"a CHRISTMAS tradition" by Robin Schelin

" Hi everyone. Welcome back to the 2Crafty blog. 

Well, it's December, and you know what that means...

CHRISTMAS!!!

Hope this finds you all well and in the Holiday spirit!  Today I'm sharing a layout of my granddaughter when she was little and helping to trim the tree.  

As promised last time, I have done a step-by-step tutorial, I hope you like it.

"a CHRISTMAS tradition"

The wonderful 2Crafty chippies I used are:

Window Shutter Set 2

Flower Doilies

Swirly Holly Decorative Set

Frame Lucy's Flourish 

Ornate Snowflakes

a CHRISTMAS tradition

To begin with, I'm going to explain how I altered the chipboard.  Most of the time I try to get the chipboard done as I am creating the design before I glue anything down. I play around with placement before I decide what color and textures to use.

After I have all my chipboard selected, I coat all of it with white gesso before adding color and textures.

On the Window Shutter Set 2, I first painted it with white Acrylic Paint, then added a thick layer of Distress Grit Paste sprinkled with Clear Rock Candy Distress Stickles Dry Glitter on the top and on the sides covering some of the slats. The was to give the look of snow on the window and shutters.

I painted the Flower Doily with white Acrylic Paint.

I cut the swirls off of the Swirly Holly Decorative Set. I painted the swirls with Raw Umber Acrylic Paint, then I heat embossed the snowflakes with Snowflake Embossing Tinsel to add texture.

For the Frame Lucy's Flourish, I just painted it with White and Cadmium Red Deep Hue Acrylic Paint. I painted it this way to add dimension and separation to the piece.

On the Ornate Snowflakes I first painted them with White Acrylic Paint, then heat embossed them with Snowflake embossing tinsel.

Lastly, on the title a CHRISTMAS tradition, I painted "Christmas" with Cadmium Red Deep Hue Acrylic Paint because I want it to stand out, and "tradition " with Raw Umber Acrylic Paint.  I wanted there to be enough brown on the layout to compliment the brown branches on the trees on the patterned paper, and to balance it out colorwise.

Now to start on the composition...

When I saw this paper I loved it!  All except for the horse and sleigh and people! I cannot for the life of me understand why manufacturers have to "junk up" otherwise beautiful paper.  Some people like the images that come printed on the papers, and that's ok. Different strokes and all that. But I'm not a fan, at least not in this case, because if you choose to allow for the image, then there's really not much room too create on it.  So I decided that this paper was not going to win! I decided I would scrapbook OVER the image! 

 I started by cutting my photo to fit the Window Shutter Set 2, then placed it about a quarter of the way down on top of the image. I glued a piece of chipboard to the back of the photo to lift it up so I would have room to slide some embellishments under a little.

Then starting at the top right, I added one of the swirls from the Swirly Holly Decorative Set, and one of the Ornate Snowflakes tucking them in behind the flowers and berries.

I added 2 more Ornate Snowflakes on the left, tucking them in a little behind the Window Shutter Set 2. 

I then glued one of the Flower Doilies inside the circle of the Frame Lucy's Flourish placing it under the photo and tucked the very top under the photo.

I completed the left side of the layout by adding in the flowers, berries and the title a CHRISTMAS tradition.

The right side was a little tricky as I had to cover as much of the image as possible. I had an old plastic crystal looking Christmas ornament that I placed down to try to blur that area and to add some height so that when I added the flowers it would be about the same height off the page as the photo.

I placed the swirl from the Swirly Holly Decorative Set on the right of the ornament tucking it up under the shutter. Then added the last of the Ornate Snowflakes on top of the ornament.

Now to finish off the project.  I added lots of berries with a poinsettia in the middle to the right flower cluster.  The image on the paper is hardly visible now, except maybe for the horses hooves, which, if you didn't know were there, wouldn't even notice! 

And after rearranging the berries on the left a little bit to make it look right, it's finished.

I hope you like this project and found this tutorial inspiring. It's time to get out all those wonderful Christmas papers, flowers, paint, glitter, and all the fun embellishments to create magical Christmas memories!

I'll be back in a few weeks for some more Christmas inspiration. Until then, stay safe, enjoy the season, and try to find the time to create!