Art 'n Soul continues to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas.

On the ninth day of Christmas (12/20/12), my Art ‘n Soul gave to me, a free Dreamweaver stencil with a purchase of a gift certificate with a minimum value of $50.

We have lots of new cover-a-card stamps from Impression Obsession, more dies from Memory Box, more of the Riley stamps, as well as the half-inch Scor Tape and Essential Glue Pads. We'd love to show it all to you at the store.


From the Hero Arts' blog . . .

Season’s Greetings -- December 18th, 2012 by lucy

"Hello. It’s Lucy here today, and I have a card to share made using a brand new stamp called Looped Flower Pattern. I thought it would look great on a Christmas card - it kind of reminded me of a poinsettia. So I stamped it on kraft, colored the petals in red pencil, then added heart pearls to the center of each flower. I used the negative of a die cut from the Ornaments Stamp and Die set which I layered on top with foam adhesive. Something a bit different. 

Find out how to make this card - click for full supplies and instructions.

I’m looking forward to using this fun and versatile stamp for all sorts of occasions… I think it’s a must-have."

From Graphic 45, another beautiful project from Jane Tregenza . . .

"Today's first craft creation was made by Jane Tregenza and it is just perfect for the holiday season! This wonderful piece of holiday home decor is also a great way to use some of your Graphic 45 scraps! Enjoy this lovely tutorial where Jane shows you how to combine your Graphic 45 holiday papers and Scrapbook Adhesives products to make a real Christmas treasure! Take it away, Jane!

For this project you need a selection of Graphic 45 Christmas papers, I have used some of my older papers as for this project you don’t need full sheets, just all those bits and pieces you have saved over the years. If you don’t have these papers then you can change them and use papers from the Nutcracker sweet Collection.

Supplies:

Graphic 45 Papers

Christmas Emporium

Toyland

All I want for Christmas

Merry and Bright

A Christmas Carol

Tis the Season

Under the Mistletoe

Joyous Noel

Christmas Emporium

Santa Express

The Holly and Ivy

Holiday Spirit

Let it Snow

Endearing Sentiments

Imaginarium Designs chipboard ornament and  Christmas Tree

Assorted Brads

Ribbons

Flowers & Berries

Black Cardstock

Chipboard Squares.  1x 3inch x 3 inches,  3x 1 ½ x 3 inches,  4x 1 ½ inches x 1 ½ inches. Spare chipboard.

Quotes

Silver ink pad

Brown ink pad

3L Scrapbook Adhesive sheets

3L Scrapbook Foam Squares

3L Scrapbook E-Z Runner 

All your chipboard squares need to have adhesive on them, so you can stick the papers onto them. I used 3L Scrapbook Adhesive sheets. I find they work really well and I love 3L foam squares. I always use the black ones. The pack contains two different sizes. They are so easy to use and I go through 100’s of them. Their tape runners also makes any job so quick.   Remember you need to ink around all the edges of your print papers before you stick them down.

Square One “the Spirit of Christmas”

Cut a piece of “Let it Snow” to 3 x 3 inches. Adhere it to your 3x3 inch chipboard square.  Cut a piece of black cardstock 2 3/8 inch x 2 3/8 inches. Cut a piece of “Holiday Spirit” to 2 ¼ inches x 2 ¼ inches and adhere it to your black cardstock square. Adhere the square to a piece of chipboard and trim the chipboard to fit.  Adhere the chipboard/black cardstock/Holiday Spirit to the middle of your 3 inch square. Cut a piece of ribbon 4 inches long. Using your 3L tape runner place a line of tape across your whole square, add your piece of ribbon  and wrap the ends of the ribbon around to the back of your square and adhere it down. Punch two little flowers from “Christmas Emporium”, ink your flowers and add a little glitter to the edges. Glue each flower together so the petals are off centred.  Glue the finished punched flower onto a paper flower and add a tree brad to the middle to hold the flowers together. Add it to your square over the ribbon with a 3L foam square.  Choose a quote and cut it to be about 1 ¾ inches wide x 1 1/8 inch high. Mount it onto a piece of black cardstock and add the matted quote to your square.

 Square Two “Christmas in the Heart”

Cut a piece of “Under the Mistletoe” to 1 ½ x 3 inches. Adhere it to your 1 ½ x 3 inch chipboard square. Cut a black cardstock square to 1 1/8 inches x 2 1/8 inches. Cut a piece of “Endearing Sentiments” to 1 inch x 2 inches. Adhere it to your black cardstock.  Use some gold berries and push the stem through a small red flower and then a larger green flower. Push the flowers to the top just under the berries. Place the flower at the top of your “Endearing Sentiments” square. Tape the stem to the back your square, trim any of the stem hanging below your square. Add it to the middle of your “Under the Mistletoe” square with foam tape. Add the quote to your square to finish it off.

  

Square Three “Snowflakes”

Cut a piece of “Toyland” to 1 ½ x 3 inches. Adhere it to your 1 ½ x 3 inch chipboard square. Cut a piece of spare chipboard to 1 inch x 2 ½ inches, cut a piece of “The Holly and Ivy” the same size, adhere the print paper to the chipboard piece. Cut a piece of “Christmas Emporium” to ¾ inches x 2 ¼ inches and adhere it to the middle of your “Holly and Ivy” piece. Add the finished piece to your “Toyland” square. Wrap a piece of ribbon from the back to the front and tie it in a knot on the front near the bottom of your square.  In the space above the ribbon, place two snowflake brads and one silver brad.

  

Square Four “Christmas Ornament”

Cut a piece of “Merry and Bright” to 1 ½ x 1 ½ inch. Adhere it to your 1 ½ x 1 ½ inch chipboard square.  Ink the filigree part of the ornament with a silver ink pad. Cover the solid part of your ornament with a piece of “Christmas Emporium”. Once your filigree piece is dry, glue it over the top of your covered ornament. Add a little bit of glitter to the filigree part of the ornament. Add a bow to the top of the ornament. Add the finished ornament to your square with a foam square.

Square Five “Christmas Star”

Cut a piece of “Joyous Noel” to 1 ½ x 1 ½ inch. Adhere it to your 1½ x 1½ inch chipboard square. Add a piece of red ribbon across the middle of your square and wrap the ends to the back of your square. Add a glitter ribbon across the middle of your red ribbon and wrap the ends around to the back of your square. Punch a black cardstock circle 1-1/8 inch, punch a second circle from a piece of “Christmas Emporium” it needs to be 1 inch and adhere it to your black cardstock circle. Place a wire star onto your punched circle and use a bling brad to hold it in place. Once you have the star on the circle, add the circle to your square with a foam square over the ribbon.

  

Square Six “Glitter Snowflake”

Cut a piece of “Tis the Season” to 1 ½ x 1 ½ inch. Adhere it to your 1 ½ x 1 ½ inch chipboard square. Smear a small amount of glue all over the square. Add a mesh ribbon over the top of the paper and trim the ribbon back so it fits onto the square.  Punch a black cardstock circle 1 1/8 inch, punch a second circle from a piece of “All I want for Christmas” it needs to be 1 inch and adhere it to your black cardstock circle. Punch a glitter snowflake and place a bling dome in the middle. Glue it to the middle of your punched circles. Add the finished circle to your square with a foam square.

Square Seven “ Christmas Heart”

Cut a piece of “Christmas Emporium” to 1 ½ x 1 ½ inch. Adhere it to your 1 ½ x 1 ½ inch chipboard square. Add a piece of gold ribbon across your square near the bottom and wrap the ends to the back of your square. Cut a piece of red ric rack long enough to wrap around your square from the back to the front and tie it with a knot to the left of your square.  Ink a chipboard Christmas tree with peeled paint and spray with a little bit of bronze perfect pearls. Add a little bit of glitter to each star on the tree. Add the tree to your square with foam squares.

Square Eight “Peace on Earth”

Cut a piece of “A Christmas Carol” to 1 ½ x 3 inch. Adhere it to your 1 ½ x 3 inch chipboard square. Cut a piece of

“Santa Express” to 1 inch x 2 inches. Wrap the piece around your square so the ends are at the back. It needs to go near the left edge of your square. Cut a piece of black cardstock to ¾ inch wide x 1 3/8 inches long. Cut a piece of “Christmas Emporium” to 5/8 x 1 2/8 inches. Adhere the print paper onto your piece of black cardstock. Punch a black cardstock circle  1 1/8 inch, punch a second circle from a piece of “Al I want for Christmas”  it needs to be 1 inch and adhere it to your black cardstock circle. Use two flowers and glue them on top of each other. Glue them to your circle. Glue it to your small square and use a bling brad to hold the whole thing together.  Add the finished piece over the top of your “Santa Express” print with foam square.  Mat a quote onto a piece of black cardstock and add it to your square.

Now all I need to do is take some photos at Christmas, I have room for 6x  1 ½ x 1 ½ inch photos. Mine is for a present, so I have mounted the finished squares onto an Imaginarium Designs backing board which I sprayed black first.  I just added a ribbon bow to finish it off."

From Spellbinders' blog . . .

Christmas Ornaments: Building Off the Core

"Hello everyone, Astrid here from the UK. Can you believe there are only 5 days left until the big day??? Well, just in case you are still in need of a few last minute gifts or decorations, let me show you some quick and easy ornaments. If you are a regular visitor here, you will know that last week we were working with the good old faithful Nestabilities. This week we are showing how you can use these to build upon with the more intricate dies, and one of the great things about all of the Spellbinder dies is that they work so well together. You can layer one on top of the other to create projects that look far more complicated than they actually are.

Just because it is nearly Christmas, I thought it would be fun to create a collage sheet with Holiday images that you can use for your last minute projects. This sheet is sized so that it will fit perfectly with the Nestabilities Standard Circles Small. The images when printed on a sheet of A4 (8.5 by 11) will fit the third smallest die exactly.

Spellbinders™ Paper Arts Supplies:
Spellbinders Grand Calibur® Machine
S4-166 Standard Circles SM Spellbinders™ Nestabilities®
SKU: LF-114 Grand Circles
SKU: S4-354 Splendid Circles
SKU: S5-078 Persian Accents
SKU:S5-079 Persian Motifs
SKU:S5-055 Layered Poinsettia
Others: Kraft card; cream coloured card; old book page;various colours of die inks; Treasure Gold Guilding wax in the colour white fire; dimensional foam adhesive; gold thread; a few small embellishments like bead caps; burgundy seam binding; collage sheet above, printed on smooth white card.

Well, as you can see, I have used quite a few different die sets, but the great thing is, as long as you have some Circle Nestabilities and any of the Accents and Motifs you can create something very similar, and with the help of the Grand Calibur this is quick and easy as you can cut multiple dies in one go. Just remember when cutting intricate dies it is a good idea to use wax paper between the die and the card you are going to cut and for visitors from the UK the good news is, this is now readily available in the UK, if you need to know where to get it from, email me.
I’ll talk you through the ornaments I made one by one, but before I do, each one was created by layering:
The largest of the SKU: S4-354 Splendid Circles on top of the smallest of the SKU: LF-114 Grand Circles, then the largest of the SKU:S5-079 Persian Motifs, the second largest of the SKU: S4-354 Splendid Circles and finally the third smallest of the S4-166 Standard Circles SM Spellbinders™ Nestabilities®.
Here is a picture of the dies and the order in which to layer them:
All right, now for how I made mine:

For this one start by covering a piece of craft card with an old book page and then cut and emboss it with the smallest of the Grand Circles. Once cut, ink around the edges with brown die ink (I used Vintage Photo Distress Ink) If you are not totally sure how to do this, check out the great tutorial my team mate Sylvia created last week, you can see it here

Next cut and emboss your chosen dies out of cream coloured card stock. Only one run through with the Grand Calibur, that’s what makes this project so quick and easy!

Carefully rub Treasure Gold wax over the raised bits to give them a metallic sheen.

With your matching circle die, cut your chosen image from the collage sheet and layer the dies with dimensional foam adhesive in between. I coloured one of the splendid circle ones with brown die ink to pick up the colour of my chosen image. The bottom of the ornament was embellished with the two smallest Layered Poinsettias, the leaves were created by cutting and colouring the third smallest poinsettia as you can see here:
I threaded some gold thread through one of the openings in the largest of the Splendid circles to hang my ornament from still and finished by adding a brad in the centre of the Poinsettia

The second and third ornaments were made in a very similar way, here are some close up pictures still:

Cutting the image from the sheet: Tape the circle die down over your chosen image, and run through your Grand Calibur this time with the white cutting plate at the bottom and the grey base plate at the top. No need to emboss



Threading through gold thread, – right around this time:

Layering the embellishment at the bottom, this time using the Persian Accents and Motifs:
The centre was a bead cap which I flattened in the Grand Calibur!
The finished ornament, again colour coordinated with the central image
And the final one with a red ribbon as further embellishment

 

And a close up:

It would be easy enough to add something like this to a card also, and of course your recipient could hang it from their tree if they wanted….. Here is a sample: The background was created by gold embossing a text stamp on a square of cream coloured card and matting that on coloured card.

Well that was it. Hope I gave you a bit of last minute inspiration and maybe if you have been good Santa will bring you some more of Spellbinders’ lovely dies
Wishing you all the most wonderful holiday, – until next month!"



Winter is certainly showing her colors this week . . . winds, driving rains and snow! The official start of winter begins in just a couple of days. Perfect conditions to stay snuggled up at home and work on your favorite project with your favorite art mediums, i.e., watercolors, colored pencils, chalks, embossing powders, Glaze pens and fine art rubber stamps. Missing a product? Please stop in at Art 'n Soul and we'll 'hook you up!'