TSTR - Sweet Shabby Christmas

I'm so happy that this is the week I was asked to be a Guest Designer for The Shabby Tea Room (not that I'm not happy for that any week!).  But this week's photo inspired me to start, and nearly complete, a project that's been percolating in my brain since *last* Christmas...hopefully some of you know how that goes. :)

For Halloween and Thanksgiving seasons, I have mini albums that I put out as part of my table top decorations.  They're not photo mini albums, but purely decorative - with vintage holiday images, poems and sayings, and lots of fun embellishments.  I got as far as purchasing this Maya Road 4x4 chipboard album for my Christmas album, but it was put up in the supply closet for another day...until I saw this week's inspiration photo.

So this...

came about after seeing this week's beautiful inspiration photo that Lenet chose for us, along with the challenge to include some shimmer or glimmer...

Here's a better side view of the faux ribbon bookmark and large sparkly charm...

Supplies for cover (inside and outside):

Patterned papers: BoBunny Kitchen Spice/Allspice (b side) (cream); Basic Grey Figgy Pudding collection (aqua/white on inside covers); Basic Grey Manila Basics collection (cream dot/inside covers)

Poinsettia dies: Spellbinders Layered Poinsettia      Punch: Martha Stewart Medium Branch

White pearls and clear crystals: Recollections      Crocheted lace: TheFunkieJunkie.com     

Sentiment stamp: Inkadinkado      Crystal ball charm: Art-i-cake by Amy Labbe     Gold pearls: Queen & Co.

Miscellaneous & craft store supplies:  mini grapevine wreath (painted and glittered);  silver bells (painted and glittered); chipboard star;  silver German glass glitter;  ribbon clamp;  embossed ribbon;  clear coarse glitter;  white acrylic paint; matte decoupage glue

And here's where another crafty "accident" worked totally in my favor.  See those glittery blue jingle bells? Yep, pure accident. 

I had coated the silver bells with white acrylic paint to start...so far, so good.   Then I coated them with Glossy Accents, and sprinkled on some Martha Stewart Clear Coarse glitter - still in HappyLand.  As I watched them dry, an "oh no!" look appeared on my face. Some sort of chemical reaction between the metal, paint, Glossy Accents, and glitter made those areas turn light blue (the parts that didn't have Glossy Accents and glitter didn't turn, so although I'm no chemist, I think it's the metal and Glossy Accents/glitter combo that did the trick).  But heck, I had a dozen of them like this, so surely something would come up that required blue accents...and this week's challenge did just that.  :)

Although I haven't completely finished adding the quotes/poems/sayings to all the pages, I can show you how far I have gotten and share a few of the pages with you.

Here's an open view of the mini album. The album comes with 8 chipboard pages, but because I'm such a "lumpy" embellisher, I'm going to have to remove one or two of the pages to make room for them to move on the binder rings.  (When I get closer to finishing, I'll know for sure if I have to do this.)

Here are a few shots of some of the pages that are close to being complete. On the inside pages, I used patterned papers from the (6x6) Carta Bella Winter Fun collection, Authentique Peaceful collection, and Fancy Pants St. Nick collection.

That cute little snowman is a Royal Langnickel rub-on that I found at the craft store last year.  He's applied to a piece of white cardstock, then to a piece of lightweight chipboard, then cut out and adhered to the page with foam tape over a snowbank of glitterey white German glass glitter.  The star is a Martha Stewart punch - it's punched from blue glitter paper, then a couple more times from light grey cardstock. All the layers have a tiny 1/16" high foam dot between them to give the snowflake dimension.

The large wooden snowflake is a craft store purchase, with a Basic Grey Bling-It crystal snowflake applied over the top, and a few white pearls added for fun.  The "merry Christmas" stamp came from the $1 bin at the craft store last year. :)

These are the two pages that are closest to being finished.  The Maya Road chipboard window on the left side is painted, inked, and glittered.  A little vintage Christmas scene is adhered behind it, and a silver tinsel stick (we used to call these "pipe cleaners" back in the old days) is bent around the window.  A K&Co chipboard sentiment chip fits perfectly beneath the window (the binder ring hole was punched through the chipboard using my Crop-a-dile).

On the other side, there's another happy Royal Langnickel snowman looking up at a couple Maya Road chipboard hearts (again, painted, inked, and glittered) with some Maya Road sentiment tickets peeking out from behind.  The background doily is a Lifestyle crafts die ("Antique Doily").

One of my favorite purchases from last year is the Tim Holtz/Sizzix "Mini Reindeer & 25 set" used on the left page.  I cut them from Claudine Hellmuth sticky-back canvas, inked and distressed the edges, and popped the little reindeer over a small fabric poinsettia layer.

On the right are a couple more stacked chipboard stars covered with silver German glass glitter (the fun part about this glitter is that, because it's made from real silver pieces, they will tarnish and darken over time and turn a beautiful, rich, dark silver color).

These are two of the pages that need a little more work..LOL  But you can see where it's going.  The Christmas stamp on the left is by Bo Bunny ("Noel Clearly Stamps").  I embellished the tree with little "ornaments" of pink pearls and crystals, and double-stamped the Christmas sentiment with both pink and black inks. The little glittered dove at the tree top is from a K&Co chipboard sticker set from last season.

On the right, the Tattered Angels chipboard frame is inked and glittered, embellished with Hug Snug bows, a silver glitter star, and some white punched branches.

Phew! Another wordy post from me today...hope it was worth your time, though. :)  Thanks so much for visiting...and I hope your week is starting with a smile!