Christmas Stockings

My poor little blog has been neglected of late!  I am so sorry dear readers and I hope to have the situation remedied soon.  In the meantime, here is one of the few holiday projects I mustered up this season, this time made for Alpha Stamps.

I used gilders paste in white to add a sprinkle of highlights on my star, flowers and the edge of the stocking.

I love how adding just a bit of the paste changes the tones of the metal.

On this stocking I added UTEE to Tim Holtz's metal numerals.  A few flecks of black made them look a bit vintage.

Here the image is an old embossed Santa from Dresden scrap.  I backed it with burlap to add a layer of texture.

Merry Christmas to all of my faithful readers!

Cheers, 

Rhea

Christmas Envelope Book

Not all that long ago I received a delightful parcel of Christmas crafty goodness from Alpha Stamps.  Inside I found lots of delicious Christmas paper, ephemera and trim which quickly took shape into this cute little envelope book.

I love the fancy latch, it works perfectly for this style of book.  A bit of patina coloring was added to the latch and the edges of the book with a little help from guilders paste. 

Each page of the book is made of a sturdy policy envelope.  I tucked some of my larger ephemera bits inside the book, but you could add tags, cards, personal notes etc.

I used lots of different trims throughout the book to add lots of depth and texture.  I got out the spray adhesive for the first time in a while.  I love the easy application, but I did find that it did not stick well in a few spots. 

I mixed in holiday imagery from many places.  I used Christmas Dresden and Christmas Collage Sheets as well as the ephemera I linked to earlier. 

In the envelope above I layered the trims.  This is another great way to stretch or transform your stash, and you know I am always trying to find ways to do that.

I love the moon on this page.  I have been using him over and over again in lots of spots, I have always been fascinated by the moon and the stars.  And yes, that is exactly where my blog title comes from!

Welcome to the holiday season folks!

Cheers, 

Rhea 

Christmas Assemblage

I am amazed that I caught the holiday crafty bug as early as I did this year.  I think designing for Alpha Stamps really helped that along, since we have to get all the delicious eye candy ready for the crafty community.  Anyway, today I am going to show off (gasp) a holiday piece I made to show off all kinds of new Christmas charms that Leslie got in the shop.

I started with one of Tim Holtz's configuration boxes.  I really love these things!  You can change up the pattern of the box to suit your needs.  I chose to leave out a bunch of the smaller compartments to create a spot for a larger scene up top.  This gave me the perfect spot to showcase my Dresden Santa, deer, Santa sack and one of the new woodland trees.  These are really cool as they come white and you can color them however you want too.

I had an idea straight away to make some sort of Santa sack and have the charms spilling out.  Now I am not much of a "fabric-ey" person, but a crafty pal coached me.  Thanks Brittney!  I simply took a bit of her scrap fabric and stuffed it with some of that white fluffy stuff and tied it up.  I then manipulated it to get it to lean in a way that worked for me and got to gluing.  

Now my wise pal Brittney advised me that this may happen, but my sloppy crafting ways made this inevitable...lots of glue showed up on the fabric.  I simply covered up my mess with little bits of vintage mica snow. This subsequently added a bit of shimmer and a lot of texture, which I love.  

Here is a close up of the bottom compartments.  I am always on the search for tiny things.  The drum was found on a Christmas pick at a big box craft store.  The deer focal was scored in a giveaway I won last year.  I am happy to have found a great spot to show him off.  

Here is a shot so you can see how the outside of the box looks.  I covered it in paper from Tim Holtz that was colored with red stain.  I also used some really cute decorative tape to edge out the box.  To add more distress and depth copper guilders paste was buffed all over the piece.

I hope you all are embracing the upcoming holidays in your crafty world as well!

Cheers, 

Rhea

Embracing the change

For me the transition from fall to winter is typically a sad one because I simply adore the autumn season.  This year I am doing my best to embrace it.  I helped my transition this year by hosting a small ornament workshop yesterday for the Michigan Altered Books and Art Group (MIABA) on Yahoo.  I posted samples of the ornaments we made here.  We met up at a local treasure called The Stamp Shoppe and had a fun creative day of show and tell, chit chat, resource sharing, great food, shopping and we even managed to make a few ornaments too. 

I brought a project to do that I did not even get the chance to touch.  The thought came to me earlier in the week to alter a project I had already completed, you can read more about that here.  The trigger was this week's challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show, which was to show something with a house.  I already completed one project earlier this week, but I really love this theme. 



I had an idea to I alter the back side of this piece with yet another lovely paper by Graphic 45, Christmas Emporium.  I picked up this 8x8 paper stack at a gem of a store in Jackson, Michigan.  It is called Altered Art Addicts and it is filled with lots of unique things you typically can only get online.  You can Like them on Facebook to get insider sales and up to the minute news on what has arrived.  They had all of Tim Holtz's new District Market stuff, yum!  We hope to have our next MIABA meeting here too.



I did not do quite as much fussy cutting with this one.  I really wish I had some tiny vintage tinsel, I may have to seek out some trim just yet.  You can never have too much sparkle. 

One of my favorite things about Graphic 45, is that they always incorporate a postal theme in their papers.



I kept the embellishments simple, sticking to some rusty primitive elements and just a touch of stickels.  Can't you just see some tinsel along the roof line?  I think it could suit the fairy side as well.  Now if I can just find the perfect trim.

I almost feel like I am cheating when I use these papers.  They seriously make creating something lovely quite simple and quick to do. 



As I embrace the season change, I am reminded of gratitude.  It is with much gratitude, that I share a chance to win a couple of really cool crafty books through Laura Anderson's blog, Pretty Things.  Stop on by and check it out if you choose.  Her blog is refreshing and inspirational for sure!

I wish you the best of luck in embracing the change.

Cheers,

Rhea