Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas...

Hello friends and Merry Christmas...

Well, it's been a strange year with so many ups and downs for quite a few of us but here we are, it's finally Christmas time and it's also the last Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for 2020, as this challenge will be lasting for two weeks and we'll be back on January 4th!

Our theme for this week is CELEBRATE and with this in mind, I chose to create a very classic vintage style card for one of the biggest celebrations of the year, and this card is for all of you ~ for everyone who has supported and visited my blog, for all the loves and likes you always leave on my Instagram and Facebook feeds and for all the lovely comments you've written about my projects ~ it's all of this that makes the hard work so worthwhile and from the bottom of my heart, I wanted to wish you all a very merry Christmas!

So, here we go with the final SSS challenge and this is how I created my card, sent to you with love!

To begin with I created a landscape card blank to measure, 21 x 12cm. I then began to create my background layers and after cutting a panel of White Heavystock Card, 20 x 11cm, I spritzed the card with a light misting of water and then used a combination of Chipped Sapphire, Speckled Egg, Pumice Stone, Faded Jeans Distress Spray Stains. I also included a little Pumice Stone Oxide Spray into the mix. By layering the inks, it gave me the perfect blue that I wanted for my background. I heat dried the card for speed and then inked around the edge with a little Walnut Stain Distress Ink before adding a machine stitched border.

I matted the card panel onto gold shimmer card stock and than on the left hand side, I added a strip of Silver Velvet Trims Ribbon, and secured the ends with tape at the back.

After mounting the panel onto the card blank, I moved onto the stamped panel.

For this I used the Stampers Anonymous Holiday Scenes stamp set from Tim Holtz and stamped the image, courtesy of the Stamp Platform, using Black Soot Archival Ink onto a piece of Distress Watercolour card, slightly larger in size than the stamped image. I then coloured the image with Distress Inks and a water brush ~ I wanted to keep that beautiful vintage look to this image, so I made sure the colouring was very soft and resembled a very light colour tint as you would see on vintage cards.

I inked around the edge of the stamped panel with Frayed Burlap DI and splashed a little water over the top, protecting the coloured image with some tissue, so that no water droplets accidently fell onto that. Dab away any excess water and heat dry.

Once I was happy, I added some sparkle to the roof and the trees using Matte Collage Medium, painted on with a fine detail brush and then sprinkled Rock Candy Distress Glitter over the top.

I machine stitched another border around this panel and matted it onto kraft card, that I cut with the Deckle Trimmer and a layer of gold metallic kraft card. To add a little more detail, I added a mini fastener to each corner before I then attached the panel with foam pads onto my covered card blank.

Now for the finishing touches and I used an array of my Tim Holtz die cut Christmas foliage ~ most of these pieces I had already cut and never used on previous projects but they are all cut from Mixed Media Heavystock card which inked with a combination of Peeled Paint, Rustic Wilderness, Iced Spruce and Bundled Sage Distress Spray Stains. The dies that make up this arrangement are:

Deck The Halls, Mini Holiday Greens and Winter Wardrobe.

Once I had all my die cut pieces ready, I gave them a frosting of ice by smearing a little Matte Collage Medium over the top and then sprinkling with more of the Rock Candy Distress Glitter.

I arranged the foliage in a spray in the top left hand corner of my card, and added a hinge clip that has a small strip of the Velvet Ribbon Trims threaded through the clip.

To add the berries, I used Tonic Nuvo Drops in Postbox Red and these also have a frosting of the Rock Candy Glitter over the top.

Now to create those cones and inspired by one of Tim's recent demos, I used one of the dies from the Tiny Tattered Florals and after cutting two separate die cuts from kraft card, I inked them with Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain Distress Inks. I then assembled the cones before tipping the ends of each with white Gesso. Once the gesso was dry, I then frosted these with the Rock Candy Glitter so they match the foliage perfectly.

I hot glued the cones into place in the centre of the arrangement.

Finally, I added the small ephemera piece, 25¢ each and placed this to the right of the stamped panel.

So that's it from me for today, and I hope you love the card I've made especially for you.

Don't forget that every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $25 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!

No matter where you are in the world, and no matter how hard this Christmas will be for so many of us ~ I wish you all have a wonderful and very happy Christmas ~ stay safe.

Love Emma xxx

Recipe for project:

Stampers Anonymous: Holiday Scenes

Sizzix/Tim Holtz: Tiny Tattered Florals, Deck The Halls, Mini Holiday Greens and Winter Wardrobe.

Distress Spray: Speckled Egg, Chipped Sapphire, Pumice Stone, Faded Jeans, Peeled Paint, Rustic Wilderness, Iced Spruce and Bundled Sage 

Oxide spray: Pumice Stone

Distress Ink: Walnut Stain, Gathered Twigs, Frayed Burlap

Tim Holtz Idea-ology: Tiny Clips, Mini Fasteners, Christmas Velvet Trims, Hinge Clips

Mediums: Matte Collage Medium, Gesso, Rock Candy Distress Glitter, Tonic Nuvo Drops Postbox Red 

Surfaces: Mixed Media Heavystock Card, Metallic 3 Kraft Stash, Kraft Card, White Heavystock

Glass Media Mat

Deckle Trimmer

Detail Waterbrush

Sizzix Big Shot

Paint Brush

Heat Gun