It's Ornamental - Anything But Cute Mixed Media Challenge #7

Hello Everyone

I would like to say a huge thank you for all the amazing good wishes I received here, on the Anything But Cute blog and on social media, I was completely blow away - thank you!

This is my first post for Anything But Cute Mixed Media Challenge where the lovely Cec (CW Card Creations) is our hostess for this month.  Cec has chosen 'It's Ornamental' as her challenge theme.  Here is what Cec has to say:

'Since the holiday will be coming up pretty quickly, we want you to create a mixed media

ornament for your Christmas tree or a Christmas decor item for your home or table'

I love to make home decor pieces for Christmas so this challenge theme was just perfect for me!  I recently purchased one of the Tim Holtz Bigz XL 'house' dies (Village Dwelling), along with the additional die that allows the house to be made into a church or chapel and so, with Cec's wonderful theme, I felt inspired to create this piece of Christmas home decor:

As well as the Tim Holtz house and accessory dies, I also used Tim's beautiful sleigh and reindeer dies and some of his Idea-ology trees.

I started by die cutting the pieces from mount board/mat board, but you could also use chipboard.  I laid them out and taped over the windows and door so that there would be room for the window frames and door, once I covered the building with modelling paste.  I cut another door and all the window frames from black card to give a contrast.

I chose to use a coarse modelling paste that I purchased from Indigo Blu, it is a fantastic paste that is really gritty and it dries beautifully white.  When I had covered the first part, I decided to glue the whole piece together before finishing off - as you will see in the next photo.

For the bell tower part, I assembled the tower before coating it with the modelling paste (I learned from my previous mistake on the house...), leaving a little gap around the top for the roof to fit on.  I was inspired by a programme about Patagonia that featured a tiny chapel that had rough white walls.

To create the roof, I hand cut some grey card into tiny little tiles and I glued each of the tiles in place.  I wanted it to look slightly worn so I placed the tiles in a slightly random way as you can see here.

Once finished, I added a 'ridge' tile to finish off the top.  I added an Idea-ology knob to the top of the bell tower.  (Since making this chapel I have made more houses and I used a stripes embossing folder to create a pattern on the roof - it looks good and takes much less time!).

To create the trees I used three trees from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology range.  I wanted three different sizes so I used one large, one small and then I cut down another large tree.  It is so easy, just pull the tree gently out of the base, use wire cutters to create the height you want, trim back the foliage and then push it back into the base.

To colour the trees I put them into a pizza box, on top of a white piece of copy paper, and sprayed them with Distress Stain, in two colours, to create some light and shade.

To create the sleigh and reindeer, I used Tim Holtz dies and shrink plastic.  I used translucent shrink plastic and coloured the plastic before shrinking.  In my opinion this gives a better end colour.  I used alcohol pens in red, silver and brown.  If you try this technique do be careful not to burn your fingers!  I lost count of how many times I burnt mine trying to untangle the reindeer legs and antlers....

I wanted to make the sleigh 3D so I cut and coloured two sleighs and used some light card to make a curved base for the sleigh.  I made some teeny tiny parcels and a sack to add to the sleigh.  The wreath around the reindeer's neck is a small piece of red and white twine.  The finished length of the sleigh is approximately 2" and the reindeer is just over 1", so they are very tiny!

Here is a view of the finished piece with the lights on.  I used a piece of  6" MDF board (from Indigo Blu) to mount the whole piece on.  I painted this white and then added lots of 'snow' to the base, the trees and the roof of the chapel.  I added a jingle bell because I could not find a bell small enough to fit the little bell tower.

I am adding a view of the back of the chapel, it has windows all the way round.  I can see myself building a little village now....

Thanks so much for your visit, I hope you feel inspired to join us at Anything But Cute Mixed Media Challenge, the details of which you can find HERE, along with some fabulous creations by my wonderful teamies.

Hope to see you again soon.  Hugs, Anne xx