4 Calling Birds, 3 French Hens.......

Love love love the Graphic 45 12 Days of Christmas range - can you tell ??? 

I made the 4 Christmas cards below basically from the same piece of patterned paper - of course extra pp was used for the mounts/background papers.

Graphic 45 - Nutcracker Sweet Arches

I had so much fun making these Arches with the Nutcracker Sweet papers...unfortunately my stash of these papers is nearly finished, but they have been a lot of fun to work with!  As always my original plan for these arches was totally different.  In fact I've been planning different projects for over a year using these and finally I've made something...or several somethings. Several hanging ornaments.  :)

 

Rosette Christmas Tree

If you are like me and love anything Tim Holtz or Ranger then you will love this stacked rosette Christmas tree! Now if you don't own the TH alterations paper rosette dies you can get the same result using a scoreboard and cutting your rosettes into staggering width sizes.

Depending on the number of rosettes you make will determine the size of your Christmas Tree. My little tree is 6 inches high.

For this project you will need: TH Paper Rosette and mini Rosette (2 sizes), two sheets of Kaisercraft St Nick - Tis The Season Collection, some discarded cardboard backing (I used some from my Prima blossoms packaging) for the trunk, multi medium (or fake snow), Sticles Icicle, TH tinsel twine and hot glue gun or strong glue.

Stacked Rosette Christmas Tree

Christmas Cards & Tags with Shell - Part 2

Hello,

I have more Christmas cards to show you using the leftover Papers from the Advent Calendar.  I have used basically four colours to create these cards - Red, White, Green and Black.... I also added a hint of Silver for sparkle!

 

These cards were all quick and easy to make.  The background Papers are from Echo Park's Tis the Season 6x6 Paper Pad.

 

I used a Red Card Base and I mounted the background paper onto white cardstock. The Wreath and Bow are cut from a Tim Holtz Alterations Movers and Shapers Die - Mini Wreath and Bow.  I used green card stock for the Wreath and the Bow is cut using the same red cardstock as the base.  For this card I used a Sizzix  Numbers Die - Wild About Scrap sells a Tim Holtz Alterations Movers and Shapers Die - Mini Reindeer and 25 Set which would probably have worked better as the Numbers on this Die are slightly smaller.  I applied Rhinestones to the corners of the card and to the Wreath to look like Berries.

 

This Card has a square Red card base, before I added the background paper to the front of the card I ran a length of narrow silver ribbon down the sides and across the top and bottom to frame my card.  Large Red rhinestones in the corners and I used the same Die as on the above card - but once again you could use the Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers Mini Reindeer and 25 Set.  I applied Glossy Accents to the Numbers.

 

I used a Red card base and a wide strip of white, I then chose the Black background paper from the Paper Pad.  I attached a narrow silver Ribbon across the join in the papers and I attached a length of the May Arts - Holly Leaves Green Ribbon across under the silver ribbon.  Note how I twisted the Holly Ribbon so that all of the leaves faced downwards.  Red Rhinestones and a Merry Christmas inked in black finished this card.

 

Products used:

• Echo Park 6x6 Paper Pad - Tis The Season
• May Arts - Holly Leaves Green Ribbon
• Tim Holtz Alterations Movers and Shapers Die - Mini Wreath and Bow
• Glossy Accents
• Red, White and Green Cardstock
• Red Rhinestones
• Silver Ribbon
• Sizzix Numbers Die (See above for alternative)
• Black Ink and Christmas wording stamp

All products or alternatives are available from Wild About Scrap!

 

Thanks for looking, See you again soon

Shell

xox

   

Christmas Ornament

It's always nice to have a beautiful decorated Christmas Tress but there is something special when it is decorated with special handmade ornaments don't you think. My tree has lots of these handmade ornaments from the kids when they were in kindy and pre primary (they lose interest once they get older). Some are dough shaped ornaments and many are paper festivity ornaments, my favourite is their gorgeous little felt stockings stitched with their own little hands. Here I am going to show you an easy yet very effective and pretty ornament using your left over scrap papers :)

You will need a clear plastic ball ornament from a craft store or one of the dollar stores. I got mine from Spotlight. Some strips of paper. A little ribbon. You can add embellishments if you wish.

1. Cut strips of patterned Christmas paper (sheet music also works well) into strips of different widths. Mine were between 1/2″ and 3/4″. I used Kaisercraft Christmas Spirit - Jolly and Home For Christmas - Egg nog.

2. Curl your paper strips around a thin paint brush handle or pencil, try to hold the paper tight when you get to the end so you get a good curl.

3. Place the curls into your ornament, note the curls will uncurl a little when they are put inside. Continue adding until full.

4. Tie a ribbon in a bow in the loop at the top of your ornament. Add bakers twine or glitter string so you can hang on your tree.

Hope I have inspired you to create your own little bit of 'Christmas sparkle', you might like to head on over to Wild About Scrap store and grab some Christmas goodness and start creating!

Sue
xx

More Christmas Ornaments

Handmade ornaments are so easy and add a really nice touch to your Christmas Tree. These paper ornaments are so quick and easy you could even get the kids to help your or make their own. Again a great creative way to use up your scraps, I used the scrapbook paper leftovers from my previous ornament!

Paper Christmas Ornaments

Christmas Cards & Tags with Shell - Part 1

Hi there,

I have been creating Christmas cards and tags using some of the leftover products from making the Advent Calendar. 

In the Kaisercraft Wood Flourishes Pack  - Peace, there are 4 wooden embellishments - I used the word Peace on the Advent Calendar and here are the cards using the other 3 embellishments...

 

I had plenty of paper leftover from the Echo Park Tis the Season 6x6 paper pad - so I have used this paper for the background on all three cards.

 

The word Hope is coloured black with an inkpad and then I applied Glossy Accents to give it a shiny finish.  I mounted the Echo Park Paper onto Red Cardstock and then attached to a White card base.  Black Rhinestones attached to all 4 corners completed the card. (Note how I placed the word Hope so that the letter O is over Santa's Face hehe cute huh!)

 

I coloured the Holly Leaves with a Dark Green Marker and the Berries with a Red Marker. I then applied Ranger Stickles Patina to the Leaves and Ranger Stickles Fruit Punch to the Berries. The words are from a Stampin' Up set and I black embossed these.  With a Black Marker I drew a frame near the edges of the card to create a Border.  I then attached it to a Red Card Base and placed Red and Green Rhinestones to finish.

 

I used Distress Paint - Tarnished Brass to colour the Leaves on this Holly and Adirondack Paint Dabber - Red Pepper to colour the Berries.   I then applied Glossy Accents and Glitter to the Berries.  The word is from a Stampin' Up set and I black embossed this one also.  Added faux stitching with a black marker around the border of the card and added rhinestones in the top corner. For this card I chose a White Card Base.

 

I applied all of the Wood flourishes to the card fronts with a craft glue - very easy.

 

The products used are: 

• Kaisercraft Wood Flourishes - Peace
• Echo Park 6x6 Paper Pad - Tis the Season
• Glossy Accents
• Adirondack Paint Dabber - Red Pepper
• Distress Paint - Tarnished Brass 
• Red and White Cardstock for the mounting and card bases
• Black, Red and Green Rhinestones
• Markers - Black, Red and Green
• Glitter
• Black Embossing Powder
• Embossing Ink
• Christmas word stamps
• Ranger Stickles 

(Note: all of these products are available from Wild About Scrap - in similar brands/colours)

 

Back soon with more cards to show you.

Shell

xox

 

 

Graphic 45 - The Twelve Days of Christmas

My December kit arrived and I couldn't wait to get stuck into creating with all the gorgeous Christmas items that were inside the parcel.  It took a few nights to complete, but here is my Twelve Days of Christmas Advent Calendar

I have been meaning to make up the Kaiser Advent Calendar kit for some time now and when all the Christmas stuff arrived from Veronica I finally achieved just that !!

Products used for this project from Wild About Scrap Store

Tim Holtz idea-Ology- Woodlands Ornaments
Graphic 45 Patterned Paper- The Twelve Days of Christmas Range - The Twelve Days of Christmas
Graphic 45 Patterned Paper- The Twelve Days of Christmas Range - Joyeux Noel
Graphic 45 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Range - Banners
Webster's - A Christmas Story - Nutcrackers
Kaisercraft rhinestones silver

Other products and tools used

Kaiser Wooden Advent Calender Kit
Christmas red base coat paint
Copic markers - yellow red green
adhesive pearls
gold stars
string
gold beads
red ink
black pen
Glimmer mist - Forest Green
Punches - scalloped square and scalloped circle

Here is how it all came together


1. I painted all the wooden pieces in the advent calendar kit - DON'T paint the tabs or they will swell and not fit into the slots :)

2. The advent calendar was put together with a wooden mallet. I used a piece of thin wood between the painted pieces and the mallet so as not to damage the painted wooden pieces.

3. I punched out scalloped squares using a punch - approx. the same size as the drawer fronts, from the patterned papers - Graphic 45 Patterned Paper- The Twelve Days of Christmas Range - Joyeux Noel, Webster's - A Christmas Story - Nutcrackers . Then I traced the half circle from the drawers onto the patterned paper squares and used a scalloped circle punch to punch out the half circle.

4. The squares were then glued to the drawer fronts . The drawers were glued together and then when dry were inked with a red ink pad. 

5. Next I added the little gold number stickers to the drawers( the numbers that came with the kit were too big for the intricate design of the paper) and I outlined the numbers in black pen.

6. I cut the Graphic 45 Patterned Paper- The Twelve Days of Christmas Range - The Twelve Days of Christmas to fit in the middle of the calendar frame and adhered it to the frame.

7. The pearl strips were coloured with a yellow Copic marker ( I only buy white pearls and silver rhinestones now as Copics colour them any colour I need) and adhered to the frame sides. 

8. The Tim Holtz idea-Ology- Woodlands Ornaments trees were sprayed with the Forest Green Glimmer mist and had red, green, ( Copic coloured again) and silver rhinestones added to them along with a golden star at the top. I then used glue dots to attach the trees to the calendar.









9. I made the banner at the top using string, some flags and banner bits from the Graphic 45 - The Twelve Days of Christmas Range - Banners and added some golden beads in between. 

And there you have it all done - now just needs to have some goodies added to the drawers - already have to open 12 - nice !!!

I am in love with this Graphic 45 range and intend to whip up a LO and some cards or more off the page things .

Drop into the store to order your Christmas products - especially Graphic 45 The Twelve Days of Christmas range - before I buy them all - heh heh !!!

Sharon xxxxx

 

June - A Year in Time

Living on acreage we have a number of animals which we all dearly love so imagine my surprise one chilly June morning when I went outside to see to the dogs and found this tiny little fur ball curled up with my son's pup. She is the most adorable little kitten, grey in colour and so soft and fluffy with loads of character. She had a collar on and apart from looking cold, hungry and a few fleas she was in good health. Thinking she must belong to someone, how could anyone dump a helpless little kitten so the kids did the door knock around the neighbourhood and although everyone said she was cute and would take her no one actually owned her. We put up notices, took her to the vet to check for microchipping and placed a photo on 'Lost and Found - Pets of Perth' Facebook page still nothing so the kids jokingly tell me she has adopted us!! and she has lol she has settled in so well, playing with (almost terrorising!) the other animals who quite happily like to sleep and laze about! Don't know that they are too happy having such an energetic ball of fluff around but she is here to stay :) So our fur family has grown by one and the kids named her Shadow :)

Step 1:
Take G45 Foundation June Page and rough, buff, scrape, sand and distress as little or as much as you want! Not just the edges, try lightly sanding all over. Love this part of being creative :)

Step 2:
Scrap, brush, splash and splatter contrasting paint all over, remembering there are no mistakes! It all adds texture and character to your work! I used White & Salmon Dabber from Adirondak and Ranger No #15 Weather Vane.

Step 3:
Using MS Punch Gothic Arches punch a strip of Grey Bazill and layer under the distress edges so just a small amount shows through.

Step 4:
Lay two doilies and overlap with Postcard, small picture embellishment and tag cut from the June cut-aparts once edges are inked, some hessian, gauze and a little piece tulle before laying a 5x3 photo on top.

Step 5:
Finish off with a small cluster of flowers on lower right corner. I made the paper rose using TH die cut from an old book pages, the little buds were made from punch art vinca's, all flowers were inked with TH dried Marigold distress ink and ligthly spritzing with TA Chalkboard glimmermist Apricot Nectar. Place some Prima Swirls, then add some twine shaped into a circle to bring out the focal point of the photo.

Step 6:
lastly I added a pennant banner which has been machine stitched and held together with bakers twine. In the top left I placed a Vintage Chipboard button and used waxyflax which has been curled.

Thank you so much for dropping by!

Please go visit Wild About Scrap store and check out the great new design and all the wonderful products waiting for you :)

Sue
xx

Christmas, Christmas and more Christmas

Ho, Ho, Ho, It's nearly time for Christmas - you still have enough time to Create Christmas Happiness with your Cards, tags, albums etc etc!

Hello wonderful Christmas crafty creators,

I just wanted to show you a small snippet of some of the ranges of fantastic Christmas Products we have available in the Store at the moment ...                                         

We have chipboard shapes....

                                                                                                        

 Many Dies....

 

Large and small, natural and coloured,  Woodland trees for your advent calendars or Christmas Scenes ...

 

Flowers, Brads, DieCuts, Ribbons in lots of fabulous Christmas Colours...

 



 

This is only an example of the wide range of papers pads we have in store, we also have many brands of Christmas papers sold singularly ...

 

We also have Advent Calendars and inserts, many ink colours, paints and sprays/mists, paper mache stars, angels, zutter products to create your own mini albums and the list goes on...

 

Hope to see you in the Store soon

Shell

xox

A Year In Time - June

 

In June 2012 we adopted Lucy and she is a real honey of a cat.  So naturally I chose her cute photo to be the centre piece for my June page!

 

Products Used From the Wild About Scrap store

 

• Graphic 45  Place In Time 8x8 pad -June foundation page, Postcard and floral pp from June Cut a part page 
• Graphic Place In Time Alphabet Stickers sheet- letters for word 'new'
• Graphic Place In Time Stickers sheet - Place in Time tab
• Core'dinations 6x6 paper pad Vintage- punched  ribbon slots at the top and a border at the bottom of card

 

Other Stash items used

• cream and gold ribbon
• ribbon slot punch
• border punch
• flowers
• gold trinket
• black letters
• black pearls

 

Hard to believe we are more than half way through the year and half way through our A Year In time album .... 6 pages to go .. having such fun !!!

 

Sharon xx

 

 

 

Paper Mache - Star Ornaments

I've been busy the last  few days making these cute little star ornaments from Darice.  They're something that I put aside from last Christmas to make this year.  I seriously thought these would be extremely fiddly and difficult to decorate, but they couldn't be easier!  You can make them as simply or elaborately as you like and they will still look great on the tree.... :) 

I made mine in 4 different styles, but using the same paper collection.  I did this as I was keen to try out different techniques.  However for a consistent look for your tree you'd be best to select a "look"  that you want and stick with it.  However I love all of mine!
 

 
Materials used:

• Darice Paper Mache Star Ornaments - 2x2" and 2x3" (total of 4 Stars)
• Fancy Pants - Home For Christmas 6"x6" Paper Pad
• Craft Glue - general purpose craft glue
• Tim Holtz idea-Ology - Paper String
• Glimmer Mist - Pearl
• Glimmer Glam - Tinsel Town
• Clearsnap - Fairy Dusty - Pralines & Cream
• Tsukineko Glue Pad
• Clearsnap Top Boss Embossing Powder -  Verdigris
• Ranger Embossing Pad
• Want 2 Scrap - Rhinestones Clear
• Ribbon strips
• Bells
• Ranger Adirondack Paint Dabbers - Lettuce & Espresso (optional)

Step 1 (optional) - I painted the stars - front and back - with Adirondack Paint Dabbers - I wasn't sure when I began whether I was going to cover the entire ornament with paper or if maybe some parts would still be visible.  They did look good painted so could be left that way.

Step 2 - cover with pattern paper.  This was done one side of the star at a time, leaving time for the glue to dry between sides.  First paint the star with a general purpose craft glue....I have used a bit too much in the picture below. :) 

Place the star on the paper so that the point  in the centre is the only part touching the paper.  Keep star balanced with one hand and with the other, gently, but firmly, smooth the paper onto the star.  Starting from centre point and moving to the outside edges, run your finger along the ridge and in the groves smoothing the paper and any wrinkles.  You will need to hold the star and keep smoothing until it adheres to the ornament.

To help keep the shape while the glue dries and help stop the paper from lifting off, squeeze the corners of the each of the points making creases - you can see the creases running through the paper in the photo above.

Once dried completely, trim as close as possible to the ornament and repeat for the other side.  Sanding of the edges may also be necessary.

Step 3 - Before gluing the second side of paper, I also added loops of ribbon in place of the gold string which I personally don't like the look of.  I made the loops much longer than the originals as I find the strings are never long enough when attaching to the tree!

Step 4 - I  wasn't happy with the naked look of the edges.  To fix this I used paper string glued to the edges.  Other ideas could be Washi Tape run around the edges or narrow ribbon. 

  
The paper string was surprisingly easy to adhere.  I first painted the edges of the Star with craft glue and then starting at the midpoint of the bottom of the star, I ran the paper string along the edge, pressing firmly into place as I went. 

Step 5 - Now comes the fun part of decorating the star!  Seriously though, the stars are now ready to hang and you could leave them as is....but if you want to have some fun keep reading...

 

Star 1 - sprayed with Glimmer Mist Pearl and decorated with clear rhinestones.  Two bells were tied together paper string and glued to the centre as a finishing touch.

 

Star 2 - Using the Tsukineko  Glue Pad Refill I let the glue run down from centre of the star and ridges and then sprinkled Fairy Dusty over the top....be a bit careful as Fairy Dust is very fine glitter and gets everywhere including your eyes.  To finish off a piece of paper string was tied diagonally across and a bell attached.  The ends of the paper string were curled around the end of a paintbrush to give the curls.



Star 3 - I ran the embossing pad along the ridges of the star pressing lightly.  Then sprinkled with the Verdigris embossing powder and set with my heat gun.  Another strip of paper string, ends curled, and a bell finish this star.

Star 4 - was painted  with Glimmer Glam Tinsel Town.  I tried for a roughly painted look, but the Glimmer Glam ran down the star too well and I ended up with fairly even coverage.  I really liked the look of this star without ornament so only added a simple bell to the hanger.

The back sides of all the stars were painted with Glimmer Mist Pearl to give a nice sheen!

I hope I've given you some inspiration for making your own ornaments.  These really couldn't have been easier to make and so much nicer than buying from the store!  Wouldn't it be nice to make one for every member of your family?  Maybe add the initial of their name or a small photo????




Happy creating everyone!
Veronica
xx

Dusty Attic - Advent Calendar

Wow, what an amazing product to work with!!  I have used Dusty Attic's Chipboards before but had never used any of their other products such as the Advent Calendar.  Everything slotted perfectly into place which made gluing it together so easy - loved it!