Silver Swirl Carved Ornament

Technique:  Papercrafting

Materials:
600 gsm card stock
background paper
adhesive
Distress Inks
* Faded Denim
* Stormy Sky
Number 10 crochet thread
craft metal sheet
snowflake sequins
Perfect Pearls
silver ink

Tools:
Sizzix Big Shot
Tim Holtz Alterations
* Carved Ornaments
* Mini Flourish
1.5mm crochet hook

The challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show this week is to Show Some Metal.  As expected many of the DT examples and entries have a vintage meets industrial come grungy feel as is true to the Tim Holtz style.  I wanted to do something a little different, and use plenty of Tim Holtz tools and techniques, but come up with something unexpected.

Cover both sides of plain card stock with a background paper, I chose a dictionary paper with Christmas definitions, but I plan to do others with music paper in a red and gold theme, lots of scope for creativity.  When it's properly dry run it through the Sizzix with the carved ornament die.  Ink up the edges with distress inks, I wanted a blue and silver theme so I have used stormy sky and faded denim. 

I have made my own home made version of Perfect Pearls using white pearl cosmetic mica (think mineral make up), added to a mixture of water with just a few drops of gloss medium to act as a fixative.  Once upon a time I taught soap making and I have copious amounts of cosmetic glitter and mica in a vast array of colours sitting on the shelf doing nothing.  I imagine for most its simply easier to use Perfect Pearls or Glimmer Mist or similar product.  The front and back of the ornament are spritz with a white pearl glimmer.  Finally, ink the edges with silver ink, I used Versacolour for the metallic inks, I love their thick, sticky texture.

Adhere a piece of silver craft metal to an offcut of card stock and run it through the Sizzix using the mini flourish die to create the silver flourish.

Make one snowflake following the directions below.  The original pattern can be found here.

Ch 4, sl st into 1st ch OR make magic ring.

Round 1: Ch 5 (counts as 1 dc and ch 2), sc in ring, *ch 2, dc in ring, ch 2, sc in ring; repeat from * 5 times; ch 2, sl st in 3rd ch of starting ch 5 for a total of 6 petals. Do not pull magic circle too tight.

Round 2: In same ch as sl st, work: sc, ch 3, sc in 2nd ch from hook, ch 1, dc, ch 2, sl st in top of dc just worked, ch 3, sc in 2nd ch from hook, ch 1, sc, ch 3, sc in 2nd ch from hook, ch 1; in next dc and in each of next 5 dc around work: *sc, ch 3, sc in 2nd ch from hook, ch 1, dc, ch 2, sl st in top of dc just made, ch 3, sc in 2nd ch from hook, ch 1, sc, ch 3, sc in 2nd ch from hook, ch 1; sl st in starting sc of this row; bind off. Weave in ends.

Finishing is simply a matter of adhering the layers onto the base ornament and adding a bit of bling.

Cracked Ornament

Technique:  Papercrafting

Materials:
balsa wood ornament base
chipboard frame
glue
image of Santa
spray adhesive
tiny brass screws
gold leaf
600gsm card stock
scrap acetate
embellishments as desired


Tools:
Tim Holtz Alterations:
* Tags and Bookplates die
Sizzix Big Shot
scissors
screwdriver
paintbrush

A few days back I showed you how I made the basla wood base for this ornament.  The post is here in case you missed it. 

Here's how I finished off that ornament.

Run some 600gsm card stock through the sizzix with the tags and bookplate die.  I love this die!  Keep the oval bookplate, and put the rest away for another day. 

Use the bookplate as a template to choose an image of santa from an old card or wrapping paper and cut to just smaller than the plate.   Repeat this process but with a scrap piece of acetate to form the 'glass' of our frame. 

Lightly coat the front of the plate with spray adhesive and lay it sticky side down onto a sheet of gold leaf.   You can buy gold leaf size that is a tacky adhesive especially for gold leaf, but spray adhesive will do the job too.  Tear away the excess and use a soft brush to gently go over the entire surface to encourage adhesion and show up the highlights.  You now have a gilded frame.  You could of course use a real metal fitting, such as the type found in the Ideology range, or you could use a brooch finding, anything you like really, but I think the gold leaf really brings it to life.

To complete the frame, put a rim of glue around the edge of the acetate and glue to the underside of the book plate, then put a rim of glue around the image of santa and glue the image to the acetate.  Voila!  A gold frame.

All that is left to do now is screw the frame into place with some tiny brass screws, and glue on your embellishments.  I used two teeny pine cones and a strip of ribbon.

Snowflake Embossed Carved Ornament

Technique:  Die Cutting/Scrapbooking

Materials:
1.5mm balsa wood
adhesive craft metal

Tools
snowflake texture plate or embossing folder
Sizzix Big Shot Die Cutter
Tim Holtz Carved Ornament Die
"JOY" Movers and Shakers Die

What a stunningly simple ornament this turned out to be!

Cover both sides of the balsa wood with the craft metal.  Run it through the die cutter to get the carved ornament shape, then run it through again to emboss with the snowflake pattern.  Punch a hole in the top and hang.  Did I mention I love my Big Shot?

If you have never seen nor used it before, craft metal is very thin metal that has an adhesive backing.  It's around 4 or 5 times thicker than tin foil, but it has a similar appearance.  You could try this using tin foil, in fact I am going to do just that and report my findings, but for this project I used adhesive craft metal.

You can buy embossing folders that are especially designed for use in die cutting machines to emboss a texture into your chosen material.  I am a huge fan of using what you have, or buying products and tools that have multiple applications rather than needing to buy lots of individual items each with their own specific single use.  So, to emboss, I used a Fiskar texture plate that I had purchased years ago for a scrapbooking ornament.

For those who have a Bigshot, the 'sandwich' I used was the adapter plate with no tabs, cutting mat, fiskars texture plate, ornament, then topped off with a cutting pad.