Decking the Halls...........

This card reminds me of the front hall/entry way to a house that is all decorated for the holidays, hence the title.
It has been so very hectic for me of late as I am sure it is for everyone.  I had about 6 birthdays and a wedding going on along with Thanksgiving and having the family here for dinner.  So with all going on I was not sure I would be able to get the project done this week for the Crafty Creations design team that I am on, but I did get one done.

This week out hostess is Bernie and our sponsor is

The challenge this week is to use a picture as your inspiration, follow the picture, color etc, however you interpret it.  I normally shy away from this kind of challenge as I think I have a hard time with them, never knowing to follow the photo, color or whatever.  So I went ahead and tried it I am pretty pleased at how it turned out.   Here is the photo inspiration

Interesting and so many ways you can take it, so here is what I came up with

I am so excited with how it turned out!  What do you think, can you see the photo in it or what I was trying to convey?

The desk is cut from the French Manor cartridge (Circle exclusive) at about 2.75 inches, I cut it from plain white cardstock ( I do this a lot to check on sizes) then I covered it with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo ink and distressed embossing powder and heat embossed it. . It has a lot of texture to it and way happy with the way it resembled wood.  I cut it again from chipboard and glue them together to give it more weight to pop dotted it. Added some gold half pearls for the handles on the drawers.   The "mirror" I cut using the Fancy Frames cartridge at about 2 inches, out of a metallic DCWV paper and added a layer of foil silver for the mirror part.

Using some stickers I had I embellished the whole thing to make it look like it was decorated for the holidays.  I think I will add the sentiment "Deck the Halls".

Thanks for stopping in, please let me know what you think of my card and we would love to have you join in the challenge this week at Crafty Creations.


Challenges for this card


Make it Monday   Always anything goes   ends  12/4
Crafty Cardmakers  Heat Embossing   ends  - 12/10

Craft Your Passion  Tis the Season   ends - 12/4
Divas by Design  Anything goes   ends -  12/13

We we Parie'..................................

Are we in Paris yet?  Well this week at Crafty Creations our challenge is hosted by Amy this week and she has put us to the following challenge.  Anything but a card with a Paris theme, well that really had me going for a long time, 1) I just put up a mental block when she said "anything but a card"  I mostly make cards and I just could not wrap my mind around anything else,  2) Paris, I have never been there and if I ever do travel to Europe my place to visit would be Italy, not that I wouldn't want to visit Paris it is just not at the top of my list for now.

Our sponsor this week is Black Leaf Studio

Make sure you stop by and check out their store

They allowed the design team to use a couple of their

Paris like images.

So finally some how, a door hanger popped into my head, so this is what I came up with.

I cut the base (tag) out of heavy card stock twice and glued the together, then cut it again from the patterned paper.  The whole thing measures about 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches, which is actually a huge tag cut.   The Eiffel tower was cut from Grunge board and then colored with black ink, then I sprayed it with a silver like Glimmer Mist to give it a dark metal like look.  It was cut using the French Manor cartridge, this was the first time I had used the Cricut Circle cartridge, it sure came in handy for this project.   The word Paris was also cut from the french Manor cartridge.

The Poodle dog is an image from Black Leaf Studios that I printed on very heavy card stock that does not dry real fast coming out of my printer, so i immediately sprinkled clear embossing powder of it and heat set it.

I then cut it out and covered the pink area with bright pink flock to match the background paper.  There is also a very small silver boy on her head, rather hard to see.  I tied a piece of sheer pink ribbon at the top to hang on the door.  

After all that struggle of coming up with the idea I like the way it turned out.  Not sure what I am going to do with but, I am sure it will find a door knob somewhere.

So why not join us at Crafty Creation for this "anything but a card Paris" challenge.

I am so glad you stopped by, I would love for you to look around and if you like what you see become a follower.  That would make me very happy.  

I will also be placing this in the following challenges.

Paper Play   Anything but a card  ends 7/6  

One Stop Craft  Use a tag ends 7/8

Make it Monday   Always anything goes  ends 7/10