Christmas...Advent... calendars... day 3

Hi, 
Back with Neil today and another advent calendar.
Remember those little voting boxes at the end of each post? Well, I bet Neil is going to get a lot of "wow" on this one. It sure "wowed" me not only for the amount of work that was put in that advent wreath, but also because I find it so original and unusual. Don't you agree? 
Neil used one of the Sizzix dies Bird #3 as well as the metal wreath and the latest Tim Holtz snowflakes dies to create this beautiful piece. (click on the pictures below to find them online)

Birds - Cut 25 large birds and the accompanying bits. Colour the beaks with Mustard Seed Distress marker and use the Wild Honey marker to add a beak line. Use black Archival ink to colour the pupil of the eye .

Use Fired Brick Distress ink and the blending tool to add red to the breast area of the bird and Frayed Burlap to the rest of the body.

Use the music stamp from the Christmas set to stamp the body in Walnut stain Distress ink. (Tip - cut an extra bird and use that as a mask over the red are to keep it clear.) Colour the wings with Walnut stain and stamp randomly with the Joyful Christmas sentiment. Assemble the birds using Matte Multi Medium and put to one side.

Leaves - Stamp 25 holly leaves using Olive Archival ink and cut out. Edge with Pine Needles Distress ink.

Snowflakes - cut 4 large and medium and 5 small snowflakes. Use tissue tape on the rear to strengthen and colour the front in combinations of the Distress Stains; then spritz with the Perfect Pearl mists. Allow to dry and assemble as instructed on the die using hot glue. Use Gold gilding flakes on the snowflake centres; use Fired Brick and Walnut stain Distress ink to fill any gaps in the gilding and add to the snowflakes

Die cut the numbers out of gold card.

Putting everything together - 

Start by wrapping the wreath with thin tinsel (it is Christmas after all!) Then start putting the birds onto the wreath in an arrangement that works for you. I found it best to hang it up and work that way. You can move the leaves and get everything nicely placed. Once you are happy with them then begin to attach the holly leaves to each branch that has a bird on it using wire, When that is done use Liquid Pearls to add berries and attach the numbers 1 to 25 with Multi Medium.

Attach the snowflakes to the remaining leaves using Glue Dots. Cut the fifth small snowflake in half and glue onto the bird in the 25th slot. 

Before the birds are on the wreath looks like this 

Neil used

metal wreath

Sizzix Birds # 3 die

Alterations snowflake (both) and Inside Out strip dies

Wire

Glue gun

Gilding flakes - gold

Perfect Pearl Misters - Sunflower Sparkle and Perfect Copper

Tim Holtz Season's silhouettes and Joyful Christmas stamps

Distress stains - Forest Moss, Walnut Stain and Fired Brick

Distress inks - Frayed Burlap, Fired Brick, Pine Needles and Walnut stain

Distress Markers - Mustard Seed and Wild Honey

Archival ink - Olive and black

Glue dots

White card

Gold card

Liquid Pearls - Red

Studio Multi medium matte

 Our special offer this week

Order any advent calendar from our site, 

nd get a Tando mini advent calendar number set free

It will be added to your parcel.

See you tomorrow

Christmas...Advent... calendars... day 2

Hi, 

Michelle and Karen are with us today. Not only for their weekly 2013 calendars, but Karen also made a beautiful advent calendar.

Let's start with Michelle, who did not use the felt, but flock instead which gives a felt feel to your project. 

The page was very simply inked with TH Distress inks, then stamped with one of my all time favourite stamp sets - Katzelkraft Lace.

I cut a scrolly die cut and the heart die cut out of Woodware double sided adhesive sheet. After peeling the back off the scrolls I stuck them firmly to the page, removed the top paper and covered the sticky scrolls with black flocking, rubbing the flock onto the scrolls to make sure all the adhesive was well covered. The excess was brushed back into the bottle.

The heart was adhered to some kraft card and flocked in the same way then cut out. There are some lovely heart and scroll die on the website, so have a good look before you settle on one.

All I had to do then was to ink the calendar page and stick it in place.

TH Distress Inks - Old Paper, Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain

Versafine ink pad - Vintage sepia

Katzelkraft unmounted rubber stamps - Lace

Cheery Lynn Designs Dies - Fanciful Flourish

Memory box die: Sofia heart

Double sided adhesive sheets

Fun Flock: black

***********

Karen created a beautiful heirloom that involved a lot of cutting, sewing and hard work. But the end result is beautiful, don't you think? She even glued some felt on the Tando numbers and cut them out! 

 I chose to use traditional colours for this & mix in a few brights but you could do this any colour way that you like! All my squares are 6cm square and I cut 24 from felt and 24 from patterned fabric. I hemmed 2 sides of the patterned fabric then folded them over the felt squares & pinned before sewing buttons on the keep the flaps in place.

The green cotton background is 36cm x 47cm. I placed the squares evenly and then machine stitched them on. Tucking under a small hem all round the green first, I then stitched this onto the red spotty background and added a bobbly border.

I used Tando Christmas numbers and covered them with felt. Its tricky to cut them out but worth the effort I think. Glue them in place with PVA glue, making sure that the glue isn't too wet or your pockets won't work!!!

I made 2 tabs for top and added brass rings to hang it by. Some colourful buttons were sewn around the green fabric and on the tabs

I used:

Felt

Fabric

Tando Advent Numbers

Buttons

Rings

As its Advent Week I decided to stick with numbers for my background and ran the card through an embossing folder - Tim Holtz Texture Fades Bingo - after inking it up with Distress Inks in Brushed Corduroy & Old Paper. 

Then I lightly brushed a little Brushed Corduroy over the raised numbers. Using the star background in Dylusions Christmas Backgrounds set & Archival ink I stamped the felt for the bird (you need a fairly strong colour for this to show). The bird is die cut from the felt twice and layered with a different colour wing. The sentiment is stamped from PaperArtsy Hot picks 1005. To finish I very lightly edged the card in Brilliance ink to match the bird.

Felt

Tim Holtz Texture Fades Embossing folder - Bingo

Dylusions - Christmas Background

PaperArtsy Hot picks 1005

Distress Inks - Brushed Corduroy & Old Paper

Archival Ink

 Our special offer this week

Order any advent calendar from our site, 

nd get a Tando mini advent calendar number set free

It will be added to your parcel.

See you tomorrow

Christmas...Advent... calendars... day 1

Hi :)
Hope you had a great weekend. 
Christmas is less than 2 months away.. I know.. scary, eh? But even worse, if you want to make a beautiful advent calendar, you have less time than that as it needs to be ready for December 1st (so I keep reminding myself as I really want to make one this year).
So how about a bit of inspiration to get you started... 
This week, The Craft Barn blog gets all Christmassy showing off Advent calendars and Christmas cards (that will be on Saturday with Gay) and of course our usual 2013 calendars you have been seeing for a few weeks now. 
We also asked the DT to use felt on their projects which they did beautifully using our felt pack and a selection of dies.

So let's start the week with Jane who is showing you how to use two of the wooden advent calendars we sell and giving you a few tips along the way

Take one wooden wooden advent chest.

a bit of paint, paper and a few hours and you can have this..

First job is to give the whole box and drawers a quick coat of paint. It doesn't take as long as you think!!! I used white.

Next, cut a square of coloured card slightly smaller that drawer front. Do not assume that every drawer is the same size, you will have to check each time!! Cut into the square and then cut out a small circle for knob. Do not worry as the snowflake will cover any hole made slightly too big

Cut a piece of patterned paper slightly smaller than coloured card and repeat process

When happy, stick onto drawer using PVA glue

Using felt, die cut 25 snowflakes. I cut out the centre and then stuck onto front of the drawer, again using PVA glue

I used Tando numbers which were the perfect size for this. I painted them blue.

When dry, stick onto drawers with PVA

To finish, I made a bow from 3 ribbons and arranged the tails to decorate

A couple of years ago I decorated an advent calendar which has been displayed in the shop ever since and a few customers have asked how the doors can be removed for decorating.

 If you look along the top or bottom edge of the cabinet, you will see a round plug above and below the line of doors on the hinge side

Sometimes you can get hold of the little round plug and pull it out, if not I use a pokey tool or similar and push into the plug, spearing it so that it pulls out on the end of the tool!!!! This then releases the door so you can gently pull it free. There will be a plug top and bottom of each door

You will need to pull out all the plugs and keep them safe. Should any break, a wooden kebab skewer is perfect to use as a replacement!!!!

Have fun, it is a wonderful decoration to make and keep for many years!!!!

These are the photos that I posted on my blog back in 2009........crikey where have the years gone??..

Jane used:

Advent chest with 25 drawers

Advent calendar

Eco Green paints - White and Sky Blue

Bazzill cardstock

Craft Creations paper - Blue Stripes on Ice Blue

Tando Numbers

Felt - White

PVA glue

Marianne D Creatables - Snowflake 1 

Ribbon - Blue, White and Silver

 Our special offer this week

Order any advent calendar from our site, 

and get a Tando mini advent calendar number set free

It will be added to your parcel.

See you tomorrow

Calendar challenge #5

Week 5 of our 2012 Calendar challenge.

Theme this week:

PAPER TAPE

Easy to choose the theme this week, and hopefully our DT samples would have inspired you. 

You can use the "brand" paper tape or make your own, it's up to you

For more details on how to enter our Calendar challenge, 

please click here. 

All the samples for this second challenge should be posted below. 

Remember to email me to get your 15% discount code ;)

Looking forward to see what you come up with.

Have fun !! 

PS: I have a few days off, so I will send you your vouchers on Wednesday when I get back ;)

See you then

Simply Saturdays with Gay

Hi, 
Final day for our paper tape week. We hope you enjoyed it and found a lot of inspiration this week thanks to our DT's samples.
Today Gay has not only made beautiful samples for you but she is also showing you the "rejects". If you have never tried Clean and  Simple before, you might think that it's quick and easy. Well.. not really. And sometimes it does not go quite according to plan.

Gay used a different tape to the ones you have seen this week. This one is much wider, and glossy, nonetheless beautiful. You will find it under "design tape" in the embellishment section 

 I usually start with lots of ideas and whittle them down to the bare bones then build the idea back up but there are a lot of rejects along the way. So I thought I would show you today the different ways I approached my card

 The Rico tape is really glossy which is lovely but needed consideration in the design of this card, if I had stamped onto them they would have needed a permanent ink. 

  The stamps are so quirky and offer lots of possibilities, this time its a love card and a bookmark to match. 

 What's nice about the washi tape here is that it will put up with lots of handling and wipe clean. Simply cut out of magnetic self adhesive sheet and adhered to card with washi tape over it

Gay used

Rico Design Tape 

Paper tape, white with black dots

PaperArtsy Lynne Perrella LPC 004

Painted with Dylusions inks

Two small pieces of magnetic self adhesive sheet.

Two more days to make the most of our special offer

20% off the Glue Dots masking tape

Enter the code TAPE20 at checkout

Paper tape week: day 5 - Neil

Hi, 
Neil is back today with an Art Journal page. He has used the Tim Holtz tape in a variety of way to show you how versatile it can be. 

To me, the Tim Holtz tissue tape is very similar to Washi tape so I tend to use it instead of.

I've just added it to the inked page randomly for interest. I then took a piece of string and used the tape to create a bit of bunting. It takes colour well as you can see.

 Then I took a tag and stamped the face of David onto it and used tissue tape to cover the whole tag before colouring with Distress inks and Perfect Pearl spray. If you look closely you can see that I've also used the tape to create a ribbon for the tag by folding a length of the tape in half joining the adhesive sides together. It's surprisingly strong! 

Neil used:

Dylusions inks

Tim Holtz Tissue tape

Tag 

Tim Holtz - Artful Artifacts stamp

Distress inks

Black pen

Our special offer this week

20% off the Glue Dots masking tape

Enter the code TAPE20 at checkout

See you tomorrow

Paper tape week: day 4 - Isa

hello :)

Another way to make your paper "tape" today with Isa's art... it won't have the exact same finish as paper tape, but you have to admit that it is equally beautiful. LOVE that tag! 
Let us know what you think in a comment below

Start with stamping the Impression Obsession Stripes on kraft paper using Distress ink

Cut the paper corner to corner and apply the Double sided tape at the back of each strip

I cut some (striped stamped) flowers with the Spellbinder die, press them onto double sided tape and pour glitter over it

The 3rd strip was stamped with a greeting

Adhere your 3 "paper tapes" on a bauble die cut and trim with scissors

To make her "paper tape" and tag, Isa used:

Sizzix Tag - Carved ornament #2

Spellbinders die Carnation creations

Double sided tape 18 mm

Foam tape

Impression Obsession Cover-a-Card stamp: Stripes

Katzelkraft stamp: Noël 1

Crafty Individuals stamps: CI-326 Christmas postmarks

Distress inks: Walnut Stain, Barn Door, Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap

Gesso

Glitter: DecoArt Glamour dust

Glossy Accents

Sanding block

Our special offer this week

20% off the Glue Dots masking tape

Enter the code TAPE20 at checkout

See you tomorrow