decided they like to play with my goodies as much as I do! Because of that, I do have to be careful about what I leave out. I have some gold ribbon that went perfectly with the pale gold so I wove that through the snowflake. 

 Please ignore the fact that the snowflake looks like a darker gold

 I loved it, but it needed some bling. I found a pack of gems by Darice and I chose to put them around the flake and put a larger one in the middle.  Even though the gems have self adhesive on them, I always add a dab of glue just to make sure. I feel like the snowflake came out looking very elegant and it has also has a home in my room, until next year.

 Tada! With help from Manny once again, here is my finished snowflake

 

I hope you enjoyed my ornaments! They were a pleasure to make – I love to play and decorate naked chipboard - and very easy and fun!  

Don't forget to link up your creations to the Anything But a Card blog! It's inspiring to see how everyone interprets the theme and you just might win!

I would also like to enter my creations in the following challenges:

Stampin with the Dragon - Gifts & Ornaments

Crafting for all Seasons - Christmas, Anything but a Card

Rhedd & Rosie Challenges - Use old Stash (the ornaments are at least 10 years old and mentioned in my post)