A Mini Christmas Easel!

Hello from Magpieheaven and I hope you are all keeping warm and cosy whatever your nest happens to be! My thoughts are still with those suffering the effects of the typhoon in the Philippines and now also with those affected by the devastation in the Mid West of America. It was a bit of a gloomy day yesterday so I wanted to cheer myself up with some Christmas craft. This is something I made in between cooking Sunday lunch for the family, which now includes my mum who we can collect to come and share our Sunday meal with us. I had intended to start my Christmas cards, but somehow whenever I begin - with the best of intentions - I become distracted and find myself engaged on another project! This time I was all set. I had just received some lovely new Artistic Outpost stamps and I was ready to play! Then I saw a large piece of corrugated card and I started to experiment. What I found myself creating would be impossible to mail, but I decided it would make a nice centre-piece for my mantel piece which I'm planning to decorate with a garland. Here is how it started!

I played with my corrugated card, cutting out a square and tearing off the surface layer then experimenting with Gesso by Claudine Helmuth, Fresco paints in Cinnamon and Blood Orange and some Rose Quartz Treasure Gold. I also had a mini wooden easel which had come with a little canvas from The Works. I love these for displaying tags and I started to wonder ... what about if I decorated it, altered it so that it became a part of my corrugated Shabby Chic Christmas project? This is where my playing took me! Please click on the images that follow, if you would like to see in more detail: it was a mini project and quite difficult to photograph, as I went crazy with the frantage and Stickles! I do hope no-one had Mica flakes in their chicken casserole!

First I Gessoed the easel liberally, making it as splodgy as possible. I then applied Shabby Blue and Shabby pink Frantage to the easel and heated this until it glittered frostily. Then I had a play with something I've never used before. I love the way that Laura and Alison Bomber use wire so imaginatively on their projects. I wanted to see how wire would look daubed in Gesso. Mr Magpie kindly let me have a roll of thin wire from his tool cupboard as we passed in the hall - him off to lay paving stones in the garden, me having just made the roux for the casserole! I curled the wire around a pencil and then I found that I could attach it to the big blobs of Gesso and it soon became a part of the frame! I frantaged these wire 'vines' too and that both integrated and secured them!

I then punched out some little leaves from card, which I painted with Fresco 'Ice Blue' and touched with White Fire Treasure Gold and a little sprinkling of frantage! Then it was time for some fun with Shrink Plastic - still one of my favourite craft materials! I die-cut some leaves with a Tim Holtz tattered leaves die, having first painted and scored the Shrink Plastic. I used Fresco Guacamole because the colour deepens when you heat the plastic and this is a nice pale shade of green. I used Frosted Lace Distress Stickles on my leaves and tipped them with more Gesso. I also accented them with red pearls that remind me of holly berries. I've found that Polyshrink translucent shrink plastic is really good; it seems to work well nearly every time! I also cut some that I had left over into the shape of a tag. I tried die-cutting one from the Tim Holtz tag die, but it did not really shrink small enough for my mini-project. I stamped this with the lovely Santa from the Artistic Outpost 'Snowy Woods' plate, which I love, using Wendy Vecchi Potting Soil Archival ink.

I used another of these images from Snowy Woods as my central image. I fell in love with this stamp and I knew I had to have it when I saw it on 'Paper Profusion's' blog used so beautifully. I stamped it onto card with Potting Soil Archival, the card was sponged with Fresco Snowflake and a touch of Spruce Distress Ink. I then embossed one of the snowflakes from the Artistic Outpost set with Wow embossing powder in white, just sponging with a tiny amount of Cinnamon Fresco to highlight it. I embossed the wreath from the set in Wendy Vecchi Fern Green, colouring the bow with a red Sharpie and sprinkling with frantage. I attached it with foam pads. I then added three snowflakes from the plate, Spruce embossed with clear embossing powder and Stickled and given gem centres. The Sentiment appears on the image, but I stamped it out again and curled the edges to give a more 'vintage' look. I also added Rose Quartz Treasure Gold to the curled edges of my central image. I echoed the curls of wire by adding curls of paper from the edge of the thin card I used for my central image. They are Snowflake and Cinnamon, edged with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo. I added a gauze, white ribbon and a scrap of red gingham for the Shabby Chic look.

As all the images on my project are from Artistic Outpost I should like to enter my project for the Artistic Outpost, November Referral.
I should also like to enter it for the Fashionable Stamping Challenges Shabby Chic Christmas and finally
The Artistic Stamper November Challenge, which is Christmas!
Thank you so much for stopping by today and looking at my little Magpie Christmas decoration. Have a lovely, creative week!