The Calendar

Here it is! The calendar for the Craft Barn 12 Week Calendar Challenge.

I painted the 20"x 24" canvas with black paint to which I added some iridescent paint. This has given it a lovely shine that makes the tags stand out. I decided not to do anything further to the canvas as the tags themselves provide the decoration!


Now I shall have to find a place to hang it next year!!

Final Calendar Challenge

Well, Week 12 of the Craft Barn Calendar Challenge is here and almost done. The theme this week was Red and Green with some sparkle and a pine tree!

To make this tag, I used a Tim Holtz Sizzix embossing folder to emboss the pine trees onto the tag. I then coloured them using copic markers. colouring over the embossed areas gives the tag more dimension. I used Faded Jeans and Stormy Sky distress inks to colour the sky. I stamped a background of hills using weathered wood distress ink then covered it with white flocking to make it look like snow. I added some silver glitter to the "snow" to make it sparkle. I also added kindiglitz to the pine trees so they looked frosty.

I added some red baubles and an embellishing fragment that I glued onto a piece of Christmas paper with holy leaves and berries. The stamp is one of Tim Holtz Ticket stamps and I used Tombow markers to colour it before stamping it onto a ticket. I used Fired brick distress ink to colour my ribbon that is attached to the top of the tag.

The calendar is layered onto black card then attached to the tag. I now need to attach the tags to my canvas that I have prepared. I might have time to get that done tomorrow!

Advent Calendars

I have been busy making some advent calendars for the family to enjoy during December.

Both are made using the Advent Calendar Kit from Kaisercraft. I stained the wood using vintage photo distress stain then fitted the pieces together.

For this one, I used a 12x12 sheet that I cut down to fit the back of the box and lined the edges of the box with the same paper. I made a tree using a Nellie Snellen die, fitting 4 trees together and added little gold ornaments and a star. Made little presents to put under the tree. Along the top of the box, I placed three poinsettia flowers that I cut from SVG Cuts file - 3D Wintergreens.

I got a little more adventurous with this one! I cut some little house frontages using the Christmas in the Village set from SCG Cuts. To make them stand up, I made little boxes from acetate and attached the houses to these, then glued them into the box.
The tree is made with the smaller of the tree dies from Nellie Snellen. I cut 8 trees and folded them in half and glued them all together to make the 3D tree. I also cut a couple of sets of houses using the Tim Holtz on the edge die and glued them behind the three houses.

The Santa and his reindeer were cut from the Christmas in the Village set and mounted with foam pads over the moon! Added a Merry Christmas banner to finish it off. 

Craft Barn Calendar Challenge Week 11

The challenge this week over at the Craft Barn is to make a calendar using pale yellow and grey wth bare branches.

I used a pale yellow cardstock tag for this challenge. The bare tree is cut from dark grey card that I embossed the tree on. The embossing folder is one of the Tim Holtz folders. The background for the tag was stamped with Weathered Wood Distress Ink. I used stamps designed by Sue Law for the hills in the background, the tiny flying birds and the grass tufts around the base of the trees. The clouds stamp is from Rubbadubbadoo in NZ.

I finished off the tag with a ribbon made from seam binding that I coloured with Weather Wood Distress stain.

One week to go!

Craft Barn Calendar Challenge Week 10

The theme for this week's calendar challenge at the Craft Barn  is Autumn colours and leaves with the added option to use Tim Holtz tools and products.

The tag is embossed with the woodgrain folder from Tim Holtz Texture Fades range and coloured with frayed burlap and brished corduroy distress inks. The leaves were cut using Marianne Creatables dies as the tattered leaves dies were a little big for this particular project. For the leaves, I first coloured glossy cardstock with Ranger Alcohol Inks in autumnal colours then cut them with the dies. These dies have a great texture built in and the close up photo below shows the detail on the leaves.






I also cut some little acorns from brown card using the same set of dies then covered them with Glossy Accents. I attached these with foam pads to make them stand out from the tag.

I blended wild honey and rusty hinge distress inks on the edges of the calendar to give it a more auntumnal look as well. 

The ribbon is seam binding coloured with Spiced Marmalade distress ink.

Can't wait for the last two weeks challenges because I am eager to see the whole calendar put together on the canvas I plan to buy tomorrow!!

I have just seen on the stats for my blog that this is my 150th post!

Craft Barn Celebration!

The Craft Barn at Lingfield, in Surrey are celebrating 600 followers on their blog with a little giveaway! Actually it is a big giveaway and looks just stunning.

Please check out the Craft Barn - they have such a great selection of goodies for crafting and I just loved my visit there last year. I hope to get back again next year when I am in the UK. They also do a great postal service.

Enjoy! and Congratulations to the Craft Barn!

Craft Barn Challenge Week 9

The Calendar challenge for Week 9 over at the Craft Barn is to 

use old paper and red lines. The paper is a creamy colour with graph gridlines all over it. It is from a DCWV Mod Retro Stack collection which is a set of cardstock with a '50s look to it. I used the cardstock to cover the tag, then cut some more of the flowers from the bottom of the cardstock to create a 3-D layer that I attached to the card, just below the flowers on the tag layer. I edged the tag with Barn Door distress ink then added some cream paper flowers with red bling in the centres. Finished the tag off with a cream ribbon around the bottom and a seam binding ribbon coloured with antique linen distress stain.