I don't know what it is about Christmas that makes my crafty self go into overdrive. Maybe because as a kid I remember crafting ornaments and other treasures at the kitchen table with my mom and brother. All those sequins! All that paint and felt! Oh my!
Those of you who have been following me know that I am selling my house so I haven't been able to really craft and create as I would like. But now that the holidays are here and no more open houses planned for the foreseeable future and I doubt anyone will be house shopping over the next few weeks at least, I feel like I have my home 'back' and have gotten busy with lots of Christmas arts & crafts! This is the upside of not selling my house yet! Fun in the Lightfoot house!
The following are a few of the projects I have completed - so far! More to come!
My Christmas cards this year are almost entirely made up of Tim Holtz and Ranger Inc products. All the stamps, dies, inks and surfaces except the silver paint on the snowflake (Viva Decor) and the metallic vinyl snowflake sticker (Stampendous) is made by them. This card really shimmers in real life which unfortunately doesn't show in the pic.
Next up is a Christmas Cottage I made using a base kit that I had bought years ago and didn't pack away for some reason when I was decluttering my studio for showings. I used very nontraditional colors. I found the buck in my stash (from Red Lead Paperworks) and glittered up his antlers for a little Christmas bling - cause that's how I roll - LOL! The fence that came with the kit was pretty cheesy so I used a Memory Box die to create a newer, prettier fence. I added the icicles and snowy effects. I used a stencil on plain cardstock with Archival Ink to create the 'Tiled' roof. I also replaced the red plastic film that the kit had for the windows (yuck!) with a pretty gold vellum. Little battery operated tea lights flicker away creating a lovely, warm glow to finish the look.
Lastly, I saw a wonderful project from Paula Cheney and knew I had to create my own! You can see her blog post here. She has a kit for sale with complete instructions but I had most everything she used so I just winged it. NOTE: I used my paint dauber (Festive Berries) to color the burlap background and it destroyed my sponge top before I even got half way through. Luckily I had some replacement daubers handy so I could finish the job, so you might want to have these replacement tops handy!
I ended up using an 11"x14" frame so I had to make a couple adjustments; adding the Santa strip, Gold German Dresden at the bottom and some glittery, dimensional stars that are actually table confetti that I found at a local home/lifestyle shop years ago. I knew I'd find the perfect project for them eventually! I chose the word JOY as the base for my tree, sponging gold and silver paint on the letters for a distressed, vintage look. I also incorporated a couple antique buttons from my collection.
