Quietfire Christmas Blog Hop - Kindling Your Creativity

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Happy Monday!!!  Thank you for stopping by!!!  Scroll down to the bottom of this post for all the particulars about the swap and links to all the participants.... and don't forget to leave a comment on this post for your chance to win a grab bag of stamps from Quietfire Design.

I have chosen to make a card using the new "Christmas waves a magic wand" rubber stamp.  Now I realize that there is no way any of us could make a bunch of these cards to send out for Christmas; however, we usually have a person (or 2 or 3) that we like to make an extra special card for and this would be perfect...  OR how about framing it and giving it as a gift or using it in your own home while decorating for Christmas.  Just some ideas!!  

Supply List --

Quietfire Design Stamps - Christmas waves a magic wand, and a flourish
Watercolour Paper
Specialty Stamping Paper
Core'dinations - Distress & Adirondack
Grungepaper
Dreamweaver stencil - LG713 Amsterdam Flourish
Embossing Paste
Dies - Vintage Cabinet Card; Mini Repositionable Cabinet Card; Festive Greenery; Mini Reindeer
Dylusion Sprays - postbox red, lime green, cut grass
Distress Inks - barn door, vintage photo, mowed lawn, pine needles
Archival Ink - jet black, viridian
Lumiere Paint - bright gold
Tiny copper bells
4mm white satin ribbon 
Craft Sheet
Heat Tool
Ink Blending tool
Mister bottle with water in it
Palette Knife or Embossing Paste Spreader

** Note - It looks to me like the quote is blurry in the pictures and I've retaken twice and it still looks like that on my screen.  I want to let you know, if it's blurry on your screen, that it is not blurry in real life.

I began by creating the central frame piece.  I cut it from watercolor paper using the two cabinet card dies.  I love these dies from the movers and shapers line and how we can put them together and cut just once to make a frame.

Next I embossed onto the frame using a metal stencil and embossing paste.  Working on a craft sheet, I placed the stencil on the frame and pressed paste through the stencil using a palette knife.

Lift the stencil straight up leaving your design on the frame in paste.  The extra paste on the craft sheet can be scraped up and put back into your jar.  Scrape over the stencil to remove excess paste, move it to another area on your frame, and apply paste again. Continue until you have the design everywhere you want it.  If you find that you can't place the stencil without getting into wet paste already on the frame, do the areas you can, let it dry, and then go back and emboss the other areas.  If you are not going to immediately use the stencil again then wash it.  If you let the paste dry on the stencil it will be very hard to remove.

Let the paste dry completely.  (This is the end of any step-by-stap pics)

After the paste was completely dry I sprayed the frame with all 3 colors of Dylusion sprays and dried it with the heat tool.  I then used the gold paint on the flourishes.  I first tried to just lightly sponge over them or use my finger and I was getting more paint then I wanted on the areas around the flourishes and then (finally) remembered to place my stencil back over the paste and apply my paint that way thereby protecting the areas around the flourishes.  I also used a small paintbrush to add extra paint on some of the flourishes that just weren't gold enough.  Set the frame aside and let it dry.

The paper behind the frame is Specialty stamping paper.  I sprayed it lightly with water and then sprayed it well with lime green spray.  Then without blotting or pressing, just leaving it as is, I dried it with a heat tool.  I love how textured the color is on the Specialty stamping paper if you just dry it.  I layed the frame piece onto this piece to determind where I wanted to stamp the quote and then stamped the quote using jet black.  Stamp flourishes around the edge with viridian ink.  Adhere the frame.

Not knowing exactly how I wanted to do the pieces of greenery I cut a strip from both green and brown core'dinations paper.  I sanded both pieces before removing all the cut outs (a tip learned from Tim Holtz I think during last years 12 tags).  I used the pine cone from the brown piece sponging a little vintage photo around the edges.  I used green inks on the greenery pieces and also added details to the holly leaves by folding and sponging ink.  I took the flourishes from the green paper and inked them with red, then rubbed on some snow cap stain, then added more red and decided they just didn't quite look right so I painted them gold but because of the red ink it tinted the gold reddish which is why 2 of the flourish have a red tint.  The 2 flourishes from the brown paper were just painted, not ink, and so they are more gold.  Decided where I wanted the pieces to go and glued them on.  I punched different sizes of circles from red core'dinations and used them as berries tithe holly leaves.

The deer is cut from grungepaper and inked with brushed corduroy and vintage photo.

The ribbon is rubbed with barn door ink.  The bells are copper so I did sponge just a little gold paint on them so they matched better and it gave them a little shimmer.

The whole piece is edged with gold paint and then attached to a red core'dinations folded card.

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Now onto the details of the swap!!!  

The Quietfire Design 2012 Christmas Blog Hop!  

October 15th through 19th, 2012!


Quietfire Design would like to introduce you to their New Holiday Selection of rubber stamps!  Each day designers will be posting brand new artwork they have created using the new rubber stamps.  Visit their blogs on the day of their featured project, post a comment on their Blog Hop post and you will be eligible to win a grab bag of Quietfire Design rubber stamps!  Each Designer will randomly choose a winner from the comments on their own Blog Hop post, so make sure that you’ve commented by midnight Friday, October 19th.  Tell your friends!

All winners will be posted on the Quietfire Style blog on Sunday October 21st. If you are one of our lucky winners, please contact Suzanne privately with your snail mail address. 

Here is our schedule:

Monday, Oct 15th: Yogi ,Wanda

Tuesday,Oct 16th: Robyn, Holly

Wednesday, Oct 17th:  Sherry

Thursday, Oct 18th: Monica, Terre

Friday, Oct 19th: Suzanne

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