Vintage Family Mini Book with GSLC and Canvas Corp

Hi and welcome to the GSLC blog today.  This month we are joining forces with an amazing company called Canvas Corp.  They have lots of vintage products that are really fun to work with and create with.  I made a vintage Family Book with my goodies that I got, so please keep reading to see how I created it.

So all my products were from their 7 Gypsies line called the Architectures Collection.  It had gorgeous vintage colors in aqua, browns and ivory so I set to work starting with the mini book.  For my Chipboard on the cover I used the Flourished Frame Lisa (coming soon)and the Victorian Silhouette Frames.

1. Start by cutting the blue paper to cover the inside of the book both front and back and adhere.  Cut out the white set of doors from the back side of the paper.

2. Use a ruler and mark where your holes will go on the front.  Use a crop a dile to punch them on the front and back and then attach them with small metal rings like you see above.

3. For the frame I inked it with Brilliance ink and then embossed it with a fun vintage embossing powder from Stampendous.  It's called Aged Aqua and it gives it a really fun patina.

4. Ink and emboss the chipboard with the silhouettes on it using the rose embossing powder.  Then layer all of them on the front of the book and glue with Beacon's 3 in 1 Advanced Adhesive.  This is a wonderful glue in that it works on all kinds of products.  Even fabric.

5.  Now you can die cut a few flowers with the ivory burlap that they carry.  I did 2 sets of each so that I could create a nice flower cluster on the front of my book.

6. Glue the flowers together and let them dry.

7. Arrange lots of flowers on the front and attach with ribbons and leaves to your liking.  This part is always my favorite because I love flowers on things.  

8.  for the inside of the book you can cut pages from paper and then add other bits of things to decorate them.  I cut pieces of canvas below to put on the page for pictures later when I fill it with all the things I want to remember about my ancestors from long ago.

9.  And Canvas Corp also has lots of other little door themed stickers to put inside.

This was a really fun book to make and I can't wait to put all the information and pictures I am finding from this side of my family.  And the size is really nice too so that it doesn't take up so much room.

Here is a supply list just in case you need a few things:

GSLC Victorian Silhouette Frames

GSLC Flourished Frame Lisa (coming soon)

Canvas Corp 7 gypsies Mini Book

Canvas Corp 7 Gypsies Painted Doors paper

Canvas Corp 7 gypsies Architecture Collection

Canvas Corp ivory canvas

Canvas Corp Ivory Burlap

Stampendous Aged Aqua and Aged Rose embossing powder

Versamagic Jumbo Java chalk ink

Brilliance ink in cosmic copper

Extra flowers from Paper Studio

Adhesive letters from Ruby Rock-it

Thanks so much for stopping over and have a wonderful day

Teresa

Christmas Easel Card with Guest Designer Kathy Clement

 Hello, Friends! This is my 3rd Guest Designer post for Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts. I am having so much fun with these fabulous chippies! Today I have a sweet vintage Christmas project to share with you. This Christmas Emporium Easel Card is made with Graphic 45 papers and some wonderful chipboard from Gypsy Soul.

Here's a list of what you'll need to create this Christmas Emporium easel card:

• Victorian Silhouette Frames
• Snowflake Shape Set
• Christmas Shape Set
• Winter Shape Set
• 10 Words

• Graphic 45 Christmas Emporium 8x8 paper pad
• Red Cardstock
• Black Cardstock
• Gold Foil Cardstock
• Tim Holtz Distress Paints: Crushed Olive, Festive Berries, Black Soot, Picket Fence
• Fine Glitter, such as Dazzling Diamonds
• Marcasite Stampendous Frantage Embossing Enamel
• Ranger Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE)
• Stampendous Shaved Ice
• Stampendous Spoonful of Rust Embossing Enamel
• Red Glitter Embossing Powder
• Stickles Sprinkled Sugar
• Red Rhinestones
• Antique Gold Plaid Ribbon
• 3/8" Christmas Plaid Ribbon
• Burlap String
• Rusty Jingle Bells
• Versamark Embossing Ink
• Non-Stick Craft mat

Prepping Your Chipboard for the Christmas Emporium Easel Card

From the chipboard sets listed above, you will want to select:

• the Victorian Frame with the fiddler on the rooftop
• the large snowflake from the Snowflake shape set
• the word "joy" from 10 words
• The snowflake border strip from the Winter Shape Set
• the English Lamp Post, small holly leaves and berries from the Christmas Shape Set.

Get out your non-stick craft mat and your Distress Paints. Paint the Victorian Frame with Black Soot Distress Paint. While the paint is still wet, sprinkle with the Marcasite Embossing Enamel and then heat emboss. This type of embossing powder leaves a finish that looks like enamel and it is a wonderful, quick way to alter chipboard. I always hold my chipboard with a pair of reverse tweezers, and begin heating from the under side of the chip so that my powder doesn't blow away. I find that applying the powder to the wet paint helps prevent fly away powder as well. I love the sparkly enamel finish it left on this frame:

  

Put down a heavy layer of Versamark or other embossing ink directly onto the surface of the English lamp Post from the Christmas set. Sprinkle liberally with Spoon Full of Rust embossing enamel, then press the powder down with your fingertips. Heat emboss as in the step above. When it has cooled, tap it lightly with Crushed Olive Distress Paint to give it an oxidized appearance. Paint the small holly berries and leaves from the Christmas Shape set. I used a pencil to draw in vein markings on the holly leaves. For the berries, while the Festive Berries paint was still wet, I embossed with a red glitter embossing powder and then topped them with red rhinestones once cooled. Glue the leaves and berries onto the lamp post. Add the rhinestones. Tie a burlap string bow and attach the tag from Christmas Emporium.

  

Paint the snowflake and snowflake border piece with Picket Fence Distress Ink and while still wet, sprinkle with glitter. Set aside to dry. Paint the word JOY with black soot paint. Tap along the edges very lightly with Picket Fence Distress Paint to mimic the look of snow When dry, Cover with Stickles Sprinkled Sugar and let dry.

Prepping the Card Base for the Christmas Emporium Easel Card

 

Create a 7" wide x 5" tall easel card base using red cardstock.

• Cut an 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock to measure 7" x 10"
• Score on the long side at 5" and again at 7.5", creating 2 mountain folds.
• Crease along the score lines to form the easel card base.
• Cut a separate 7" x 5" rectangle from red cardstock
• Cut a 6.75" 4.75" rectangle from gold foil cardstock
• Cut a 6.5" x 4.5" rectangle of designer paper (I used the Christmas bells)
• Glue the designer paper and gold paper to the red cardstock rectangle. Do NOT glue onto the easel card base yet.
• Wrap with antique gold plaid ribbon, using Scor-Tape or other double sided adhesive to secure.
• Trace around the Victorian Frame onto the Santa's workshop image in the designer paper. Cut out and trim to fit. Tap with Versamark Ink, and heat emboss with UTEE. When the image has cooled completely, bend it gently to "crack" the finish, giving it the look of old glass. Glue onto the back side of the prepared frame.
• Cut a scrap of the Christmas Carol paper and glue to the right hand side of the frame as seen in the photo. Cut a4.5" square mat from the red plaid paper. Round the corners. Glue the frame onto this mat.
• Cut a 4.75" square from black cardstock. Round the corners. Glue the matted frame onto the black cardstock.
• Fussy cut the teddy bear, rocking horse and baby doll from the paper collection. Ink the edges. Use foam adhesive to add to the base of the frame as seen in the photo.

Adding the details to the Christmas Emporium Easel Card

• Fussy cut the Christmas list from the designer paper. Glue it to the card base as seen here. I crumpled it lightly to add texture.
• use strips of foam adhesive to secure the prepared lamp post to the right hand side of the card, as seen here. Spread glue at the base and sprinkle with Shaved Ice to make it look like snow.
• Glue the matted frame to the card as seen above.
• Use strips of foam adhesive to add the large snowflake in the lower left hand corner of the frame.
• Use hot glue to secure the word "JOY" on top of the snowflake.
• Tie a bow with the Christmas plaid ribbon, top with a burlap string bow, and tie on the rusty jingle bells. Secure with hot glue as shown in the photo above.
• Cut a 6 7/8" x 4.75" rectangle of the Christmas Bells and glue to the INSIDE of the prepared card base.
• Cut a 6.75" x 1.5"strip of the red plaid paper. Mat with a slightly larger piece of black cardstock. Glue this to the very bottom edge of the card interior. Add the prepared snowflake border piece. This forms the stopper for your easel card. Decorate with rhinestones if desired.
• Decorate the interior of the card as shown.

Add glue to the bottom half the easel card front and carefully line up the bottom half of your decorated card front to this flap. The card will now stand up on its own for display, and lay flat to fit in an envelope.

This Christmas Emporium easel card is such a fun design, as it doubles as home decor. Adding all this lovely chipboard adds texture and dimension and makes the card really stand out. You could use any paper or theme of course, but this is one of my all time favorite Christmas collections. I hope you learned some new tips and tricks from today's tutorial. If you did, I'd love to hear from you in the comment section below. I'd love to invite you to visit my blog, Kathy by Design, where you'll find loads of tutorials for special cards like this one. Thanks for stopping by!

Cheerio,

kathy

Christmas Carol House with Guest Designer Kathy Clement

Hello, Friends! Well, Thanksgiving is behind us, and now it's time to dig in and create for Christmas! I'm excited about the month ahead for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that I have been invited to create four projects using scrumptious laser cut chipboard from Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts! This chipboard is sooooo yummy, as you will see in today's project. I made a Christmas Carol House using loads of Gypsy Soul Lasercuts, Graphic 45 "A Christmas Carol" papers and lots of sparklies and pretties!! 

  

This is one of those projects that I wish you could see in person, because it is so much cooler than the pictures show. I've never made anything quite like this before, and boy oh boy, was it fun!

 

I began by painting the 3 Story House with a coat of white gesso followed by a swish of Iced Spruce Distress Paint. Next, I sponged all the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. After that, I cut my Graphic 45 "A Christmas Carol" papers to fit each floor and the inside and outside of the pieces. I felt it was easier to decorate the house before building it. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to put the house together using just a touch of Art Institute Dries Clear Glue. The pieces are dovetailed, so they fit together seamlessly.  

 

Here's what the house looked like in process, so you can see how I combined my papers. Nothing is glued down here yet. The next step was to choose and prepare my chipboard pieces. Here's a list with links to the chipboard I selected:

• Snowflake Border
• Snowflake Shape Set
• Stars and Flourishes Border and Corner Set
• Winter Shape Set
• Victorian Silhouette Frames
• 3 Story House

I wanted my stars and snowflakes to glitter and shine, so instead of painting them, I treated them with Shabby Frantage Embossing Powder in shades of white and blue. This opaque powder contains little flecks of gold, color and glitter and adds a wonderful vintage finish to chipboard. Here's what that 

process looked like.

  

I tapped my chipboard pieces with Versamark Ink. Really lay it on nice and thick!

  

Use a funnel tray or piece of clean paper and pour a thick layer of the embossing powder over the prepared chipboard. Press it down lightly with your fingertips, then tap off the excess and put it back in the bottle. Then, heat emboss. Easy peasy...and you don't have to wait for paint to dry!

 

For the roof, I used DecoArt Crackle Texture Paste and let it cure overnight. I painted it with a thin layer of Clear Rock Candy Distress Paint and while that was still wet, I sprinkled it with Stampendous Shaved Ice Flakes. I love how it glistens just like a snow topped roof!

  

Each floor of the house features a wintry holiday scene. And just look how those embossed snowflakes glisten! 

  

The "ground floor" uses a tree from the Winter Shape set along with a trio of altered bottle brush trees, a snowflake that I cut in half, and cutie pie snow angel. The floor is covered with paper, Spanish Moss, Shaved Ice, and some Prima Winter Berries. I let the embossed chipboard stars and snowflakes form a frame around this pretty winter scene. The bottle brush trees are mounted on altered thread spools to achieve varying heights. 

 

I used the star border as a base for my arrangement of flowers, pine cones, jingle bells and berries. It adds such a festive feeling!

 

This image from the 8x8 Christmas Carol pad fit perfectly inside this Victorian Man and Woman frame! I simply painted the frame black, then dry brushed it here and there with a little Iced Spruce Distress paint.

  

The "attic" is lit with Tim Holtz' mini lantern, and yes, it really lights up! Here's a tip: Drill the hole for your wiring BEFORE you assemble the house. Some of us have to learn that the hard way! LOL  

A side view, so you can see the fun metal feet and the decorated sides. 

  

 And another side view. Isn't it fun?

  

 And one more peek at that snow topped roof!

  

I'd like to thank Gina at Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts for giving me the opportunity to be a guest designer. I hope you enjoyed your tour of this Christmas Carol House. I'll be back next Wednesday with more ideas. In the meantime, you should check out the online store. It's amazing! Thanks for stopping by!

Cheerio,

Kathy

 

Music Speaks by Barb

"Where words fail, music speaks."

~Hans Christian Andersen

This has long been on of my favorite quotes. As a musician, I know the beauty of being able to sit at a piano and play out feelings that are too much to express any other way. I treasure that ability. Music also is a international language. Put together a group of people from every country on the globe, cue a Mozart song, and they'll all get something from it. 

I began this piece by sponging gesso onto a 5 x 7" canvas panel. Once dry, I got a brush very wet with a few different colors of ColourArte's Twinkling H2Os and just blobbed and streaked them wherever they wanted to go. When the paint was dry, I stenciled on the treble clef with Imagine Crafts Creative Medium in silver and stamped a few notes on using Distress Ink.

I printed the quote on a piece of vellum cardstock and mounted it to a frame from the Victorian Silhouette Frame Set. This, as well as a bit of ivy from the Collage Frame Birds & Ivy Set, I coated with black acrylic paint. After the paint dried, I coated it with Imagine Crafts irRESISTibles in Tuxedo Black.

I love having this reminder that when all else fails, music is there.

Gina's Designs Products Used

 Victorian Silhouette Frame Set

Collage Frame Birds & Ivy Set

Other Products Used

Gesso

Acrylic Paint

ColourArte Twinkling H2Os

Imagine Crafts Creative Medium

Imagine Crafts irRESISTibles