Merry, Merry....My Mind's Eye

Exciting news, friends!  I have been invited to be Guest Designer for Canadian Scrapbooker magazine! This is a one year term, starting with the Winter issue, which will be released December 1. My photo and Bio is now posted on their Home webpage...so if you want to check it out, click HERE.

Quite a few of the projects I will have on my blog will also be featured in the magazine.  I am thrilled and honoured to be a part of the fantastic team behind the magazine...they are a very talented group of scrapbookers!

Today I am sharing a layout I completed for the monthly staff challenge at Urban Scrapbook, the store where I teach and design....plus, I used Jill Sarginson's sketch from the November Sketchy challenge over at the Canadian Scrapbooker website.

Here is Jill's awesome sketch....

...and here is my layout using the new My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Christmas collection...

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

The designer at Urban who creates these monthly staff challenges is Jan Hobbins...a truly gifted artist when it comes to scrapbooking and crafting. In our kit with these papers, she included the following which we were supposed to alter in some way:  a chipboard lamp post, 2 wood snowflakes, another snowflake and holly cut from acetate, and gold metal paper.

Here is how I altered these elements...

 I coloured the chipboard lamp post with Vintage Photo Distress Stain and Clear Rock Candy Crackle Distress paint.  Then I added a light behind the top lamp part by tracing it onto gold cardstock.

 I attached this gold cardstock piece behind the lamp with Glossy Accents.  It dries quickly and is great for adhering chipboard, grunge board etc.

The lamp wasn't shining brightly enough so I added some Gold Stickles right onto the gold cardstock.
(BTW, the lamp post, holly and snowflake were cut with a Tim Holtz Sizzix die)

The acetate holly you see on the lamp post is simply altered into a gold element using Gold Mixative Alcohol Ink.  It dries immediately and gives beautiful coverage on non-porous elements like plastic and transparencies.  I did the same with the clear acetate snowflake..

The snowflake on the left has the Gold Mixative on the back...hard to tell in this photo.

 The wood snowflakes from Maya road were altered with Clear Rock Candy Distress Crackle paint and then to highlight the "cracks", I rubbed on some beautiful Accent Powder by Harmonie....

The cracks just come to life with this Raspberry Accent Powder. 

 I used another handy tool for the powder....my finger tip :)

To alter gold metal paper from Spellbinders, I used a die cut scalloped element from the MME Christmas collection and traced it to make a whole scalloped circle.

 That purple doily in the photo is a steel die from Cheery Lynn...I used it to dry emboss the metal paper...

I used the rubber handle of my Cutterbee scissors to rub the metal paper on the doily die and emboss it with the design.  This wasn't my official plan...I just didn't clean up my workspace and the doily die was sitting there ....so the lightbulb went on over my head while I was looking at my metal paper! lol!

There probably is an official tool to emboss like this but I used what was sitting on my desk :)

And here's the finished metal doily!

 For those of you who don't use Photoshop or a program to alter photos, here is a handy trick to add an edge to a photograph....using paint.  I added Gold Metallic paint to my Christmas tree pic...

Place your photo on a piece of scrap paper and use any paint dabber.

Pounce or bounce your paint dabber along the edge of your photo to create a soft stippled effect.

I didn't let this dry on the scrap piece...I took it off so it didn't stick to the paper.

So easy...and it dries within minutes.

 Put it all together....and it's a Very Merry Christmas!

The tree in the photo is very special to me, not because it is the first artificial tree we bought together when married, but it is now decorated with beautiful Swarovski crystal snowflake ornaments. One design is released every Christmas, and a few years ago I told my husband how my BFF had been collecting them since the year of her daughter's birth. I wished I had done that. So for the past two Christmases, he had purchased all of the snowflake ornaments designed since the year of our son's birth, 1995, and gave them all to me :) I was moved beyond belief...he's a wonderful man and I'm so lucky.

These Christmas projects have brought me much joy and helped me appreciate the spirit of the season.....

So it's time for another GIVEAWAY!!!!

 If you are a follower and comment on this post, your name will be entered into a draw to win a kit with all of these goodies that I used to create this page!  If you live in Edmonton, these kits will be on sale soon at The Urban Scrapbook...so drop by!  The winner will be announced next week :)