Vintage Christmas

I've had a very productive day today. I made two projects for my commitment to Tim Holtz as a member of his design team and I would like to share the Christmas one with you....you'll have to wait until next week to see the second one.........I know that's mean but this post is photo heavy and it has taken for ever and a day to get the photos uploaded. I always load the pictures first and then fill in the text as that clicking and dragging lark drives me round the hat rack!!!!

So here it is in all it's glory......a vintage stlye christmassy, hinged decoration that I'm thinking will sit nicely on my mantle this year.

I'm starting with a few close upshots and then I'll take you through the making of some of the elements.

Tim's facets and baubles are just perfect for the feel of this project.

The carved ornament die was a tad large for this project so I cut them from shrink plastic and after shrinking, they were the perfect fit.

It wouldn't be one of my projects if it didn't have metal on it somewhere, so I made a ticket from gold nugget metal.

I was determined to hinge these two frames together and everything I had ready made was way too big, so I had to improvise and make my own....I'm quite pleased with the results!!

Oh, and I'm still in love with tissue tape, so it found it's way on to this project......I use it on everything at the moment!

Okay, here we go with a few simple step outs of some of the elements. This red paper was taken from Tim's 12x12 pad of Seasonal papers. I popped them through my Big Shot using the Music Texture Fade and the Tall Pines one. Then I sanded the high points of the embossed design.

I added a touch of Peeled Paint Distress Ink for a more Christmassy feel and put them to one side until I had prepared my frames.

I painted the frames with Bottle Green paint dabbers and added some Tidings Tissue Tape.

The Tissue Tape was far too white for this project, so I knocked it back with some more of the paint dabber and blended it in with a wet finger.

I used Ranger's Matt Medium to stick my papers in place.

A touch of Gold Paint Dabber was just perfect for that aged look.

Now for those pesky hinges.......well actually, not really so pesky now that I figured out how to make the perfect size hinge using the much larger hinge from Tim's Hardware Findings die.

I simply cut off the end part, drew around it on some Grungepaper, flipped it over for it's mirror image and drew around it again. Not so easy to do when your pen is running out but as I was going to paint over it, it didn't really matter!!!!

At this point, I also cut a couple of pieces of Grungepaper using the Mini Ornamental die and trimmed off the bottom......these were to become my drapes.

Then I used a technique that Tim taught me at Ranger U........you use a Paint Dabber in a pounding motion and it creates an amazing textured paint effect.

I used a touch of black Archival ink to make the gold paint look a tad more tarnished.

Very cool look.....don't you think?????

Now for the shrink plastic baubles....I had forgotten how much I love shrink plastic.

Alcohol inks are amazing on shrink plastic.....I used Cranberry, Oregano and Gold.

A little bit goes a long way......bear in mind that the colour will become more intense when shrunk.

After they had cooled down, I used Archival ink to stamp the images.

A touch of Gold Paint Dabber transformed this lock from the Locket and Keys set of Ideaology
Well, I hope this inspires you to make your own Christmas decorations.

Lin