More Christmas in September

The kids (and I, the substitute teacher) are back in school, with all the insanity that goes with it, vacations are a not-so-distant memory, and it is once again time to get busy with the important things in life...crafting for the holidays! Yay! All of September the Dream Team will be featuring all the new goodies we have for the "Most wonderful time of the year", the fall and winter holiday season. New stencil designs, new dies, and...(coming soon) brand new embossing folders featuring some of our top-selling designs, all to be found on-line through the Stencil with Style web-site, or your local papercrafting store.

Here's my holiday inspiration for this week:

Once again, I relied heavily on the easy embossing technique of running things through the manual die cut machine.  In this case, it was the Cuttlebug.  First, I used the Small Cathedral Windows Stencil LJ909 and white card stock for the background.  I sprayed the back of the stencil with Memory Mist MM26 Silver.  Then, I placed the stencil face down on my A Plate and covered it with the card stock, Stamping Details Rubber Embossing Mat and two B Plates.  You can see how shimmery it turned out in this picture:

Then, I cut the ornament out of green coated Mercart aluminum with the Nested Ornament Die DG674.  The sandwich was A Plate, die cut, metal, C Plate and B Plate.  I set aside the top and ran the ornament through the Cuttlebug with LX7026 Chevron Background.  I also ran the Happy Holiday Stencil LL3047 through with the green metal.  Both of these were debossed.  That means that I used the sandwich A Plate, stencil face up, metal face up, Rubber Embossing Mat and two B Plates.  I left the stencils under the metal until after sanding in both cases.  The ornament had some extra colors added.  First, I used a Q Tip covered in the Color Solutions Thinner to remove the green from the larger chevrons.  Then, I dripped some Christmas Red Color Solutions in the wells.  I sanded all of the metal pieces and removed the stencils.  Finally, I used a Q Tip to add some Mojito Color Solutions on the raised large chevrons.

To attach the Happy Holidays, I used Double Stick Mounting Paper.  To attach the ornament, I pasted the LG674 Oval Ornament Stencil with White Glossy Embossing Paste (glossy is stickier than the regular, but any color would work). and put the metal on while it was still wet.  You can see a little white peeking around the metal here:

 

Then, it was just simple assembly.

 



Of course, we have our monthly challenge for you to play along, so post your own holiday creations, and use the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog (or in my last post), for a chance to win the prize at the end of the month. We also have our fabulous Guest Designer for the month of September, Wendy Price! Here's the list of our "A" Team with their links for the week:

Dream It Up!

Wendy Price (GD)

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

 

and the link up: 

 Inlinkz

 

Christmas in September?

Where did the summer go? Kids are back in school, with all the insanity that goes with it, vacations are a not-so-distant memory, and it is once again time to get busy with the important things in life...crafting for the holidays! Yay! All of September the Dream Team will be featuring all the new goodies we have for the "Most wonderful time of the year", the fall and winter holiday season. New stencil designs, new dies, and...(coming soon) brand new embossing folders featuring some of our top-selling designs, all to be found on-line through the Stencil with Style web-site, or your local papercrafting store.

 

Here's my holiday inspiration for this week:

I created it using metal and velvet paper, which means that it did not photograph as well as I would like to (the only thing about these two materials that I don't like), but perhaps a couple of closer shots and some more detailed explanation would be helpful.
For the flowers, I started by running green metal through my Cuttlebug with this sandwich:  A Plate, Stencil LL3046 Tall Poinsettia (face up), Green Coated Aluminum (face up), the Stamping Details Rubber Embossing Mat and two B Plates.  You might wonder why I have those little lines through the metal.  Well, true confession time, I was all out of the Mercart Metal, so I used a different brand in the same color.  If you use the metal that I linked, you won't have that problem.  Anyway, I then left the stencil under the metal as I gently pressed the metal against the inside of the stencil with the Teflon Tool in the Basic Metal Kit.  You can skip this step if you want to, it just won't have as crisp of edges.  Then, I used the Color Solutions Remover on a Q Tip to remove the green inside the flower and seeds.  I left just a little in the edges so that it would darken the tips.  I dropped a little Christmas Red Color Solutions inside the wells of the flowers and Lemoncello inside the seeds.  I did not worry too much about it going over the edges because I knew I would sand it later.  I enhanced the colors a little with Q Tips and Paprika Red in the flowers and Gourd Green in the leaves.  I then sanded the top and brushed of the dust with a stencil brush.  I pulled the metal off the stencil, and placed it on Double Stick Mounting Paper, burnishing it down with my fingers.

 

For the background, I repeated the embossing process I explained, except that I put Stencil LX 7027 Quatrefoil face down and the velvet paper face down on top of it.  Other than that, I used the same sandwich.  For the letters, I used the new Dual Alphabet Dies in my Cuttlebug with green metal.  The sandwich for this was A Plate, dies face up, metal face down, C Plate and B Plate.  If you have any trouble cutting all the way through the metal, a slight shim of cardstock should fix it. Then, I sanded just the outside of the letter and reassembled them on Double Stick Mounting Paper.
Finally, I assembled the card, using the other side of the Double Stick Paper to attach the metals.

 

Of course, we have our monthly challenge for you to play along, so post your own holiday creations, and use the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog, for a chance to win the prize at the end of the month. We also have our fabulous Guest Designer for the month of September, Wendy Price! Here's the list of our "A" Team with their links for the week:

Dream It Up!

Wendy Price (GD)

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

An InLinkz Link-up

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