Santa Heads up the Fireplace by Betsy Skagen

It is late Christmas Eve and miniature Santa has just left tiny toys by the fireplace for good little girls and boys. 

He made sure to sample the gingerbread cookies and glass of milk before he left. You can even see his nibble marks on one of the cookies. 

 

Tutorial: How to Make Santa's Fireplace

Begin by assembling the sides and back of the Narrow Victorian Fireplace. Leave off the top, top interior tier and front. 

Paint all the surface with black gesso. You can omit the interior top tier. Also don't worry about painting between the two interior walls. 

Mix black gesso with modeling paste and spread on interior back and aides of the fireplace. Use an old credit card and an old pencil to create the brick pattern. Let dry. 

Place the front of the fireplace in position and adhere with strong glue. Repeat the brick making process for the exterior of the fireplace. 

Cover the fireplace with a light gray paint. 

Paint each individual brick with assorted colors of paint including burgundy or brick, brown, red and a dark yellow.

Touch up any grout with the light gray paint. 

Cut the back and head off an old Santa ornament and insert into fireplace. Adhere with strong glue.

I decided to dry brush some gray paint onto the interior back wall of the fireplace so that it was easier to see Santa's boots. 

Cut out wood-grained paper for the top and sides of your mantel. I aged the paper using brown and black inks.  Glue it onto the fireplace.

Cut stockings from felt, add miniature candy and adhere to the mantle. 

Add tiny logs and glue in place.

Cut a bite out of some wooden gingerbread and adhere to a dollhouse plate. Drop some white paint into a dollhouse glass. Add all of these to the top of the mantle.

Cut a rectangle from an upholstery sample to use as your base. Add miniature toys, wreath and tiny vintage games.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I hope this inspires you to make your own miniature Christmas scene. -Betsy

Great Stuff

Narrow Victorian Fireplace

Miniature vintage games

Strong adhesive

Black gesso

Modeling paste

Acyclic paint

Upholstery sample

Miniature toys

Bottlebrush wreath

Dollhouse dishes and candy

Wooden gingerbread men

Christmas Countdown Shadow Box

Hello!! It's Jennalee here today. How is it already December? I have been in full Christmas Crafting mode here. This project is inspired by the beautiful advent calendar made by Paula Cheney. As I was thinking of making my own version I thought that the Mini House Room would be the perfect piece for a Christmas scene and calendar.

Start by assembling and gluing together your Mini House Room. 

Cut Background paper to size and decorate as desired. Cut coordinating paper to size for all remaining surfaces of the Mini House Room. I ran all my pieces thru my Xyron for quick application. I covered all of the exposed edges with design tape. 

I used the numbers from Tim Holtz's Christmas Alpha Tiles. I colored them with Gold Alcohol Ink. I did need two packs of the Alpha Tiles to have enough numbers. I used a nail to poke a hole thru the House and used mini brads to hang my numbers on. 

Then came the fun part!! Making a mini scene within the box. For the snow I used Grit Paste and Distress Rock Candy. I added snow to the peak of the roof and the floor of the house. The tree is a mini bottle brush tree. I removed it's original base and added it onto a bingo marker.

I am so excited to start counting down to Santa's arrival!! I hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial. And I hope you are finding time to sneak in some Christmas crafting. Happy Creating ~ Jennalee 

GSLCuts items used:

Mini house room box

Altered Christmas Window

Hello! Cherry here at the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts Blog.

I have a fun altered Christmas window to share.

I started by tracing my chosen paper onto the Dimensional Window Kit

.

 I then cut the window with my paper cutter to get a nice straight line and than adhered with paper and lightly sanded the edges.

 I then covered my back window with my other pattern paper and then layered both pieces together.

 From there I wrapped my ribbons around the window and adhered my embellishments to each window pane.

Here it is finished.

Thanks for visiting the GSLC blog, Cherry

GSLC Supplies-

Dimensional Window Kit