Home For The Holidays...

Hello everyone...

Today, is the start of the Tim Holtz Holiday Inspiration Series and throughout the month of November and beginning of December, I am so excited to be joining some talented designers to  share holiday projects on our individual blogs. These inspirational projects will be showcasing many of the products from the new seasonal release and should you miss any, then don't worry as Tim will also be doing a recap over on his blog, every Saturday. 

So without further ado, it's time to start celebrating the most wonderful time of the year and share the first of my Christmas projects, a retro style Christmas Notebook showing a scene created with Sizzix dies...

When it comes to Christmas and with so much to do to prepare for the big day, I always try to be as organised as I can and when I started to think about this project, I thought it would be fun to make a notebook that would be the perfect addition to feed my stationery addiction and also be something practical for all those lists that I will be writing.

So I began by using a ring bound notebook that has a thick kraft style chipboard cover, front and back...bought from my local store for £1.

I applied a layer of gesso over the front cover and heat dried the paint. I didn't want a solid white finish to the edges of my book, so I sanded back the corners and edges with a sanding tool to reveal the underneath and create a worn effect.

I then cut a panel of the snowflake design paper from the Holiday Paper Stash, stitched around the outside and then matted it on a piece of the Holiday Kraft Stash, leaving a border around the edge. I then mounted the matted layers onto the front of the notebook.

To create the scene I used the Home For The Holidays die set...I LOVE the 50's retro feel of this set, it's just so cool and cut all my pieces except for the mountains and the message from card in the Classic Kraft Stash.

I started by cutting my snowy mountains from white watercolour card, I used this card as it's got a texture to it which created the look of snow. I then outlined the mountains by edging the card with some Matte Collage Medium and sprinkling glitter over the top. I attached the mountains to the bottom section of my matted background layers.

You can now begin building up the scene and I started with the car, the main section cut from red classic kraft card, the panels down the side cut from kraft card and the trims all cut from metallic kraft stash. Once the layered car was completed, I added the wheels and attached it to my cover.

Place the presents in the boot (or trunk) of the car and then to ground the car, I added some cheesecloth, arranged to create the look of soft fallen snow. Splatter Picket Fence Distress Paint across the die cut car, using a splatter brush.

Layer the trees with silver metallic kraft card and attach these directly onto the background, using Collage Medium.

For the final section and to complete the scene, I need to attach my tree to the roof of the car. For this,  I used the die to die cut two pieces in two shades of green. I then scored the darker green tree down the centre, folded it half and layered this tree over the top of the lighter green tree before tying pieces of string around it. Using the Splatter Brush and Picket Fence Distress Paint, splatter the paint across the tree, dry the paint and then attach to the roof of the car.

Die cut the wording from metallic kraft stash and place in the top right hand corner, surrounding it with mirrored stars.

To complete the scene, I used Ranger Ink Enamel Accents and dotted these onto the mountains and added a quote chip along the bottom.

As a finishing touch, I wanted to dangle some idea-ology down the side and used the pinecones, a Holiday Token and some skates which I attached to a swivel clip, clipped onto the ring binder. I then tied some ribbon and string around the clasp.

Thanks so much for popping by today and I'll be back with another post on Friday...so, see you then!

Love Emma x

Recipe for project:

Tim Holtz/Sizzix: Home For The Holidays

Distress Paints: Picket Fence

Idea-ology: Pinecone Adornments, Swivel Clasp, Christmas Typed Token, Christmas Quote Chips, Metallic Trimmings, Christmas Jute String, Mirrored Stars, Ice Skates Adornments

Mediums: Collage Medium, Gesso, Ranger Ink Enamel Accents, Rock Candy Dry Glitter

Surfaces: Classic Kraft Stash, Metallic Kraft Stash, Kraft Christmas Paperie, Christmas Paperie

Ranger Craft Sheet

Splatter Brush

Big Shot

Heat Gun
Sanding Tool

 Cheesecloth and chipboard notebook from my own stash