My First Christmas Cards of the Season ~ Creative Embellishments

Hello, Creative Embellishments fans! 

Sandi here with you today sharing my first two Christmas Cards of this Season. 

My all-time favorite Christmas chipboard set is the  Jumping Deer set, so I knew that would be a great warm-up motivator! 

I always love seeing the Jumping Deer encircled in a frame or against a round backdrop of some kind such as the round Artist Trading Coins. So, I dug through my Christmas stash and chose the Ornament Frames. 

I choose to alter them with an antique white paint as were the reindeer. Then I added color as needed especially to the reindeer to make them more realistic. 

It is impossible to choose a favorite reindeer from the CE store but this guy might be it if I had to choose one. That rack is so majestic! 

I'm not much of a Stickles fan but I do pull them out for Christmas, so I've dabbled both Diamond and Cinammon as needed. 

Both cards feature a large snowflake from the Large Snowflake Set and these were actually painted with a bright white and embellished with the Diamond Stickles. Then I mounted the title piece on the large Snowflake. The titles were altered with walnut stain and Cinammon Stickles. 

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The second card was created in the same way but features a small snowflake from the Chipboard Snowflakes as well as the larger snowflake from the Large Snowflake Set. 

My alterations were the same and the papers were almost identical with a little variety near the top! 

(Papers are older Blue Fern and florals are really old Petaloo.) 

Okay, two done and how many to go? 

These were pretty quick and simple! 

Choosing the papers and elements takes me longer than the actual assembly most times! 

Thanks for coming by the blog today! 

See you next time. 

Sandi

Creative Embellishments products used: 

Ornament Frames 

Jumping Deer 

Large Snowflake Set 

Chipboard Snowflakes 

Merry Christmas Titles 

Christmas Sentiments 

Back in Time ~ mixed media layout for 13 Arts

Happy Monday, creative friends! 

Today I'm sharing my most recent project for 13 Arts. 

I decided to scrap a photo of one of the granddaughters sitting during a softball game. 

She really likes it and her team is doing great. 

For this layout, I've combined the new Home Sweet Home with the Back in Time collection and used elements from both. For example, the stamp, chipboard and stencil were from Back in Time while the papers are Home Sweet Home. The floral ephemera are actually the older In Bloom collection. 

It's always a little hard to get a perfectly square photo of a layout with a narrow border such as this one but I just left some white space around the perimeter and hope that's good enough for you! My layout wasn't laying as flat I needed it to. ha! 

My background color is actually watercolor this time around. Nothing fancy. Just applied after my clear gesso dried and moved around with water. 

For texture, I've added sisal and art stones. 

The finishing touch was paint splattering with the aqua and then the white. 

Here's a close-up where you can visualize the stamping done with brown archival ink as well as the added chipboard florals also altered with watercolors. 

I rummaged through my pearls and rhinestone collection and found these dark aqua pearls and thought they'd prove a nice touch of glam. 

Here I tucked in one of the End of Summer Paper Clips. 

This last little corner was for balance and it is simply 3 pieces pf ephemera from the Back in Time collection. 

Thanks for coming by today! 

If you need some retail therapy, I hope you will visit the 13 Arts store.

See you next time! 

Sandi

Autumn Color ~ Oversized Tag for Creative Embellishments

 Hello, creative friends! 

Wow, this month is really flying by but I am trying to "feel all the Autumn feels" before I plunge headlong into Christmas! 

Today I'm sharing an oversized Tag created using one of the Creative Embellishments tags from the Large Tags set of 3. These tags are about 5.5 inches wide by 10 inches high and I find them to be just a perfect size substrate for me to create with. When all else fails, I grab a tag and the creative juices begin to flow. 

For this piece I've used an older photo of my grandson Bobby during a Fall photo shoot. He was picking a dandelion and examining it with all his grandest curiosity. Kids are so funny! 

My papers are older Blue Fern Studios Autumn Anthology. 

Here is another vantage point. I was losing daylight trying to get these photos and even the light box wasn't helping much! But it does show you approximately the size of it compared to my hand. 

Another thing about working on these tags is that you can tuck in some of your older, larger florals and get them used up .. finally. 

My base layer is the Large Tag which is covered with my papers and then the next layer under the focal area is the Falling Leaves which you can see is also quite large and covers a great deal of the tag. I placed it vertically instead of horizontally to fit my tag better and because it didn't really matter since it was an under layer. 

My frame is the Fall Frame (original). I've also included a few leaves from the Autumn Leaves set. 

All my chipboard was treated the same. It's been altered with a layer of clear gesso, then inks from 13 Arts (Olive Green and Woodbine.) Along with that I've splattered some Tim Holtz Wild Honey Oxide ink. I've also done some random stamping with brown archival ink and the Distressed Moroccan Stamp. 

Just a close-up of the Falling Leaves piece along with the Fall Frame. 

I was excited to tuck in some sticks that I picked up in the church parking lot a few weeks back just as a great piece of texture! 

I love what that Wild Honey does to my alterations! It is the perfect pop! 

Towards the completion of my piece, I added some gold microspheres from 13 Arts. 

I grabbed a title from the paper collection and popped it up for dimension. 

There are actually 3 various Fall Frames in the CE store. You can check them out HERE.

Tucked in on both sides of the photo are some wonderful Flair buttons from the Fall Flair Buttons set. 

Just another view towards the top. 

And I tried my best haha! to capture the one on the other side which is tucked under the frame and the florals! 

Thanks so much for coming by the blog today! 

I hope you feel inspired to create. 

See you next time! 

Sandi

Creative Embellishment products used: 

Chipboard: 

Large Tags

Falling Leaves 

Fall Frame

Autumn Leaves

Stamp: 

Distressed Moroccan Stamp

Flair:

Fall Flair Buttons

Gorgeous Slimline Card for 13 Arts

Hello, creative friends! 

Today I'm back with you to share another slimline card created for 13 Arts Design Team. 

I decided to go with these gorgeous blues from the Home Sweet Home collection, specifically the Living Room wood pattern and the Cosy at Home blue knit pattern. 

Of course, all the ephemera and chipboard are also from the Home Sweet Home collection. 

I did choose a Back in Time Stencil called Piano Forte for my texture work. Later I did a small amount of color work with the Tanzanite Color Glow. 

My peachy-pink florals are older Prima flowers but to these I've added sisal and green stamens from !3 Arts along with 13 Arts white microspheres and some 13 Arts Natural Canella pods. 

Here you can see some of the adornments and the Home Sweet Home chipboard leaf. 

After doing all that stencil work, I mostly covered it with ephemera just due to where I wanted to position my pieces, oh well! It is a cute arrangement, so I'm happy.  These were all elevated with small pieces of corrugated cardboard which I prefer sometimes to foam squares. 

I love the Home Sweet Home ephemera and it is hard to know when to stop adding pieces because they blend so nicely together. 

My final step was to splatter white gesso. 

Here is a quick shot at some of my primary supplies not including your basic gesso etc. 

Thanks so much for coming by today! 

See you next time! 

Sandi

November Sketch Challenge! ~ "Everyday" layout for Creative Embellishments

Hello, creative friends! 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! 

It is November 1st and time for a new Challenge over at Creative Embellishments. 

This month it is a sketch challenge and the twist is to splatter paint on my project! 

I will include the sketch below. 

"Everyday" 

It took me a few minutes to figure out how I wold interpret the sketch and also what CE products I would feature. 

I started with a great but older photo of a granddaughter playing in the Fall leaves. However, I didn't go with the Fall theme but chose instead some of the new papers and ephemera from 13 Arts Aurora collection. Once I knew I was going in a feminine, romantic direction, it was easy to select my chipboard. 

For the horizontal piece I went with the gorgeous Lacy Border which I dabbed with white gesso. In fact, for a shabby chic theme, I did all the chippys and wood veneer the same way. 

For the background, I've used the Small Stars Stencil and also did some random stamping with brown ink and the Circle Bokeh Stamp. 

My frame for the primary focal area is the Viney Flourish Frame. I thought it went nicely with the intricate Lacy Border. 

In order to provide a cohesive project, I wanted to go with circular frame for the other photo and just chose the largest ring from the Rings For So Many Things. To ramp it up just a bit, I added the word Fly using the letters from the Alphabet Game Pieces. 

My actual title piece comes from the Everyday Word Set which has several great choices for a generic title. 

Here you can also spot the fun butterfly flair button from the Fly Away Flair set. 

Here is that frame and title for the upper right focal area. 

I also tied the two areas together by using similar ephemera in different sizes. 

My florals are all from the new Sharon Ziv Collection for Prima Marketing. 

Lots of texture has been added using pearls, art stones and sisal. 

I took a few shots across the project to capture some of the dimension I created. 

From the other side. 

And one last look at that gorgeous  Viney Flourish Frame. 

And here is the sketch as promised. 

I hope you can find time to play along, 

See you next time! 

Sandi

Creative Embellishments products used: 

Chipboard: 

Lacy Border

Viney Flourish Frame

Rings For So Many Things

Everyday Word Set

Alphabet Game Pieces (wood veneer)

Stencil: 

Small Stars Stencil

Stamp:

Circle Bokeh Stamp

Flair: 

Fly Away Flair