A Very Vintage Christmas Ornament

Hi everyone!  Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you all are enjoying your holiday and time with family and friends. Barbara here with a pretty quick and easy Christmas ornament using a recycled tuna can and some Gina's Designs Lasercuts chippies to make it extra special. Dont forget, we will be changing our name to Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts December 1!

Cut away Santa's sleigh and one reindeer from the border. Save remaining border for another project.

Use Intense blocks and water brush to color Santa, his sleigh, and reindeer.

Add glitter glue to the sleigh and reindeer antlers and nose. Use silver pearl pen to add a metallic look to the bottom of the sleigh.  Set aside to dry.

Cut two circles, one larger than the printed circle, to fit inside the tuna can.

Adhere the two circles together and glue to the inside bottom of the can.

Add a bit of snowflake paste to the bottom of the can, just beneath the printed scene.

Coat bottom and part of sides with white gesso to prepare it to accept paint.  Use an awl to punch a hole in the top of the can to insert a dyed to match piece of ribbon for hanging.  (See photo of finished ornament above).

Mix the Radiant Gels together with some clear glaze medium, paint bottom and sides of can.  Paint smallest circle from the Fanciful Elements set with the same color mixture. as well as two small snowflakes.  Splatter white paint over the back of the can and the circular frame.

Distress the edges of the circular frame and snowflakes with the brown ink pad.  Stack the two snowflakes and add a small metal embellishment and diamond gem to the center of the snowflake.

 

Paint the lace border with white gesso and while wet, sprinkle stardust glitter over it.  

Cut a coordinating strip of paper from the Christmas paper collection and glue around side of can.   Adhere the lace border around the sides, aligning it with the upper lip of the can.

Run of line of glue around top lip of can and adhere the circular frame.  Then adhere Santa's sleigh and reindeer, above the scene inside the can.

 A few closeups.

Supplies used:

Gina's Designs:  Snowflake Shape Set

 Santa's Sleigh Border

 Lace Border Sticks

 Fanciful Elements

Water Color blocks

Waterbrush

ColourArte Radiant Gels: Twilight, Guatemalan Green

ColourArte Primary Elements Clear Glaze Medium

white gesso

Circle dies

Brown ink pad

Stardust glitter

Snowflake Paste

I hope you enjoyed this sweet Christmas ornament and that inspiration strikes you to try making one, or two, or three, for your own tree, or gift giving.  You could also attach it to a gift package for an extra gift.  Be sure to visit Gina's Designs for more laser cut chipboard to inspire you.

Thanks for stopping by, and once again, have a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving!

Barbara

Vintage Style Christmas Triptych

Hello everyone!  I hope you are all enjoying your week.  Barbara here with a pretty little vintage style Christmas Triptych.  Triptychs are just about my most favorite projects to make.  When I saw this beautiful laser cut triptych from Gina's Designs Lasercuts (soon to be Gypsy Soul Lasercuts, effective 1 December), I knew just what I wanted to do with it.  Don't you just love when that happens?

Front

Back

The triptych has six pieces, as shown; three solid bases and three decorative frames. Look closely as there are subtle differences, so be careful to take note when putting it together. Paint the three decorative frames with Emperor's Gold using a sponge dauber.

You can see in this closeup how closely this resembles gold leaf.

Next, brush a coat of Crackle Paste White over the frames, being careful not to cover the intricate laser cuts.  Set aside to dry and crack.

Brush a light coat of Interference Gold mixed with Primary Elements Ancient Coin powdered pigment over the cracks to give it that aged, shabby chic look.

In the closeup, you can see how transparent the color is, allowing the white to show through a bit.

Cover the three base pieces with the Graphic 45 Christmas papers on the front.

Cut strips of Tyvek from used postal envelopes to make hinges.  (TIP: I like using Tyvek because it is not only strong, but it is also very thin and practically unnoticeable when placed beneath paper.)  Measure about 1-¼" up from the bottom and glue the Tyvek pieces between backing pieces, leaving about ⅛" to 1/4" space between the backs.

Cut three consecutive pieces of Graphic 45 Christmas paper to cover the backs.  I was a bit more precise cutting these pieces out as I will not be able to cut away where my hinges are.

Paint the hinges with black paint to match the background paper on the back, and Emperor's Gold on the front to match the frame pieces.

Adhere the paper to the backing pieces

Trim away the excess paper from the tops.

 Adhere the decorative frame sections to the front sides of the backing pieces.

I used three framed prints from the Graphic 45 Christmas Past papers die cut sheet.  I backed them with black chipboard for strength and for dimension.  Each print was edged with brown and black distress inks to define the edges, and then I coated each one with a Clear Crackle Glaze.

 I got a little impatient and thought the crackle glaze was not working, so I added a coat of Crackle Accents over the top.  Much to my surprise, I got this really cool "cracked glass" effect.  That is what I love so much about mixed media ... the experimentation and surprising results.

I colored some German Scrap Holly Berry Leaves with StazOn Cactus Green and Claret, picking up the color from the ink pad with a fantastix brush.

 I colored the branches with StazOn Spiced Chai and the fantastix brush.

 The StazOn goes on transparently, so it allows the shininess of the German Scrap to show through.  I wanted to tone down the shininess, so I added some Olive metallic rub on to the leaves with my finger.  You can see the difference in the photo below, where the leaves on the left are colored with the metallic rub on.

 I glued the framed prints and holly berry leaves to each section, as shown, and began adding embellishments from my hoarded stash.

Front side of Triptych

Here are closeups of each section.

The reverse side of the triptych was decorated with these pre-printed Christmas embellishments from more of my hoarded stash.  The pretty little chipboard snowflake on far left section is from Gina's Designs and was colored with a Krylon gold pen, adding Diamond Stickles for extra glitteriness.

Reverse Side of Triptych

And here, again, are more closeups of these sections.  Here you can see the pretty snowflake from Gina's Designs.

Gina's Designs Supplies Used:

Triptych - Arch Top

Snowflake Shape Set

Other Supplies used:

Graphic 45 Christmas Past Paper Collection

ColourArte Radiant Gels Emperor's Gold

ColourArte Primary Elements Ancient Coin

Crackle Paste White

Interference Gold Acrylic Paint

Stickles: Diamond, Platinum

Krylon gold leaf pen

StazOn Midi ink pads: Claret, Cactus Green, Spiced Chai

Olive Metallic Rub-On

Gold holly berry leaves

Embellishments (my stash)

I hope you enjoyed my Christmas project today and are inspired to check out the fabulous chipboard shapes from Gina's Designs for your Christmas makes.

Barbara

Romantic Cards

Hello everyone!  Barbara here with a couple of mixed media cards to share.  I love working with Gina's Designs Lasercuts chipboard because it is so easy to make beautiful cards.  I have a complete step-by-step tutorial on my blog if you are interested.  Otherwise, here is a quick explanation.

For both cards, I used paper from the same Kaisercraft pad and acrylic paints to color the chipboard.

On the Love card, I colored cut sections from the Swirled Hearts Texture Sheet  with blue, buff, and red acrylic paint and adhered them to the card front, as shown. 

I colored the half Intricate Cardstock Doily with blue, green and buff paint, which I layered onto a scrap circle of corrugated cardboard.  The word Love was colored with red and buff acrylic paint and adhered to a label from the paper pad, along with Rose Leaves that were colored with blue, green and buff acrylic paints.  A butterfly and gem swirls were added, as shown.

For the second card, Lost In You, the same acrylic colors were used as in the first card.  However, a slight change was made when coloring the peacock feather   After adding blue, green and buff paint, I then coated the feather with a mix of interference gold and red.  

Two banner shaped papers were distressed and adhered before layering the half Intricate Cardstock Doily and chipboard pieces Lost in You phrase and peacock feather. Lastly, flowers and a butterfly were added to finish it off.

Gina's Designs Lasercuts supplies used:

Peacock Feathers Shape Set

Texture Sheet Swirled Hearts

Rose Leaves

Cardstock Doily Set - Intricates

Words and Phrases 1

Other supplies used:

Kaisercraft paper pad

Acrylic paints

Paper flowers and butterflies

I hope you enjoyed my cards today and will check out all the wonderful chipboard products at Gina's Designs Lasercuts.  You will also find more inspiration from the design team there.  You won't be disappointed.  

Have a wonderful and creative weekend!

Barbara

Fall Home Decor

Hello chippie fans, and welcome back.  Barbara here, and while I enjoyed my month of October Halloween projects, I am on to Fall, so I decided to do another home decor wall hanging that can be inserted into the frame I've been using for the past several postings.  If you put your project on a sturdy piece of chipboard or mat board that fits snugly in the frame, you can simply remove one and insert another, whatever the season.  How's that for being frugal!  Check out my previous posts and you will see what I mean.

I first adhered the scrapbook paper to a piece of 12"x12" mat board.

Each chipboard piece was painted with acrylic paints in Fall colors. 

The bottom layer of the  FALL banner was painted with Rusty paint, while the top layer was first painted with black, then I spread gold crackle paint over that.  To really age the letters and bring out the cracks even more, I added a wash of black paint and dabbed the excess off with a paper towel.  These were adhered along the top right with foam tape, and berry garland added.

The black bird was painted with black, of course, and details were added to the beak and eye.

The oak leaves and acorns were painted with yellow and brown paint mixtures to give each piece shading and depth.  I stamped the sentiment onto a scrap of manila card stock with black archival ink.  I punched the corners with a ticket punch.  I wanted to match the colors in the paper, so I blended yellow and orange distress inks and edged with a brown ink.

The cider jugs were painted similarly, then given a coat of clear crackle paint.  One jug was lifted with foam tape for dimension.

I cheated a bit and googled apple barrel images and found this one, which I printed off and adhered to my apple barrel chipboard shape.  I cut a slit along the top edge so I could insert my apples, which were painted with yellow and red paint mixture.  The leaves were a mix of light and dark greens, and the stems were painted with brown.

Gina's Designs Supplies Used:

Fall Shape Set

Other Supplies Used:
12x12 Memory Box Blackbird paper
12x12 mat board
Rusty Paper Paint
Gold Crackle Paste
Acrylic Paints
Distress ink pads
Rubber Stamp
Black archival ink pad
Ticket corner punch

I hope you enjoyed my Fall project today.  It was quick and easy, and at this time of year, we really need that. 

Gina's Designs Lasercuts has a fabulous selection of Fall-themed chipboard shapes, so be sure to stop by the online shop for all of your chipboard needs!

Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful week, and Happy Fall ya'll!!!

Barbara