LET IT SNOW!

I really don't like winter and all the snow that comes with it but when I happen to catch a glimpse of an individual snowflake I am instantly in awe of nature and its incredible complexity and beauty. Scroll down a bit if you would like to see how I made my own sparkly snowflake embellishments.

This started out as an idea for a round/snowflake shaped card made for the Caardvarks challenge but when I was finished I liked it so much I decided to use it as a Christmas decoration. I am not sure if it will qualify as a round card but I thought I would try. I used a lot of glittery embossing powder on it so it really catches the light and sparkles IRL. The image is a new stamp fro THE GREETING FARM called MADELYNN.



I used some snowflake stamps to emboss just about everything including Madelynn's scarf.



The snowflake shape is an SVG file I cut out with my cricut, I have to find the source and put it in later as I have forgotten from where it came. The circles were all cut using my Spellbinder Nestabilities. The wonderful swirls are another svg file from Penny Duncan. As you can see I used a ton of pop dots to give it lots of dimension.



Two different large MS snowflake punches and one small one of unknown origin was used to make the emebelishments.

THIS IS HOW I MADE THE SPARKLY SNOWFLAKES.



I used some patterned paper (ignore the snowflakes already punched on the left), Versamark pad, and some sparkly embossing powder.




The Versamark pad was put directly on the paper and stamped all over to get a nice layer.



The versamark layer was then heat embossed with the sparkly embossing powder and was ready to punch.





I did find that although heavy cardstock was ok, lighter paper got a little brittle and the tips of the snowflake broke off. I fixed this by punching a plain paper layer and gluing it on the the back of the embossed layer.

MEET ME UNDER THE MISTLETOE!

Lately, as I have been blurfing, I have seen some wonderful diorama projects such as THIS super cute/cool card by Traci (aka wicked pixie) and THIS gorgeous box by Mel. I love this type of card so I thought I would do one for this weeks FARM FRESH FRIDAY CHALLENGE which is to make one WILD project.

The two little kissin cuties all snug in their tree home waiting for santa (and maybe gettin a little wild themselves before he lands on the roof top) is a digi stamp called MISTLETOE KISS from THE GREETING FARM.

I used my favorite faux wood tutorial found HERE on SCS to make the tree stump which I cut out freehand. I figured how exact do I have to be, its a tree stump! I made the faux wood as directed, added a couple coats of water based varnish for shine and stiffness, let it dry then used my nesties on it for the cutout part. The trees and lights are stickers I found in the dollar bin at Joanns and the snowflake is a couple of MS punches. I didn't have an icicle punch so I used the goo one and just trimmed the globs to points. I ran that and the bottom snow (white CS) through my wizard using my dotted swiss cuttlebug folder and added little shine with my jelly roll clear star pen.

Head on over to THE GREETING FARM BLOG to participate in the challenge, things are gonna get WILD over there!

NEW BLOG DESIGN AND THE HAT TUTORIAL

Pretty obvious that I have changed things up a bit on my blog. The names a little different but the address is still the same. This magnificent background and header was designed by the fabulous Penny Duncan of PENNY DUNCAN CREATIONS. She has the most amazing FREE blog bling, SVG files, digital files and gorgeous art work. She is such a sweet and generous person, I just can't say enough nice things about her so so please go check out her blog.

Now, on to the tut.

This is for the hat card found HERE.



I used my circle punch and the guide that came with it for the base. I traced 3 circles using the outer part of the plastic as a guide, 2 of white card stock (CS) and one of patterned paper(pp). One white circle was left as is for the bottom. The second white circle was punched and I kept both the inner punched part and the outer leftover piece.


I used the inner part of the plastic guide to make a circle of pp and sewed this onto the punched white cs. All edges were sponged with bordering blue su ink. I threw on a spellbinders die for a little extra girlyness.
















This is the leftover piece from the white cs punched part layered on pp. This was attached to the white cs base.







Cut a strip of cs 9in. X 1.5 in. and score along the length at 1/4 on either side.

Then cut notches along the edge of each side and a bone folder was used to bend these edges in toward the center.



Layers of pp and trim were added and the entire thing was looped around and the loose ends attached together.



A circle, 2.5in. in diameter was made using a compass and attached on one side (doesn't matter which one).





Another circle about 3 inch in diameter was made using a compass and the edges were scalloped using a corner punch. You will see coming up that my edges were a little skimpy so you might want to make yours a little bigger say 3 1/4-3 1/2 maybe. Play with it and see what you like.









The whole thing is then attached to the top part of the hat base and the scalloped edges were bent over the sides to cover the cs and make a decorative trim. You can see that mine are a little short so it would probably be better to make your circle just a bit larger than my 3 inch one.







The top is attached to the bottom base with a brad. It was put in the area where the two ends met on the upper part so that the bow would cover everything up nicely.




It swivels apart and is ready for your decoration of choice on the inside.







I used my E6000 glue to attach the bow and flowers because they just didn't want to stay put. That stuff will glue just about anything but I did have to hold it together for a while before it stayed put.

Hope this made sense and if you make on PLEASE let me know so I can admire your work!
Have a great weekend!