Artfully Articulate: December 2012

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Frosty Fun!

The joy of the holidays is still going strong at our house. I just love having everyone home!.The added excitement of having a baby in the house again has made this an amazing Christmas. Here they all are on Christmas morning.

We are truly blessed to have such wonderful children and are spending this week enjoying every minute we can with them, so for this week's Dreamweaver Stencil challenge I am going to share a very simple card that I may have shown before. It makes a wonderful thank you note for all the wonderful gifts you received!

The steps are so easy:

Dry emboss the mittens (LJ923) on white cardstock either with a light box and stylus or through a die cut machine
With the mitten stencil still in place over the embossed design, lay the Plaid stencil (LX7002) at an angle over the mittens
Use a large stencil brush to brush on your lighter color (the purple on mine), be sure to do the strings too
Remove the plaid stencil and clean it
Place the plaid stencil back over the mittens crossing over the opposite direction
Use a large stencil brush to brush on your second color
Remove and clean both stencils
Mount on coordinating colored mats for a fun wintery card!

Don't miss the rest of the teams' ideas too. Just click on their names below.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year!
Happy Creating,
Louise

Thursday, December 20, 2012

We're in the final count down to Christmas! I just got back last night from 10 days of Grandma bliss, I am so thankful for the time I have gotten to spend with our beautiful new grand daughter. I can't believe she will be 4 months old in a week! Now reality has hit full force and I have a lot to do before Monday!
But it's Thursday, so that means it's time for another Frosty Fun challenge from Dreamweaver Stencils. Today I am sharing a card that I may have shown you before, but I don't think I ever gave directions...so here goes:

The nice thing about snowflakes is they can be used all winter for thank you cards or winter birthday greetings, or really, any wintery occasion.

Start by paste embossing the Antler snowflake stencil (LL399) with Glossy Blue Embossing paste on white cardstock
Remove and clean the stencil
Let the paste dry until it almost dry, then gently brush on some Moonstone F/X powder to soften the brightness of the blue paste
Paste emboss the snowflake again, but this time use Glossy White Embossing paste on a dark blue paper
Remove and clean the stencil
Let the paste dry completely
Cut each snowflake into four pieces
Layer each piece on a small mat of the opposite color lining the snowflake up along two edges so only the other two edges have a mat
Piece two of each color together as shown to create a beautiful, wintery card!
Hint - make the mats slightly larger than you need them, adhere the four matted pieces to a scrap paper then trim them all the way around to match
Put a little crystal in the middle to cover where they all meet

Be sure to check out the rest of the team blogs by clicking on their names below:

Wishing you and your families a wonderful, safe holiday season!

Happy Creating,
Louise

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Frosty Fun!

Here we go with week two of the Dreamweaver Stencil's December design challenge. Our theme this month is Frost Fun and last week there were some great projects, if you didn't get a chance to see them try to find the time to check them out!
This week I am back in Cincinnati being a Grandma and having a ball with my beautiful grand-daughter! But luckily I have my computer with me and she goes to bed early, so here's my creation:

It really was very easy:

Emboss a piece of blue metal through your die cut machine with theChristmas Borders stencil (LJ922)
Tape the Mittens stencil (LJ923) to the front of the embossed blue metal lining up one cuff on the snowflake area
Carefully turn the stencil and metal over and use a Teflon tool to emboss the outline of one mitten
Turn it back to the front and line up the second mitten so the cuffs match
Turn it back over and emboss the second mitten
You don't have to line them up like this, you can just emboss them as they are, but I wanted my cuffs to match
Sand the whole piece so that the Christmas borders area is now silver
Use a paper stump to flatten the background around the mittens
Use the fiberglass brush to finish cleaning off the blue from most of the background
Fill the back of the mittens with metal filler paste, let dry thoroughly
Mount on silver mirror paper and a white card

The blue, silver and white definitely give it a frosty feel don't you think! Check out the rest of team too

Happy Creating,
Louise

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Frosty FUN!

Oh my goodness it's December! I'm still trying to figure out where November went! We've been having a stretch of balmy weather here in the Chicago area, but I'm sure we'll pay the price soon.
This month our Dreamweaver Stencil design challenge theme is Frosty Fun! Here's a quick project for last minute gift giving.

Start with a flat sided vase (I got mine from IKEA)

Line the Bare Trees stencil (LJ849) up along the top of the vase and
tape down the bottom edge on the bottom of the vase with removable tape

Load the paste spreader with Glossy White Embossing Paste
and put it at the top of the stencil

Draw the paste down the stencil

Don't worry about how "perfect" it looks nature is not always smooth!

Remove the stencil and place it in a pan of water

Sprinkle the wet paste with Crystal Glitter (from Art Glitter)
tap off most of the extra

Lay it down to dry

Once the paste is dry, use an X-acto knife to clean up any rough edges
or clean up between the tree trunks

Place vase on a piece of paper and use a soft brush to gently sweep off excess glitter

Make several, they make an awesome display!

Check out the other team member blogs for more Frosty Fun!

Liz Martin

Happy Creating,
Louise