2015 Topic 23: Christmas Cards and Gifts

 2015 Topic 23: Christmas Cards and Gifts

Hello everyone, Leandra here for the final topic of the year, but there is no challenge for this as we know you are busy enough, so think of it as eye candy!

Our bloggers will still be blogging for the next 2 weeks with lots of homemade Christmas gift and card ideas to help you in the final push towards the big day!

I have an amazing Christmas Pinterest page for this topic with lots of ideas, more than we are showing here, so take a look when you find that rare 5 minutes!!

Before we start, let's see who won the Topic 22: Masterboards Challenge...

Hi, Darcy here. Well you are all masterboard masters! You lot are a whizz with a brayer and created some luscious backgrounds before turning them into mini marvels such as cards and tags. Great to see so many people joining in right before Christmas, we know how busy you all are. 

The winner of Masterboards is: Jules B. 

Contact Darcy to claim your prize darcydotneedles@hotmail.com

Ok, Leandra back with you to present some fun and hopefully achievable ideas for decorating your home, gift giving and more over the seasonal period.

Christmas can be such a stressful time for us all, planning food, people to stay, budgeting, all these pressures can really take the shine off the day if you don't keep it all in balance.

I try to focus on enjoying the quality time spent with friends and family, and nothing says that more than a thoughtfully prepared gift. 

It might be a crafty make, some home cooking, a jar of sweet treats or a wreath for the door. Whenever you create something with your own hands for someone else, they do seem to appreciate the care and effort you have gone to, just for them.

In this post you will find many such ideas, and often using supplies you probably have to hand.

Candles.... I do love a candle, but the icicle idea is easily done with our frosting glaze, or even metallic or pearl glaze if you want a bit more sparkle - less messy than a load of glitter too!

What about adding a paper-cut scene into the mix? Instructions here. 

Or maybe other glass ideas, these tree decorations are not too much of a challenge, and very pretty

Or perhaps trees on top of glass decorations??

I do love a centerpiece, but i struggle with fitting food and centerpieces on the table at the same time, but here is a nice window ledge idea...

...and perhaps this could fit among the food with less of an issue, plus it is see-through, so you can still talk to the person opposite!

So lets look at tree decorations, I always aim for a colour scheme and go from there, but it often goes awry or gets sabotaged by aquiring must-have decorations! I'm sure you are all the same, even harder when the kids were young and would bring home all kinds of colourful creations made at school that required pride of place on the tree!

Now they are older, it is easier for me to be more restrictive in our colour options, and if you are making your own, even easier to stick to the plan!

But how fun are these simple, yet effective critters made from cones, nuts and more!

This idea we used as a make and take at Ally Pally, lace was glued onto a wooden heart with matte medium, then we base coated with a white paint, and did a patine with French Roast. of course you can use any colours of paint to suit your theme. And we added a tickle of Treasure Gold!

You can buy glass decorations that are designed to be filled. Usually people use glue and glitter, but this version is adorable! Very elegant.

Here is another version of a paper decoration, this time on the outside - perhaps you are changing colour scheme and have some naff baubles to paper over in the loft??

Got some spare letters floating about? how about covering them with Christmas Papers??

I cannot leave felt out of this blog post, i think at Christmas, one of the first crafts I ever did was making angels from felt and calico with twiggy legs, very shabby chic even 20 years ago!

So here are some cute as a button Robins....

And trees. There are som many ways you can take this....Felt trees type 1, simple triangles with buttons - love the base idea!

Trees type 2, the rolled method! Liking the grey a lot!

And tree Type 3, this looks like more work, but aren't they lovely!

This little angel is adorable too - all from a cork!

And these are brilliant twig re-purposing!! Skinny Santas!

or Snowmen

... and Christmas Angels too by Mary Jane Chadbourne. I know lots of you enjoyed Mary's tinytopia class this year, so check out her blog and website here for her class schedule.

This one too...is she a grumpy angel?? Love the attitude! She cracks me up!

So how about some cards?

This is a Squiggly Christmas by Emma Godfrey

Minimalist JoFY by Joanne Wardle...

Eclectica {Lin Brown} stamps made into gorgeous Cards by Wanda...

Liz Borer gets colorful with her own Winter stamps...

Ellen Vargo makes Xmas trees from her flower petal stamps! See them here.

And we all love Anneke's bright and cheery style! with JoFy here...

And again with JoFy baubles here...

And here are some cards from Jo Firth-Young herself using her newest Christmas stamps...

And the cards I made last week from my masterboard video fit this topic perfectly too! Again with Jo's new Christmas stamps...

Ok, as ever, I could go on, don't forget to follow my Christmas pinterest board, you will see plenty more examples there! 

And of course you have 2 weeks of glorious blog posts coming on this topic to enjoy!

I'd just like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas! What an unusual year it has been for the world in oh so many different ways, and we sincerely hope that 2016 is prosperous and fruitful for you all!

From all of us here at PaperArtsy HQ, we wish you peace, love and happy times over the festive season and beyond. We very much enjoy your compnay through all our social media platforms, share with us your seasonal pictures, we'd love to see how you all celebrate the festive season!

Love and goodwill to you all

Mark, Leandra, Emma and (big) munchkins xxx

2015 #22 Let us Read {by Emma Godfrey}

 2015 Topic 22: Masterboards

Hi everyone Leandra here with a sneaky treat for you. Think of it as an early Christmas present!

Emma Godfrey has designed some new stamps which we have released last week to retailers. Perfect for journalling, cards, mixed media and scrap-booking, these stamps are sure to impress!

Emma has been hooked on bright colours, and doing journal pages that 'pop' all year, so she decided to increase the size of her stamps to suit what she is doing right now, and we think they are awesome! We hope you do too, these would make a great stocking filler!

 EEG13

EEG15

So Congratulations Emma, and I'll hand over to Em so she can show you a masterboard idea with these new beauties...

Hi Everyone,  Emma here, joining you this evening with a post about turning a masterboard into bookmarks (a great idea if you want to give a small handmade Christmas present). 

I love masterboards, but I usually cut them up to use on cards, and for this blog post I thought it would be fun to try something different. The only thing you need to remember is that you want to keep your masterboard flat (if you add texture then your laminator might not like you very much!) ... but that doesn't mean you can't have plenty of painty layers!

Step One:
I covered a sheet of A4 Heavy Smoothy with Gesso, then applied Pumpkin Soup, Beach Hut, Eggplant and Bougainvillea Fresco Finish paints with a big wet paint brush. These translucent paints produce lovely bright layers.

You need to be aware you will create new colours where the translucents meet each other...for example, where Pumpkin crosses Beach Hut you will get green, Beach Hut and Bougainvillea will create a plum purple, and you get a blue purple where the Eggplant and Beach Hut mix.

Step Two: Cover the A4 sheet with some Snowflake Fresco Finish mixed with a little bit of water. Make the paint thinner and thicker in some areas - you want it to look messy.

Step Three: Now to start stamping and stenciling. I randomly stamped the large circle from my brand new set EEG15 ...

in Archival Ink Aquamarine 

and MN18...

in Archival Ink Deep Purple. 

I then stenciled Archival Ink Magenta Hue

through The Crafters Workshop Mini Circle Grid stencil ...

and Archival Ink Jet Black...

through The Crafters Workshop Mini Believe Script...

and this is how it ends up once all of that was done!

Step Four: More layers ... I stenciled through The Crafters Workshop Mini Chevron Arrows

and stamped the paintbrush strokes from EEG15 using Snowflake Fresco Finish. 

I stamped MN72...

... in Archival Ink Jet Black, and added some lines with the edge of a credit card using a mixture of Pumpkin Soup and Haystack Fresco Finish (Pumpkin Soup is a translucent paint, so adding Haystack makes it more opaque without losing the colour).

Step Five: I stamped the spiky dots from EEG15 using Archival Ink Jet Black, and coloured the centers in with a White Sharpie Extra Fine Paint pen.  I then put some Snowflake Fresco Finish into a small bottle with a micro nozzle and drew squiggly circles and some swirly lines with it. (I love how the lines came out with a stitching texture ... I didn't want to take a chance that I'd get a big blob of paint, so I wasn't squeezing the bottle very hard).

Step Six: Once everything was dry, I cut the sheet into seven strips - each 4.2cm wide. and then cut the strips down to 15cm (choosing the area I liked best from each strip). 

I'd printed some quotes earlier onto some white paper, which I cut up and stuck on, before outlining them with a black pen. To add a bit of sparkle I used a Tombow glue stick to add some...

...Foil Transfer Sheets

 (also available in blues) to the edges.

Step Seven: I laminated the bookmarks (leaving plenty of room at the top of each one). I trimmed around each one leaving a small border on three sides and an extra 3/4 inch piece at the top. I rounded the top corners and set an eyelet in each one. To finish I just added some string through the eyelet.

Here's a close up of my favourite...

And all seven finished...

I was so pleased with how these came out ... except for one thing. On turning them over to admire my handy work I realised all my bookmarks had very messy backs! Next time I make some, I will try to remember to either paint, or cover, the back of each one.

I hope you enjoyed this project ... and that it's inspired you to have a go. If you want to see more of my ideas, you can find me on my blog, facebook and twitter.

Wow, not only functional, but very pretty too! These are awesome to pop in with Christmas cards as a cute gift too. That foil on the upper and lower edges looks amazing! ~Leandra

We would love you to join in with challenge #22: Masterboards If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Masterboards link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Dec 6th winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

2015 #22 Counting Down to Christmas {By Bracken Sparkes}

2015 Topic 22: Masterboards

Hi guys, Bracken here again. This time showing you what I can do using masterboards. I really enjoy using masterboards in my work because there's so much you can do with them...and it's fun to play about intertwining stamps. December is my favourite month as Christmas makes me spin round the ceiling with excitement and it's my birthday sooo...yeah!..This gave me more drive to making this project full of fun and FOOD!

Print all required stamps around the page using no specific order what so ever. stamp in Jet Black Archial ink in first and second generation stamping.

The main stamps I used were those from EDY 16 but did use some of JOFY's (JM 07, an ivy leaf from JM 28, stars fromJOFY 18, and the little flurry of stars and dots from JOFY 19.)

Now for the fun part, and somewhat time consuming part...getting in a painty mess.

Paints used...Guacamole, Smoked Paprika (unfortunately discontinued), Cherry Red and Candy Floss (Limited editions out of stock), Sage, Hyde Park, Toffee, Chocolate Pudding, Pewter, Irish Cream (discontinued) , Blue Oyster, Toad Hall, Bora Bora, London Bus, Holly, and Brown Shed.) 

Also a cosmic shimmer paint in Gold.

To add a little bit of sparkle and interest I added some Stickles in Crystal, Holly, Frosted lace, Silver, Xmas Red, Starry Night. Dovecraft-Gold and Ranger liquid pearls- Silver Pearls. 

Once FULLY dried, it is time to get the main structure ready.

I painted the majority of the 'frame' in Slate first and once dry, went over the front in Chalk to add a little rustic feel.

I painted the sides of the inner frames in colours I had previously used. Those were, Bora Bora, Sage, Gold, Candy Floss, Blue Oyster, Pewter and a random red paint from The Range only because it was a little more opaque for what I wanted it for.

Then I cut the masterboard and other sheets of paper to the size of the frames and stuck them in with double sided red tape.

I then sprinkled the bases with 'snow' found in the Crimbo section of a local garden centre. I stuck it all on with Cosmic Shimmer PVA glue and let dry completely.

As the last stage of this advent callendar, I added small Christmassy bits and bobs to almost every box, including 7 decorated trees, a stocking and holly, Santa's hat, a MERRY CHRISTMAS, numbers on the backs of scrabble pieces and a cute vial filled with Reindeer food. Then stuck multiple cuts of the Sizzix On The Edge Snow Flurries Die with double sided red tape to the top and covered the joins with cotton wool. To finish the whole thing off, I, (with a little help from Grandad) screwed in 28 little screws (found at Tiptree Cheap shop) and wound a length of bakers twine (found at The Range) round them and attached small pegs to the twine. 

I really enjoyed making this for you all and if I were to do another one I'd paint the 'ground floors' of each box with Chalk before adding the snow so you don't see the natural wood showing through. I had to do SOOO much touching up of the snow it was painful!!lol I'd also change the way the sweets were going to be displayed. instead of having them suspended from the twine, I'd probably just have them in the box so they don't look so messy and I could use bigger sweets.

Anyways...I hope you like this and if you wanna see what else I've been up to just head on over to my blog or even follow me on Pinterest. I mainly just fangirl over products I love and Harry Potter but there's a lot of arty stuff too.

Blog- ArtymeB
Pinterest- Bracken Sparkes

I hope you have a safe, magical Christmas filled with FOOD (sprouts...ugh) and Crimbo jumpers and have a very happy new year.
See ya,
ArtymeB Xxx.

Wow Bracken, this turned out just wondereful, so bright and cheery, just as it should be. What a fantastic way to use your masterboard. All the little finishing tuches are wonderful and the snow is magical. Thankyou for all your hard work on this project and thanks to Grandad too! ~Darcy

We would love you to join in with challenge #22: Masterboards If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Masterboards link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Dec 6th winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

2015 #22 Xmas Giftwrap Masterplan {by Alison Bomber}

 2015 Topic 22: Masterboards

Hello all, it's Alison here from Words and Pictures to share my Christmas masterboard master plan. I'm a masterboard first timer.  When I saw the theme I thought I'd challenge myself to something new and sign up for it.

There are any number of ways to build the layers of a masterboard - so I decided to stick to my favourite things.  No, not raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, but certainly brown paper packages tied up with strings.  That's been my Christmas habit for a couple of decades now... brown parcel paper zhuzhed up in a variety of ways (different decoration for each recipient so I can tell which parcel is for whom).  This time around, I'm zhuzhing for one recipient with a masterboard.

And since we're on my favourite things, I built my layers with some more of them - crackle, book pages, the colours blue and brown, stencilling, wrinkle-free-distress technique, heat embossing, white spatter and of course stamping, stamping, stamping.

In another first, I've yielded to the need for collage photos to give you a quick rundown of the layers:

i) strips of book page, whitewashed with a wash of Snowflake Fresco Finish paint

ii) rough areas of Blueberry applied with a wide brush, and Crackle Glaze added to the Blueberry bits with a palette knife

iii) rough coat of Snowflake over the Crackle Glaze; stencilling holly with Blueberry

iv) wrinkle free distress technique using Chipped Sapphire and Pumice Stone, followed by stamping the checkered tree from Hot Picks Xmas 08 (HPXM08) in the same two colours

v) stencilling the holly again, this time in Snowflake; stamping the swirly tree from the same set in Coffee Archival and clear-embossing it

vi) stamping the swirly tree in Versamark and embossing with Vanilla White; stencilling Harlequins in Pumice Stone

The final two layers - stamping the lovely greetings stamp (same set again, HPXM08) in Potting Soil Archival and then plenty of spatter in a mixture of Snowflake and Chalk.

For once I have the perfect excuse for as much spatter as I like... it's snowing of course!  I love that wherever you look you have so many different things going on.

Once I had the masterboard done, then the rest happened very quickly.  I always knew I wanted to cut some pillow boxes.  I did them two ways, masterboard with a kraft label, and kraft with masterboard labels.  The additional decoration comes in the form of pine cones, tiny wooden stars and some thick white twine.

I had a few other gifts ready for wrapping (I'm not usually this organised, I promise!), so I did my usual brown parcel paper and then cut wide strips of the masterboard to decorate each parcel.  Again the pine cones and white twine finish off the look.

I'm not ready with all my Christmas shopping for this person yet, but I still have two sheets of the masterboard left to play with, so I'm sure it will run the course.  I've already cut some tiny tabs and tags as you saw, and it occurred to me as I photographed them that those round and oval ones in the foreground would make great baubles on a simple Christmas card too. 

I really enjoyed myself with the masterboard - and I just love how the ideas come bubbling up once you have the thing ready for cutting and playing with.  If you've never done it before then why not give it a go?  Do as I did... grab some of your favourite things and layer, layer, layer.  With luck, you end up with some really stylish co-ordinated gift wrapping (and cards!).

Thanks so much for stopping by today - it's always fantastic to hear what you think, and I hope you'll be able to drop in again soon both here and over at Words and Pictures.

Alison x

Ho Ho Ho ..... Wow are you looking on top of things thing Christmas Alison! Adore how you have pulled this all together so perfectly! Cunning masterplan indeed! Love your very competent collage photos (impressive) showing so magnificently the steps! And brilliant how the kraft, twine, pine cones and masterboard wrap into a whole lot of pretty parcels! And I've hummed that Julie Andrews song the whole way through your post! LOL ~Leandra

We would love you to join in with challenge #22: Masterboards If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Masterboards link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Dec 6th winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.