'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house...
This is the theme of my last tag of the year. Day 12, Tag 12 - the end of our 12 Tags of Christmas with a Feminine Twist for the year 2011. We hope you enjoyed the twists that we shared here in the CLASSroom this year. Yes, it is a labor of love that pushes us through each year. It is a "mission" each day just to get these completed in a manner that we hope inspires you.
Today it is my desire to share several more ways for you to use tissue paper in your projects, as well as share one more resist technique with you!
Don't you find these contemporary, yet rustic little dwellings, sitting in a snowbank with Santa flying overhead simply cute!
Adhering tissue paper to a surface can be done in ways atypical to the usual glues and adhesives. If you would like to add color to your project Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Line is the PERFECT way to add your tissue paper! First cut the dwellings from Craft-a-Board. Apply a layer of Studio Paint.
For variation and interest I added a second color in a streaky manner. You could stamp patterns or use stencils to add variation as well. I was trying to keep today's projects simple and colorful.
Immediately, while the paint is still wet, attach your tissue paper to your project by placing it on the painted surface and applying pressure evenly over the entire surface. Magically the color appears through the tissue paper in a wonderful muted way.
Aren't these just the sweetest mix of colors - right now I am picturing myself in a tranquil setting on the Italian coastline where their homes are so magically colored. How divine!
To add snow to the rooftops follow the same technique I showed a few days ago. Using Picket Fence Distress Crackle Paint apply along the roofline and drag a piercing tool through the paint for a random appearance. Sprinkle silver and clear glass glitter (Twinklets Diamond Dust) into the wet paint. Allow to dry.
Streak Picket Fence Distress Stain randomly over a manila tag.
Add "icicles" to the manila tag surface by randomly streaking Rock Candy Distress Crackle paint on the surface. Apply enough so that you get random cracking. The more you apply, the larger the cracks, with thinner layers providing smaller cracks. Allow to dry.
This surface is absolutely fabulous and very "icy" looking, but I had more to show you ;-D
Using an ink blending tool, in a circular motion, add both Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky distress ink at random to your surface.
Stamp snowflakes in both Stormy Sky and Tumbled Glass.
Make a corner of a soft towel or paper towel damp and wipe the excess ink from the surface where the Rock Candy Crackle paint is applied. Your snowflakes will start disappearing into the night sky.
To create your snowbank use a piece of tissue that has the tiny pinked edge formed by the cutting blade on the packaging on one side and a haphazardly torn edge on the other side. Crumple your tissue paper and then straighten back out. Apply Tumbled Glass distress stain in a random way and dry with a heat tool.
Cut a piece of manila cardstock to fit the width of the tag from the edges of the houses. Tear a random pattern in the top of this snowbank.
On the side opposite of the Distress Stained tissue paper, apply a layer of Gloss Multi-Medium.
Pleat, crumple, and mash the tissue paper to fit and adhere to the manila cardstock snowbank you created above.
Apply another layer of Gloss Multi-Medium to the surface by pouncing with a paintbrush. Sprinkle with both silver and clear glass glitter. Allow to dry.
I love having both 1/16" and 1/8" dimensional squares for adding depth to projects. When you need to layer items one on top of another you can achieve a "flat" look by combining the adhesive squares dependent upon where it is being attached to your project.
As you can see, one of the edges of my blue house is mounted on the tag and the other is mounted on top of the other dwelling. By placing the thicker dimensional on the side that is mounted directly to the tag it keeps my house level. Yes, the perfectionist in my is always coming out and I thought I would share this little trick with you in hopes that it will help other perfectionists out here in cyberville - LOL!
Tip: Create a more unifed balance by spacing these dwellings of different sizes and shapes in an assymetrical way. In other words, don't center the red house or it will not look right. It's all about breaking up your space into thirds and fifths - the Roman mean. Yep, that puts me right back in Italy and I'm going back to the Cinque Terre - ha, ha!
I needed to use my second set of hands, my self-closing tweezers, to knot my baker's twine and add the little jingle bell.
Since it is Christmas Eve I decided to add one simple "window" to my dwelling, but needed to alter the color ever so slightly to coordinate with the house on the left and Santa's face - Delicata Gold ink to the rescue!
One last parting shot of our last tag of the season. We hope that you have enjoyed your time here with us and with that we would like to close with... Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
stamps: Tim Holtz Winter Sketchbook
ink: Distress Ink - Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky, Distress Stain - Picket Fence and Tumbled Glass
paper: Manila Cardstock, Craft-a-board, Terminology Tissue Wrap
accessories: Studio Line - Dab of Yellow, Yellow Pastel, Modern Red, Dash of Red, Sky Blue, Landscape Green, Glossy Multi-Medium; Off White Twill, Silver Tinsel, Santa Christmas Ornament (these are absolutely darling and the size is perfect for crafting!), Picket Fence Distress Crackle Paint, Silver Glitter Glass, Twinklets Diamond Dust, Bakers Twine, Jingle Bell, Game Pieces
It's our last day of blog candy, but the party is far from over! Be certain to join us again tomorrow as we get our Hero Arts preview party started. Due to the "inconveniences" of today (yes, my studio is in complete disarray as the neighbors flooded toilet made an amazing mess in our office and warehouse - who would have thought a toilet contains that much water!) I am not certain when we will be able to get our first post up, but it is on to Plan B for the short term as I try to wade through this - ha, ha! Gotta laugh about it or I just might be sitting in a puddle crying - double ha, ha!
To be eligible for the random drawing of the goodies shown above please leave a comment here on this post by noon Pacific Time, Wednesday, December 14th.
One last reminder that the goodies in the 12 Days Tag Time will be on sale until tomorrow morning at 9:00am, so if you have been inspired to try something new and different please head over to take advantage of the savings.
Thank you all once again for joining us here in the CLASSroom. We sincerely hope that we have brought a bright spot to your holiday season, that you have been inspired, and hopefully, have picked up a couple of new ideas to use in your creating!
