"Our Christmas Story"

This week I am excited to share a special project that I have been working on all month long. 

I have always wanted to keep a record of our family Christmas gatherings and events.  Now that we have grandchildren, it is even more important to me.  A couple of months ago, I purchased a chipboard box/book from the local craft store and decided that I would alter it to become our "Christmas Story" bank of memories.  A place to record and store the special moments with each passing year.

It required doing everything in steps to allow for drying the different details.  Today,  I will share the cover of my project and next week, the inside along with a few accessories!

"Love, Joy, Peace"

Lots of  holiday trimmings in the traditional Christmas colors.  I have to say that I really had a fun time creating each of the different details and love how it all came together.

I pulled out a plethora of mixed media products to use on this project...inks, crackle paint, glazes, glitter, micro beads, stickles and Flower Soft!  I ripped, tore, inked and layered the papers until I achieved the look that I wanted, vintage and distressed.  The binding is specialty paper that looks like leather.

The wooden laser cut lamp post is covered with Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter.  I first worked with this at summer CHA in 2012 and haven't stopped using it since.  I love this stuff!  The snow on the lantern tops is white Flower Soft.  I wanted to wrap the post with a holly vine and didn't have the right color of twine, hard to believe since I have at least 2 dozen different styles and colors, so I sprayed it with Dylusions Dirty Martini Ink Spray.  The berries are red pearls covered with the distress glitter also.  I painted the snowflakes with Diamond Stickles, sprinkled them with more glitter and added an iridescent gem to the centers.

At the base of the lamp post, I added Vintage Christmas Flower Soft for ground cover and layered  Polar White Flower soft over it for snow.   I also added snow along the edges of the corrugated paper layered under the patterned paper.

The Maya Road Chipboard words are inked with Ranger Wild Honey Distress Ink and sprayed with Tsukineko Sparkle Shimmer Mist.  If you look closely, you can see the crackle paint that I painted over the pine branch on the patterned paper.  I added crystal micro beads to the Flower Soft snow in the lower right corner too.

The flower cluster and leaves are sprinkled with glitter, spritzed for shimmer and frosted with snow!

I used poinsettias, gardenias and roses along with holly leaves and berries.

The berries were part of a floral stem that I took apart, covered with Glue N Seal and sprinkled with the Rock Candy Dry Glitter.  It gives a beautiful "frosted" coating to everything!

CropStop Feature Product
Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue
Flower Soft Glue
Flower Soft Polar White
Flower Soft Vintage Christmas
Judikins Diamond Glaze
Ranger Clear Rock Candy Crackle Paint
Ranger Clear Rock Candy Distress Stickles
Ranger Clear Rock Candy Dry Glitter
Ranger Distress Stain - Wild Honey
Ranger Glitter Glue-Diamond Stickles
Ranger Glue N Seal - Matte
Tsukineko Shimmer Mist-Sparkle

From my stash...
Art Accentz Crystal Micro Beads
Authentique Festive Patterned Paper Collection
Clearsnap Colorbox Chalk Ink - Chestnut Roan
Kaisercraft Twin Lamp Post
 Maya Road Chipboard Words
Prima Flowers
Recollections Laser Cut Snowflakes

I have entered my project into the following Christmas challenges...
Craft My Life...Anything Goes, but no cards!
Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge
2 Creative Chicks Challenge #9 - Christmas/Winter
Other: Braided trim, holly berries

Thanks for stopping by to share my holiday inspiration.
Stop back next Friday to see what's inside of "Our Christmas Story" box!

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