Sunday Stamper - Week 179 - The First Noel

Goodly Morning Stampers and a very happy Sunday to you all. Thank you for all the entries to last weeks 'batty' challenge and it was grand to see some more newbies joining in! This week the theme is taking a more festive feel... well, I just took delivery of those FAB new Seasonal Distress Inks and neeeeeded to play with them... more about those later though. So... the theme this week is... CHRISTMAS. To join in with the Challenge all you need to do is make a little something... it can be anything you fancy, just include the theme and some stamping and then pop over here to leave me a comment with a link to the place you are showing your entry and then I can hop on over to see it. If you don't have a blog you can link me to any of your photo hosting sites or even email me a piccie if you haven't got any of those. The challenge will remain open until 23:00, Saturday 12th November 2011.


So... this weeks theme... yes, I know, Christmas already but... I am being virtuous and am doing Christmas cards now... well, errrrm, sort of... because my entry started life as a card and then I got all exciteable and ended up altering a photo frame... but I am promising myself that I will get all my Christmas cards made this year... like before the actual day *last year I ... bought... I know, I bought cards... tsk, tsk!*



The new Seasonal Distress Inks arrived at the Room of Stash bright and early yesterday morning and of course, it would have been rude not to open them immediately, make new Blending Tools for them and label them up and put them in with the rest of the Distress Ink range... and yes, I have got them all in colour order too. People laugh at me and call me names **sob** (ok, I deserve it sometimes) for doing this but... it just makes it easier to grab the right one and then to put them away again.



Anyways... back to the new Distress Inks. Iced Spruce is my fave of them... it is the most beautiful shade and I can see this is going to get a very lot of use in the coming months. The background of the frame insert was coloured by blending it all over some cream cardstock. I then used the Evergreen Bough to overstamp some script... I love this one too... and... I shouldn't tell you this but... it is also my fave one of the set! Festive Berries is a gorgeous red... less orangey than Barn Door and brighter than Fired Brick, IMO, it fits right in... (ahem, it is my fave of the group... mmm, I see a pattern emerging there lol) I used it on the die cut word to blend over red Bazzill before adding some Rock Candy Stickles and a bit of Gathered Twigs for the edges.




As well as the new inks, I also took delivery of a few of the new Christmas Alteration dies... ooohlalala... they are fab too! I spent 348 years attempting to get my pine cone to resemble a pine cone and not look like something AlfieCat had dragged in from the garden... eventually I gave up and huffed a bit... and then went and watch the Master himself of YouTube... and all became clear... I was doing it wrong! It is fiddly... but worth persevering with because those ickle cones are just so cute.... and look fab with a bit of Rock Candy Stickles popped onto them. The frame was painted with Pitch Black Dabber and then sanded back so more of the wood was showing and then I just blended Gathered Twigs over the patches to tone them in... a quick zap with a heat tool to set the inks and voila, a distressed frame!



My finishing touches were adding some jazzy ribbon that I bought from Michael's... tis like an organza with wired edges and bit of bling attached to it... good job I got a big roll of it because I see this being used a lot too. The Christmas Muse Token was attached through a holly leaf and the Charm was popped into a Memo Pin... easier said than done but I have found a cool way of opening Memo Pins... I use my old pokey tool that is a bit blunt and shove it inbetween the metal ringy bits... and that opens it enough to get whatever into it.

Right then, time for me to stop with a waffle and get away to bed. Thanks for looking... have a fab Sunday! TTFN

Hels x