A Frosty Hostess Gift

Every year I vow to make homemade gifts instead of giving store-bought gifts and everyone year I fail at that.

This year I am quite proud of the number of homemade gifts I actually did get made. (Of course, that was at the expense of making any Christmas cards but....)

Most of my gifts are quick and easy to make, and quite inexpensive. And today's post definitely fits that description!

It seems the rage this year seems to be embellished candles. All of the stores are carrying candles covered and decorated with glitter and gem. And they are quite expensive. I love the look but I didn't love the price so instead I made my own.

I've already shared with you embellishing candles with paste embellishments and paste embossing on glass. However I do know that there a one or two of you who are still not paste converts yet so this post is for you!

Using Dreamweaver's double-sided mounting paper and the double glitter technique, I created this with a 99 cent votive holder and a votive candle. Since I already had the stencil, the glitter and the double-sided mounting paper, this gift cost me less than $2 to make!!!

Supplies used:

• Dreamweaver LJ812 Snowflakes stencil
• Dreamweaver double-sided mounting paper
• Dreamweaver Handmade Coconut Soap
• Silver Extra Fine Glitter
• Crystal Extra Fine Glitter



LJ819 Snowflake stencil on double-sided mounting paper
adhered to a votive candle holder

I know from the picture above it doesn't look like much, but look at it all lit up set amongst my Santa hats!

I made several of these and have set them on a silver platter with faux snow and set it on the center of our buffet.

Please take a moment or two and give yourself a holiday gift by visiting all the Dreamweaver blog and all the other Dream Team blogs for some holiday inspiration. Remember you have until December 31 to create your Frosty Fun creation and submit it for this month's challenge!

Since I probably won't be posting again until after Christmas, I'd like to wish you all a wonderful, happy, healthy Christmas filled with lots of love and surrounded by friends and family.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Life!

Ranger Challenge Week 4

We've now had four weeks of festively distressed fun playing with the Ranger/Tim Holtz Distress Powders along with our wonderful line of Dreamweaver Stencils and products. Huge thanks to Tim Holtz and the fab people at Ranger for sharing these four collaborative weeks with us, and providing the yummy shades of Distress Powders for us to create with. We've been inspired by the process, and we hope you have, too!

If you haven't won one of the prize packages yet, you still have one more opportunity this week as the set below is up for grabs to a random commenter on one of the Dream Team blogs.

If you've been following along each week, you've seen some gorgeous creations with these stencils and powders, so you should be all fired up to get distressed! If you've missed the first three weeks, check them out once you've made the rounds today:

Week One

Week Two

Week Three

For this week's Festively Distressed project, I went with the November challenge of Clean and Simple Christmas. This entire card, from start to finish, took me less than 15 minutes to make. What could be faster?

 

I began my rubbing Dreamweaver's Handmade Hawaiian soap (which smells incredible) on the back side of both the LG675 Pine Cones stencil and the LM139 Happy Holidays stencil.

Then I layed soap side down against a piece of double-sided mounting adhesive that was cut just slightly smaller than the stencil. Burnish the stencil well to this adhesive to avoid any air pockets. I removed the second piece of adhesive liner and adhered this piece to layering cardstock. (This gives your adhesive film a piece of stability.)

Then using a straw, I sprinkled on the Distress Embossing Powders one at a time, shaking off the excess as I went. When I had all the colors I wanted on the image, I CAREFULLY removed the stencil and sprinkled the Antique Linen DEP over the exposed adhesive paper. 

Then just using my heat gun, I melted the DEP and layered the card onto coordinating cardstock.

So easy yet the texture of the DEP really adds dimension to the finished project.

Dreamweaver products:

 LG675 Pine Cones

LM139 Happy Holidays

Double-sided Mounting Adhesive

Hawaiian soap

Ranger Distress Embossing Powders:

Distress Embossing Powders in Pine Needles, Vintage Photo, Tea Dye

 and Antique Linen

Don't forget to leave me some love before hopping to the rest of the Dream Team blogs:

The Ranger Blog

Dream It Up!

Kristi Van Doren

Lee Kellogg

Georgia Sommers

Terrece Siddoway

Wendy Jordan

Pam Hornschu

Liz Martin

Cyndi Bundy

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

 Please remember to continue to follow the team through the Dream It Up! blog as we bravely go where no stenciler has gone before, to like us on our Facebook page, and to learn from our fabulous weekly Thursday Tutorials on Paper Craft Planet as well.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

One of my all-time favorite Christmas carols is Bing Crosby's rendition of "White Christmas". Growing up in Chicago, you would think we'd have snow for Christmas. Unfortunately I have more memories of just dreaming of a white Christmas than actually have snow on the ground.

So in keeping with my white Christmas dreams, here is another card from my upcoming classes which also uses JustRite stamps.

Remember tomorrow is Dreamweaver Thursday! I hope you'll stop on by because the Dream Team will once again be sharing their creations using Tim Holtz Distressed Embossing Powder!

Until then, smile, the elections are over!

A Red and White Christmas

Happy Election Day! Its a great day, regardless of who wins and what your political beliefs because now we can stop be besieged by all the campaign ads and get on with working on solving some of our critical issues here in the U.S. (Please, lets not turn this post into a political commentary forum.)

Now on to another joyful topic: Christmas!

This card is one we will be making in my upcoming Dreamweaver paste classes. This class is slightly more advanced than a basic class and will open up students to seeing their Dreamweaver stencils in a totally different way (or at least I hope!)

I hope you'll stop by again tomorrow when I'll share another card, this one using JustRite stamps. And don't forget to hop on by on Thursday for the final round of Dreamweaver's challenge with Ranger to use Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder.

Hugs and happy day!

It's beginning to look a lot like....

Yes, its that time of year again! November is here and that means Christmas is just a few short stamping days away! That also means that I will be posting quite frequently on this blog, sharing some of my Christmas creations, both cards and projects.

Today I thought I'd start with one of the cards we will be making in my November and December classes.

I just love the vintage colors and warm textures of this card.

Tomorrow I'll share another card from my upcoming classes, this one definitely will be a bit "chillier".

Until then, happy creating.

Cherylynn