Have A Holly Jolly Christmas...

Happy Monday everyone!

Hope you've all had a fabulous weekend and ready for a brand new challenge over on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog. This week our theme is all about RECYCLING and we want you to create projects that give a new lease of life to those discarded bits and pieces that might be found around your home!

For my project this week I created something special for Christmas, all made using recycled kraft paper, ribbon and buttons. I love creating hand stamped gift wrap, it just makes the gift that extra bit special and every year I try to create a different design and this was the perfect challenge to get my creative juices flowing and create the paper, matching tags and ribbon and all finished with a topper arrangement of die cut flowers and foliage.

So let's get started and begin the new Monday Challenge!

To begin with let's create the wrapping paper and for this I used some recycled plain brown paper and the Seasonal Scribble Stamp Set from Tim Holtz.

I started creating my design by inking up the Christmas Tree stamp with Black Soot Distress Archival Ink and stamped a row of trees, followed by a second row above but this time slightly offsetting the pattern. Repeat this until you've covered the sheet of paper.

I then took the stars cluster stamp and inked that with Unicorn White Ink and stamped the stars between each of my trees.

Once I'd finished, I then lightly splattered the entire sheet of paper with some Picket Fence Distress Paint and set it aside to dry.

Whilst the paper is drying, I moved onto making the ribbon and once again, this was plain ivory twill ribbon that I recycled from a gift that was given to me. I ironed the ribbon to make it flat and then started stamping, inking up the 'holly & jolly' stamp with Barn Door Archival Ink and just stamping the wording along the length of ribbon until I had the amount I needed.

Now for the foliage and flowers and these all started by die cutting plain card using the Large Funky Festive Foliage Die Set.

This die set cuts and creates all the sections that you need to layer each individual piece to create your flowers and foliage and I started with the flowers. I began by colouring the Mixed Media Heavystock Card using Candied Apple Distress Paint. I like to use paint for this as I wanted a really intense red colour. I cut enough sections for four flowers and then layered up my pieces to create the individual blooms. Once I was happy, I then spritzed the flowers with Biscotti Perfect Pearls spray that I have in my stash and then gently heat dried each of them.

I inked the edges of the flowers with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and then added some buttons to the centres ~ again these are all recycled as they were cut off some old clothes.

For the foliage, I used some more of the Heavystock card and inked this with a blend of Peeled Paint and Iced Spruce. I then cut all my foliage pieces, again using the Large Funky Festive Foliage die. I then inked the edges with some Forest Moss DI, followed by Walnut Stain DI. Once I was happy, I smeared the leaves with a light touch of Matte Collage Medium and sprinkled Rock Candy Dry Distress Glitter over the top, tapping away the excess.

I now have all my bits and pieces ready to wrap the presents ~ tying the ribbon around each of them and then adding the foliage and poinsettias to the bows, this means that nothing will be damaged once the bow is removed and the floral arrangement can be kept by the recipient.

So, we're nearly there but no present is finished without a tag and I made this using recycled kraft card, and cut two tags using the tag die that is included in the started kit of Tim's or you can use the smallest size of tags in the Assorted Tags set.

I stamped each of the two die cut tags using white ink and stamps from the Seasonal Scribble set and then added my message, again using stamps from the same set but stamping these in red ink. I then stitched around the edges of the tags and mounted them onto another layer of kraft card before adding some red linen ribbon through the loops and attaching a small cluster of die cut holly leaves, cut from some more of the green card that I inked for the previous foliage using the Funky Festive Die set.

To complete the tags, I added a small snowflake adornment to the first tag, tucking the snowflake underneath the holly leaves and adding a sprinkling of glitter dust over the top...

...and then a tiny berry ~ a Bauble Finding inked with Red Pepper Alcohol Ink, which I attached to the second tag.

I finished with some small gems, placed on the background of the tag.

So, that's it from me for this week and I hope you've loved what I've created and been inspired to make some recycling projects of your own because it's so much fun to see what you can find in that 'stuff' you thought would never see the light of day again!

Have fun creating your projects and don't forget, if you would like to see more inspiration from my talented teamies over on the challenge blog and every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in and good luck....

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by today and hope to see you again soon, love Emma xxx

Recipe for project:

Recycled bits and pieces: Twill ribbon, brown wrapping paper and buttons
Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous: Seasonal Scribbles
Tim Holtz/Sizzix: Funky Festive, Large Funky Festive

Distress Paint: Black Soot, Candied Apple
Distress Ink: Walnut Stain, Peeled Paint, Iced Spruce

Alcohol Inks: Red Pepper
Tim Holtz Archival Inks: Kit 1, Kit 3
Idea-ology: Bauble Findings, Snowflake Adornments

Mediums: Matte Collage Medium, Hero Arts Unicorn White Pigment Ink, Rock Candy Dry Glitter
Surfaces: Kraft Card, HeavyStock Mixed Media Card
Clear Iridescent Gems
Tim Holtz Media Glass Mat

Heat Gun
Big Shot
Dried Flowers from my own stash