A Valentine for Winter

I love winter.
I know there are lots of folks who don't like it one bit and that is okay.
For me, winter has always been magical and a little bit mysterious. I love the beauty of a snowfall, the glistening and sparkling that happens on a calm moonlit night.
The dazzling brilliance of a white blanketed, blue sky day.
Winter sunrises....such beautiful, delicate light.
Snowflakes, brisk air, sleeping forests.
It's also a time of great creativity. The tasks of summer are all done until the next season. Everything is at rest and there is time to turn inward and let all those creative sparks grow into ideas and visions.
In the heat and loud fecundity of summer, I dream of the coldest, quietest season.
Here is a little offering for winter.
A valentine.

 This project began as a Half Scale Arch Front Room Box.

I assembled the box, setting aside the arch front. Painted the interior of the box and cut papers for the exterior.

You can see here, I was playing with various bits and decided on mot everything but the clock to add to the piece.

I used the Bead Strand Heart Dangle for the main focal point in the box, painting it a delicate pink and adding pearly details and a little sparkle.

In the picture below, you can see the little dot details I added to the inside rear of the box ( I used a Sharpie Poster paint Marker) and then added snowflakes from the Winter Shape Set and the Snowflake Shape Set popping them up a bit with foam core poster board. I did the same thing with the Bead Strand Heart Dangle, but used more foam core, setting it up closer to the front of the box.

After I got the major players glued down and dried, I attached the arch front of the box and then began playing with the placement of the trees and exterior snowflakes, adding little dots of 'snow' with my marker in the background on the arch front.

I added flat back pearls to the center of each snowflake with the exception of the one in the center of the big heart. That one I covered with glitter and glued a Swarovski flat back crystal to the center.
I glued a white painted candle holder to the bottom, but thought it was a bit too low. I had a tin Jello mold sitting on my desk and impulsively painted it white, turned it upside down and glued it to the candlestick.
Perfect! A little bit whimsical and rustic.

Thank you for stopping by and Happy New Year to all!!

Supplies:
Half Scale Arch Front Room Box
Bead Strand Heart Dangle
Winter Shape Set
Snowflake Shape Set

Additional Supplies from Alpha Stamps:
Retro Bottle Brush Tree Set - Green
Snow and Cocoa Bottle brush Tree Set
Stickles Diamond
Candlestick Holder
Mixed Sized Ivory Flat-Back Pearls

Other:
Bo Bunny Winter Wishes 6x6 Paper Pad
Tin Jello Mold

Winteer Trees Shadowbox

Hello all. Lora Mahaffey here taking my turn for the awesome sauce that is Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts!
When we are in this busy time of year I sometimes want to do something that has a repetitive nature. Seeing a pattern can be relaxing and calming.
Except if we're talking a zig-zag of spiders.
Maybe not that.
Anyway, I find making something that is repetitive kind of soothing. I'm sure I'm projecting here, but maybe in all the holiday chaos, looking at something that repeats itself might be that way for you too.
So here is a little serenity and calm in the midst of the bustle that we call the holidays.
Or you can just say it's four trees in a House Room Box - 4 Cubbies.
I'm good with that!

A view of the back....

I began by cutting my papers for the sides and back and also for the back of the four cubbies. I glued the house together and set it aside to dry.
While it was drying I put a coat of gesso on the Chipboard Shingles-Pointed and the 1 7/8 inch Snowflakes (which are coming soon).

After the snowflakes dried, I gave them a coat of matte medium and while they were wet, I sprinkled glitter on them.
A lot of glitter....

If you  put a saucer or a bowl underneath what you're glittering, you can reuse the glitter. I found these little ceramic dishes at a junk shop. It says 'United Airlines' on the bottom, so I guess these were the plates they used to serve meals on way back when.

While waiting for all that glitter to dry, I glued the shingles to the roof. It took four rows of shingles to do the whole roof.

After the glue dries, it's really easy to trim the shingles down to the width that you want them with a big pair of scissors. I cut mine down to about 1 3/4 inches wide.
At this point, my house was dry so I glued on all the papers I cut for the house and inked the edges a bit.
I wanted my snowflakes to sit about half an inch away from the back of each cubbie, so I measured cut four pieces of foam . painted them white and glued them to the back of each snowflake. I glued them into each cubbie, making sure they all lined up up with each other.

I didn't have any trees that were tiny enough to fit in the cubbies, but I had a bunch of small bottle brush trees that I had no other plans for, so I measured how tall I wanted them to be (about an 1 1/2) and cut their little tops off so the the tops became the 'new' tree.
I added some little pearls, some tiny little snowflakes and some more glitter and glued the trees in front of the large snowflakes.

I trimmed edges, added snow and (more) glitter to the roof.......

And a painted candlestick holder for as a pedestal.

I don't know about you, but I feel pretty calm and happy right now.
Happy Holidays!

SUPPLIES:
Chipboard Shingles-Pointed
House Room Box 4 Cubbies
1 7/8 inch Snowflakes (coming soon)

The Candlestick Holder, Retro Bottle Brush Trees, pearls (White Pearl Mixed Tin), Stickles glitter (in Diamond) and 5mm Thin Snowflakes (on the trees) came from Alpha Stamps.
All the papers were from Graphic 45's lovely Winter Wonderland .

Thank you for visiting!

Frosty Autumn Crown

If I were a queen, I might have a selection of crowns like one would have a selection of shoes based on occasion and weather. A warm summer night concert? Maybe it would be the strappy high heeled pearl white sandals and the diamond and emerald tiara.
A frosty autumn evening ribbon cutting ceremony? Hm.....perhaps the fawn colored suede boots and this loverly thing.

 Not quite winter, but ready to usher it in.

I began with the a template which is available in the Winter Crowns Kit from the amazing Alpha Stamps.

I traced and cut three pieces from the template. my front paper, a thin piece of cardboard (for the center-to give the crown strength) and a white inside piece just to give the back of the crown a more finished look.
Next, I cut a generous length of ribbon, about 30 inches, centered it on the cardboard and glued it on with some strong white glue. (I used Aleene's Fast Grab Glue) I let that dry thoroughly.

 Using the same glue, I glued both the front piece and the back piece on.

While they were still damp, I gently worked a curve into the piece by carefully bending the entire thing section by section, making sure that I didn't crease the paper or bend it too forcefully creating a fold or bubble in the paper. It takes a little time, but it's worth it and if you go slowly enough, you won't buckle your inside paper.
When you can get it to a point that it's flexible enough for you to tie it on something head shaped (I tried my husband, but a) he didn't want to wear a girly crown and b) his head was too big.) In the end, I found a nice pottery jar with an average head circumference and tied the crown around the jar and let it dry there.

After the crown dried, I glued some Gold Tinsel
to the top edge of the crown and used some clips to hold it in place until the glue set up. Clothes pins or paper clips would work as well.

Since a large portion of the center of the crown is going to be a medallion cut from the Vintage French Ads Collage Sheet, I marked (with a pencil) where the collage image was going to go, and applied the tinsel only where it would show on either side of the image.
I also glued tinsel to the bottom edge of the crown.

Before I glued the image to the crown, I used a white Sharpie poster paint marker and painted out the center image. I glittered up a snowflake from the Chipboard Snowflake Shape Set, glued it to the center, applied some Mixed Size Ivory Flat-Back Pearls and piped some Stickles in Diamond and Gilded Gold onto the design.
After it dried, I carefully curved it and glued it on to the crown.
Next came the big leaves...two different colors, so pretty! Called Golden Night Wired Leaves.

 Then the snowflakes on the leaves. The larger of the two is called White Glittered Snowflake Embellishments and the smaller ones are Tiny White Snowflake Buttons that I cut the shank off of so they would glue flat.
I cut a couple dozen leaves off of the Stitched Leaf Ribbon-Silver and glued them on around the bottom edge of the crown.
I added some Pear-Shaped Pearl Stick Pins-Pearl and Pear-Shaped Pearl Stick Pins-Gold to the top of the crown (I love the drama!) and glued in some more silver leaves for extra pizazz. A few dots of Stickles here and there look a bit like frost to finish it up.
A pretty frosty crown for a chilly fall evening.
Now, what handbag should I use..................
For links to all the supplies from Alpha Stamps, click HERE.

Supplies
Chipboard Snowflake Shape Set
Golden Night Wired Leaves
Mixed Size Ivory Flat-Back Pearls
Vintage French Ads Collage Sheet
Crown Template
State Chic Cream Scrapbook Paper
Pear Shaped Pearl Stick Pins-White
Pear Shaped Pearl Stick ins-Gold
Tinsel Gold
Tiny White Snowflake Buttons
Stitched Leaf Ribbon-Silver
Stickles: Gold Gilded, Diamond
Ivory 7/8 Inch Satin Ribbon (substitution)
White Glittered Snowflake Embellishments
Twinklets Diamond Dust