Noel

 Have been wanting to make one of these signs for a long time. I purchased a 1x8x10 that was on the clearance rack and had them cut it down to 6'.  Then I sanded down the edges to deter any stickers. I wanted it to be a soft muted blue color so I used white acrylic paint and added some military blue to it and also some black.  I painted both sides and then kinda slapped the paintbrush around to give it some texture.

Then I printed out the letters on my printer at like a size of 770. Then I went around the outline on the back with a dark lead pencil.  I placed each one on the board about 1 1/2 inches apart and outlined each letter. I then painted each one with just white paint.  When dry I outlined each letter with a fine black marker.

 Then I tore apart an old wreath I had in my stash.  I hot glued some of the branches to the top and sides above the 'N'.  I added a good sized red bow and a gold bell that was tied with another little red bow.  I hot glued them on as well.  The I added another little patch of branches as the bottom below the 'L' and added another gold bell.

 Then I found a few small pinecones laying around my house and thought they added that last little touch it needed.

So cute....................for the first one.  There are a few things I would do different but those will have to wait for next time.

Hope you are having a great holiday season!
Hugs,
~Jody

Christmas Cards

Hi All,

Just wanted to show you another take on Tim's December tag.  I actually used his inspiration for my Christmas cards this year with a little twist.  I used his lamppost die for my center piece instead of the wreath and I used some rusted metal snowflakes instead of the star.  Well I started with some rusted metal snowflakes but realized early on that I didn't have enough so I duplicated them with some grungepaper and some brown paint with a little dry glitter thrown in or actually on, literally.  They turned out good.

I cut the 'believe' from his script holiday words in red and then sprayed them with heirloom gold

The yellow light in the lamp post, I used some plastic packaging and covered it with some sunshine alcohol ink

So do you think the snowflakes look like they are metal?

  I covered the back of the tag with some darker tan and stamped Merry Christmas on them with a couple of smaller snowflakes and signed them.  Got them in the mail just this past Monday.  Good thing too because we had a pretty good snow storm here on Tuesday.  About 6-7" I think they said. 

Hope you are having a joyous crafting holiday season.
Hug,
~Jody

Winter Wonderland...............................better late than never

Before I begin, I would just like to say Happy Birthday to my little sister, Kelly.  She would have been 54 years old today.  She has been our guardian Angel for 34 years now. Love and miss her so much.

A few years ago, or maybe it was just last year, Tim posted an inspiration piece from one of his media team members named Emma Williams. She called it Winter Wonderland.  Well, I just got mine done.  I loved how she made the sleigh 3D and the jingle bells vintage looking.  I actually just fell in love with the whole thing and decided to make my own.

I went to Michael's and got a platform for it and so it began.  I covered it with gesso, texture paste and distress glitter to get the snowy effect.  I made up the sleigh and the 'reindeer' and got them all painted.  Then I tried to put it all together one day and realized my platform was much longer than the one Emma used.  It must have thrown me off quite a bit because I stalled out, right there, lol.  It sat on my buffet all year.  I just kept looking at it, and looking at it, every time I walked by.  It finally donned on me that I just needed to add some extra trees, like more than she had on hers.  But by then, Christmas was had long past and the passion for it had left me.

When I was putting out this year's Christmas decorations, I had to move the little platform with falling down reindeer and sleigh to another place.  Well it ended up being put IN the buffet for safe keeping.  I got all the decorations done and then one day it popped in my head that I should finish that little Winter Wonderland.  So I salvaged it from the depths of the old buffet and took it into my craft room.  I mussed and fussed with it, for most of the day, finding little trinkets and bells and things that I could decorate it with. And it is finally done, over a year later, lol.  See what you think.

The trees I used were from my little Christmas Village.  I didn't end up putting it up this year so I borrowed it's trees.

I had some little blue stars left over from a 4th of July project so I added them to my sleigh. They kinda matched the word 'JOY' since it was done in blue too.

The little snowman was from one of my tea party invitations or menu cards from years past.  It is made out of shrink plastic with one of Tim's old snowman dies.  He had a swirl of blue on him so I added him to the scene as well.

I am so pleased with how it turned out.  Glad I waited for the inspiration to return and I'm glad too that it did return.  Loved the old world feel to it.  Hope you like it too.
Hugs,
~Jody

Baby Mason Jars

Tim had a really good idea on his blog yesterday, using his little baby mason jars for filling with goodies and giving for gifts. I just happen to have some homemade peanut butter fudge sitting on my counter and was scheduled to have lunch with a girlfriend today. So in the spirit of Christmas, I ran over to Hobby Lobby to see if I could get some of the baby mason jars.  SCORE...............they had four or five packages. Armed with my weekly coupon I purchased one package and quickly ran home to wash them out and fill one with said fudge.

I then plugged in the hot glue gun and proceeded to glue a piece of burlap to the top of the lid.  I inked the edges with walnut stain first and then glued it down in a few places around the lid.  Then I strung a little gold bell on a red ribbon and tied it around the burlap with a bow.  I inserted a wreath branch in behind the bell.

I added one of my little gift tags  and tied the little gold thread around the whole thing. 

As I was headed out the door to go to lunch, I remembered to take a photo.  It's not a real good one but you can get the idea. It was quaint and cute and well received!  What a great idea!!
Hugs,
~Jody

12 Tags Dec 2015

Wow, it's been a long time since I've done a tag from Tim's blog.  I was especially drawn to the burlap background.  He does such amazing work, I love trying to replicate his projects.

I had some burlap on hand but most of the other stuff I had to duplicate another way.

The scroll stencil I didn't have so I used the negative piece of his Elegant Flourishes die that I had in my stencil box.

The paper punches I didn't have but I did have the Festive Greenery die so I cut the branches out one at a time, that took a long time, lol.  I believe they are somewhat larger than the punches but I made them work.

I didn't have the bow tie die either so I free handed it, lol. It turned out pretty good, good enough anyway.

I didn't have the jingle brads but I did have little bronze and gold jingle bells.  The bronze ones I used just like they were and the gold ones I covered in silver mixative.  It helped tone down the gold a bit, it worked.

I used an old stencil brush with some white acrylic paint to make snow splatter and.........................

the words I had to print off the computer.  In order to make the background black, just use the excel spreadsheet and type out the words like you want them.  I used to have a font that looked alot like some of his stuff but it crashed with my last computer so alas I had to use a different font.  I will find the other one again though and reload on my new computer again.  Anyway, you just have to make the background black in the cells where you typed your words and it will print that way.  Pretty cool huh!

I didn't care for the sewing on the card so I decided to forego that, besides my sewing machine is covered with other things right now and the thread would not have matched.

I didn't have the mirrored stars either but I did have some clear pearly ones which I covered with mushroom alcohol ink.  It turned out well.

Tim didn't say what he colored the seam binding with at the top of the tag so I used some walnut spray stain on mine and added it.

Love how it turned out.  I love the vintage rustic look of it.

Thanks for checking it out!
Hugs,
~Jody