It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Hey everyone!

Hope you all had a great week and looking forward to the weekend! Today, I'm back with another project in the Tim Holtz Holiday Inspiration Series! Haven't all the projects been amazing and so inspirational?!? I've loved them all and can't wait to try out some of the wonderful ideas that have been posted.

For my project today, I chose to create a Christmas Planner, with a traditional feel inspired by Christmas at Downton Abbey. The cover features holiday idea-ology, mixed with die cuts to create a book to treasure for the forthcoming holiday season.

If you're like me and love making lists but they usually end up on a scrappy piece of paper or spread across numerous notebooks, then this project is for you! All your ideas for Christmas in one place ~ how cool is that? A gift list, an envelope for your present receipts, your plans for the holiday season, what needs to be done around the home and of course, recipes for all the lovely food that needs to be baked can all be added to this planner.

...and here's how I created it!

To begin with I took a plain white ring bound notebook that I picked up from my local store for £1. I painted the cover with a coat of gesso, dried the paint and then, using a combination of Ground Espresso and Antiqued Bronze Distress Paint. I only painted around the edges because the rest of the book will be eventually covered with paper. By blending the paints together, it gives this beautiful rich wood like effect.

When the paint was thoroughly dry, I then dabbed an embossing ink pad around the outside edge, sprinkled the ink with Sticky Embossing powder and heated the powder until tacky. I then applied Vintage Foil Transfer Sheets onto the tacky areas to give a worn gilt effect around the edges of the book.

You can see how wonderful this effect looks below.

I then cut a piece of paper from the Yuletide Paper Stash, matted it onto a co-ordinating paper from the stash and mounted it onto my cover.

At this stage now that all the paintwork on the cover is finished, I also added my dividers down the side of the book. For this I used the Christmas Time Flash Cards, which are perfect and of course, you can choose the wording that suits your planner.

Now comes the fun part, embellishing the cover and since I chose a traditional theme for my planner and I wanted to use the stag as my main focal point, I started by die cutting the Armor Shield from chipboard. Once again, after adding a coat of gesso, I used Distress Paints to create the wood effect.

Set your shield aside whilst drying and start work on the Trophy Antlers. I wanted to take some of the bright white off the Trophy Antlers but still keep it a neutral colour, so I applied some stone coloured chalk paint onto the head. I then used Pumice Stone Distress Paint and with my fingertip applied the paint around the ears, nose and neck to give a slight distressed look and to highlight these areas.

 

Dry the paint thoroughly before applying a coat of Glossy Accents over the antlers. Sprinkle these with Tarnished Brass Distress Glitter and leave to dry.

Using Metallic Kraft Core card stock, die cut a small shield from the Sizzix Labels Die Set and the "Traditions" wording from the Holiday's Word 2 die set and alter both of the surfaces with a combination of Hazelnut and Gold Mixative Alcohol Ink to create a slightly tarnished look. Stick these metallic pieces onto your wood effect large shield.

Using the same colours of Alcohol Ink, alter the colour of one of the metal idea-ology wreaths and attach with Glossy Accents to the gold shield, adding the stags head into the centre.

Add two adornment arrows, inked with alcohol ink and attach them below the wording, positioning them so that they are crossing over one another.

I layered the finished shield using foam pads over the top of a piece of stitched card, embossed using the Quilt Texture Fade and mounted onto a further piece of paper from the Yuletide paper stash.

Add two cut pieces of the BoxWood Twine and attach them by tucking them behind the shield to create a curved wreath effect. Finally, add two small studs to the shield ~ I cut the legs off some brads and used these.

Die cut two of the Jumbo Tattered Pinecones from kraft card and colour them with Ground Espresso Distress Ink. Create the pinecones, add Picket Fence Distress Paint to the edges and dry. When the paint is dry, add Glossy Accents over the top of the paint and dip into Rock Candy Distress Glitter to give a frosty look.

Attach the cones to your planner cover, placing them in a cluster with some Crinkle Ribbon dyed with Festive Berries Distress Stain and some berries that I bought from a local store. Attach various pieces from the Festive Ephemera pack around the arrangement.

Finally, I added some charms down the spine of the planner ~ some vintage jingle bells, a Christmas typed token and snowflake charm, both of which I altered with alcohol ink to create more of a tarnished look and attached these using a piece of the Metallic Trimmings and a swivel clasp.

You now have your finished planner, ready to fill with all the information and ideas you have for the yuletide season.

I really hope you've enjoyed the creative process behind this project and that it's inspired you to create a planner of your own for the forthcoming season. You can make it as simple or as elaborate as you choose ~ that's the fun part, choosing the design, popping on some Christmas songs, getting out all your crafty goodies and decorating and personalizing your own Christmas planner!

I've had so much fun working with Tim, Paula and Mario on this inspiration series and thank you all for letting me work alongside you and design with all these gorgeous products and most of all, having fun creating with them!

See you all soon and hope you have a great weekend!

Bye for now...Emma x