From London, With Love...

Happy Monday friends and welcome to the brand new Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge! This week our theme is called CITYSCAPE and we can't wait to see how you interpret this fun theme!

For my project, I was inspired by vintage travel posters, which are something I collect and love and I with this in mind, I chose to create what is probably my last but one Christmas project ~ oh my, where did that time go since all those amazing Christmas products were released and the excitement and anticipation of Christmas crafting began?!?! It doesn't seem a minute, does it!?!

So back to my project and a couple of weeks ago when I made this ~ I decided to bring together a few of Tim Holtz's older dies from Sizzix and combine them with some of the newer dies, to create a canvas panel all about the night before Christmas in London...when the last few remaining people are heading home but one special person is making his journey, yep...you better watch out because Santa Claus is coming to town!

So, here we go and here's how I created this project...

To begin with I took Dina Wakely's Media Board and cut it down to measure 24 x18cm. I wanted the panel to have a really oldy worldy, vintage feel and applied a combination of Antique Linen and Picket Fence Distress Paint onto the panel. Once the surface was dry, I then dry brushed Pumice Stone over the top and again dried it thoroughly. To add texture around the outside of the panel, I added a smear of Crackle Paste, I usually use my finger or a palette knife and once the crackles appeared and the paste was dry, I then took the Embossing Dabber and ran it around the panel, just randomly catching the edges as I went. I then sprinkled Emerald Creek Marshmallow Rock Embossing Powder over the top, and heat embossed.

For the final touch, I used the Pumice Stone Distress Crayon and applied it to the edges, blending out the colour with a damp fingertip.

Now the base panel is ready, I'm moving onto the background and I created this by cutting a piece of Heavystock Mixed Media card and using a die cut circle, I placed this onto the card to act as a mask to create the moon. I then inked the entire card using Chipped Sapphire and Faded Jeans Distress Inks and added a little Black Soot around the edges. After lightly spritzing the card with water and dabbing away the beads, I removed the mask and heat dried the card to set the inks and remove any moisture.

I then inked the moon with a little Antique Linen, adding darker shading around the edges.

For the stars I used the snowy stars stamp from the Great Outdoors set, inked with clear embossing ink, stamped twice across the moon and then added white embossing powder before heat embossing.

The background is ready and after machine stitching a border, I matted onto silver metallic kraft stash, followed by grey pearl card, a layer of champagne metallic kraft stash and final layer of red Classic Kraft card.

I then mounted the layered panels onto the canvas.

Moving on I started to create the scene and to begin with I wanted to add a ledge for my scene to sit on and I used one of the strips that comes with the Web Trims which I painted white before applying a layer of Grit Paste over the top. Whilst the paste is still wet, I sprinkled with Rock Candy Dry glitter and Mica Flakes. After allowing the paste to dry, I attached the ledge along the base of my moonlit background.

Next, using the Village Christmastime die set, I cut Santa and his reindeers from black card and then cut another layer from gold metallic kraft stash. I layered the black die cut over the top of the card, slightly offsetting it to add a glistening shadow.

I repeated this technique on the cityscape scene, cutting the city from Blackout Kraft Stash, but this time I used silver metallic kraft stash behind the city die cuts. I also applied a touch of Old Silver Alchemy Wax to the edges of the die cuts, to create more of a moonlit shadow.

I attached the Cityscape to the ledge, using foam pads to add some dimension between the two die cuts....

...and placed Santa onto more foam pads and attached him onto the background, placing them across the moon.

Now to personalise the panel and of course, this scene had to be set in London and I added the little red Routemaster bus. I cut the bus using the Globe die set and then placed it onto the ledge.

We're nearly there and I just added a selection of stars in the sky that I had left over from a previous project but added gold gems to the centres and now all that's left to do, is to add the banner across the bottom.

For this I cut the letters ~ 'From London, With Love" from red kraft card using the Alphanumeric die and placed them onto a piece of card inked with Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks.

I added a few die cut red stars to the banner and then matted it onto a layer of red card, before mounting it across the panel, placing it beneath the scene.

Finally, I placed two Hardware Heads either side of the panel ~ all of which had a frosting of white embossing powder over the top.

So, that's it from me for this week and I hope you've loved this project and the ideas and inspiration...it was such a fun piece to create and of course, you can make it for any city you choose ~ the world is your oyster and if you don't have any of Tim's dies in your stash, there are alternatives that can be used, Paper Rose Cityscape Border and the Moda Scrap Santa Claus Die and these are all available from Simon Says Stamp!

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 and you can join in up to 5 times, which means you could have 5 chances to win. 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:

Tim Holtz/Sizzix: Tiny Travel Globe, Alphanumeric Label, 
The Cityscape and Village Christmastime die sets are both from my stash
Stampers Anonymous: Great Outdoors, Web Trims
Distress Paint: Antique Linen, Pumice Stone, Picket Fence
Distress Inks: Antique Linen, Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans, Frayed Burlap

Idea-ology: Hardware Heads

Mediums: Matte Collage Medium, Grit Paste, Rock Candy Glitter, Crackle Paste, Mica Flakes, Emerald Creek Marshmallow Rock Embossing Powder, SSS White Fine Detail Embossing Powder, Old Silver Alchemy Wax, Emboss It Dabber
Surfaces: Mixed Media Heavystock, Blackout Kraft Stash, Metallic Kraft Stash, Metallic Kraft Stash 3, Classic Kraft Stash, Media Board, Pewter Card
Sprayer
Glass Media Mat

Heat Gun
Big Shot