The True Meaning of Christmas

Luke 2:1-14

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests"

Merry Christmas and may you find peace, health and happiness in the New Year.

XO

Paper Roses gift box

If I know some of artist blog friends who followed Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas, these will be very familiar. Tim made his roses out of grungepaper but I wasn't lucky enough to have any so I made these beauties out of regular cardstock. Unfortunately the picture does not really show the distressing very well. I also lack paper cutting machines so off to cyber space looking for a flower template for a 6 petal flower. After a few processes of elimination I found one.

If you use the bottom left hand flower it is the perfect shape for roses.

You might want to put this in an editing program crop the flower then resize to make your rose.

My size was about 1 3/4 inches, remember the layer of the rose will eventually get smaller as you follow Tim's tutorial but the base size is great for this. I found 2 inches was a tad too big.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

I painted the box in a copper metallic acrylic paint, then I spread non washable dollar store glue on the lid and the side of the box, applied Antique White acrylic paint over top with a sponge and watched it crackle. Oh I love this look. I then Modged some hymnal music on the lid under the roses but first inked the edges of the torn paper. Glued the roses on. The leaves I drew out and made a template so I can later just trace aroud it. I inked the edges of my grunged green scrap paper with Distress Frayed Burlap then glued them in place. I also added a bit of Stickles Diamond glitter to the folds of the roses

. You want to smell them that is how nice they look.

I didn't do the centers quite like Tim, I am a quiller as well so I put my quilling tool to good use and was able to get some nice folds in the centers.

Not bad for paper I say.

Thanks for Tim's tutorial.

This little box will be holding a nice little Christmas pressie for a good friend.

Thank you for looking.

altered Christmas cards

This past week I have been pretty much a hermit, staying at home with the lack of hot water the beginning of the week, only to find that whoever called in the problem said we had some hot water so we were not a priority. So to make that long story short we finally had to have an element replaced and then had to wait 2 hours for a full tank of hot water. That was one welcome shower I tell you.

Then we had a winter blast of snow, ice, rain, more snow then wind. Now it is just plain cold. Winter has arrived and Lesley tends to hibernate like a bear.

I have come to realize  there is only 2 weeks left til Christmas and here I am putzing away still making cards.

I thought I would show you a  few I have had fun making.

My friend Jeanie over at All My Artist Trading Cards sent me an email the last couple days and showed me some pictures of some future swap possibilities. One of them was trees that you can cut and make into any theme, the ones posted in her email were Santa trees. Well I wasn't really up to do any swapping but the tree idea sparked some creativity of my own for come cards. I had some collaged paper on cardboard hanging around waiting for something to be done with it and I applied some white paint over top to tone down the papers, I used mostly text and some scraps of printed papers. Lo and behold it is great to have some saved items for projects like these.

I cut 3 different sized trees, stamped them then I took oil pastels and just on the edges of the trees I ran colours, then rubbed with my fingers to just darken the edges and left the centers lighter. I then took a gold gel pen and went around the edge of them, you probably can't see that in the photo. Another option you could emboss with golds, bronzes or whichever colour scheme you are going with.

I also made a round ornament, cut a circle usinga shot glass to make it round added the top part, cut it out and voile' you have a round ornie, stamp, do the same but this time I added a vintage girl looking up and the other ornie a vintage lady.

The Joy tag, if you are following Tim Holtz's blog he did this remarkable tag using grungeboard letters, metal sheet, I used metal tape Jeanie sent me a while back then he used alcohol inks to colour. I don't have all the paper accessory luxuries so I just used acrylic paints and did my own thing. This is what I came up with and I quite like it.

Now to decide who gets what card, I probably will be a little late getting cards out.

 I tried to do a bit of decorating today, had to clean up the floor after some furniture got moved for me to put the tree up.

Hopefully this weekend JB and I will get ourselves in the Christmas mood after we see the house decorated and snow has finally come.

Thank you for looking and I hope I have inspired you to use some of your scraps and make do's for your cards or creations.

Away in a Manger

Over at Inchy by Inch challenge blog this weeks theme and final for the year is Christmas Carol.

I decided to paint my inchie, I was in a miniature painting mood today and I decided to paint this to reflect one of my favourite Christmas carols, Away in a Manger.

Space was small do I didn't do a lot of detail but as one of my favourite artist, Jerry Yarnell would say, you create a suggestion, so here I created a manger with a baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. and the Star of David shining brightly as my suggestion. :)

Remember the true meaning of Christmas, it really didn't start with good deals at Walmart or Best Buy but rather a tiny babe in a manger a gift to all of us from God.

I would like to thank Fiona the hostess over at Inchy by Inch for all the work that she does to run this fun blog challenge and to all the girls I have met over there that share the same art interests as I do.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Addicted to inchies

Over at the Yahoo Group I help moderate, Addicted to Inchies, we have a couple of things going on this month.

The first picture is a distress background swap that we were to use distress inks to create these lovely backgrounds. If you follow Tim Holtz blog at all you know what this is all about. It is very easy and quick to do, drying time takes way too long for me so I hit the paper with my heat tool. Love that gem.

I decided to make all my inchies featuring girls or women. Some of the backgrounds I have stamped, some I left and some I added a few beads for some texture and interest.

And these little fellas are for our Dec. Lottery. We make 3 inchies in the picked theme then at the end of the month everyone that entered and made inchies, is entered into Random.Org and a lucky person receives all the inchies. No money spent, but a lot if cool inchie art.

I decided to paint my snowmen. I designed these myself and just loved how they turned out. I hope the winner enjoys them as much as I did making them.

Thanks for looking and till next time,

stay safe and warm, winter is upon us now in Eastern Ontario.