MFT November Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on My Favorite Things' November Blog Hop! If you didn't get here from Natalie's blog, you've missed a ton of goodness along the way. So head on over to Kim's blog to start at the beginning and work your way back here. If you did get here from Natalie's, you're in the right place.

MFT is releasing ten new sets and a new kit tonight. I'm going to focus on one of the new sets, named Cool Yule, but I'm also using several other new sets.

While I love to make cards, I love to make decor items for my home, too. I'm also an over-the-top Christmas decorator--some would say I'm Christmas Crazy, LOL. Lets just say I put up *multiple* theme trees for the annual Christmas open house that my husband and I host every year. I like to have some little somethin' somethin' to continue the theme under each tree if I can. One theme tree that I do is "Let It Snow". I'd been trying to come up with a little vignette for this tree and these new sets by MFT are just perfect! You may have seen the two different sets of BOO letters I did for Halloween, here and here. Well, I decided to do some of the free standing letters spelling SNOW to go under this tree. BUT, something just wouldn't let me do my SNOW letters in the colors I needed for that tree--blues. I just *had* to do these letters in a vintage style so I went with colors that I can use in my bathroom instead (yes, I decorate all of the bathrooms, too, LOL!): burgundy and green. Here's the finished product (click on any of the pictures for a larger view):

I'm using three new sets being released tonight for this project: Cool Yule, Polar Love, and Pure Innocence--Flurry Of Love.

So, you ask what am I going to put under that tree? This:

Yep, another accordion card! They are *so* addicting!!! And it will be perfect to sit under that tree! Hmmmm, I'm thinking some ornaments made with these little characters would be a good thing, too ;-) See, think out of the box--MFT stamps are *not* just for cards ;)

I'm going to show you two ways to use this set--actually, I guess you could say I'm showing you four ways: stand alone letters, an accordion "card", vintage, and blinged up styles. You can mix and match :)

First, I'm going to show you a bit about how I do the stand alone letters. I use these 5" tall resin letters that I get from Michaels. I'm sure there are others that would work just fine, but I like these because they will stand up on their own. You can get a little wooden "tray" to sit them in with a peg to hold them in place, but I've never found that necessary. You could also attach some sort of hanger to each if you wanted to hang them on a wall, too, which would be an awesome way to display them, as well. Here are the letters as you buy them:

Here's all you need to get started covering the letters: the letters, patterned paper of your choice, and a glue stick. I've picked four patterns from the Figgy 6 x 6 pad by Basic Grey for my project.

I know there are those who trace around the letters, cut them out, then glue them on. I think that's extra work. I smear the right side of the letter with the glue stick, then slap it down on the back side of the paper. Be sure you have things oriented correctly when you do this. I also brayer on top of the paper once it's stuck on the letter to make sure I have good contact. I then set them aside over night to dry. The next step is to cut the paper off. I use a craft knife and cutting mat and simply cut around the letter--from the wrong side. Here's what you'll end up with:

Then I smooth all of the edges. For this I use a sanding block and a cheap emery board. I get my sanding blocks in the nail section of Wal*Mart or a drug store. Here's a close up to show what it will look like after the edges are smoothed:

Since I'm going "vintage" with this project, I distressed the edges with Old Photo Distress Ink. In the next picture you'll see all of the letters distressed. The only thing left to do after that is to embellish to your heart's content :) All of my images were stamped on Perfect Paper Panels and colored with Copic markers, distressed, then cut out and attached to the letters. Let your imagination take charge--you can go vintage, as I did, funky, glitzy, you name it! Last year I did PEACE, JOY, BELIEVE, NOEL, and WELCOME. I only got the letters covered with paper, and you can bet I'm going to dress them up when I get them out this year!



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Now on to the accordion card project. I wanted this to be totally different from the letters. I had to use the blues, of course, and I decided to add some (OK, a lot of) bling ;-) And I'm using Cool Yule and Pure Innocence--Snow Day stamp sets.

I started with two pieces of card stock, cut 4.5" x 10.5". Score at 3.5", flip and score at 7".

You can see how the two pieces will fit together to keep the accordion configuration, with valley and mountain folds.

Now add red line tape to all four sides of one end of one piece and carefully attach the second piece. Try to stay away from the fold just a tad--if you jam it up too closely, you'll have trouble with getting your folds to lie flat.

And, here it is all taped together and ready to either trim the corners or you could go ahead and decorate it now.

I like my corners trimmed, though, so I mark my cutting lines with a pencil before cutting. It's easy to do if you used gridded paper or a cutting mat with diagonal markings. Then I just cut with my paper cutter--I do a section, mark another, cut that, mark another, and so on until all corners are cut.

Now I'm ready to decorate.

Here, I've added a mat layer of silver metallic card stock and my selection of patterned papers. I've stamped Bling 'Bet on Night Of Navy card stock with Versamark and heat embossed with silver fine detail embossing powder and sort of mapped out where they'll go--I'll add the bling later. The rest is just personal taste--decorate any way you want! All of these images were stamped on Perfect Paper Panels and colored with Copic markers, as well.

Thanks for stopping by I hope if you decide to try out one or both of these projects that you'll let me know--I'd love to see them! Now, hop on over to the awesomely talented Christina's blog. I'm sure she's got some gorgeousness to show you!

Oh, and did I mention that there's blog candy waiting somewhere along the way? I didn't? Well, there is, so you might want to be sure and leave a comment on each DT member's blog to be sure you'll get a chance to win :)

~Recipe For the Letters~
Stamps: Cool Yule, Polar Love, Pure Innocence--Flurry of Love (MFT)
Paper: Perfect Paper Panels (MFT); Figgy 6 x 6 pad (Basic Grey); Baja Breeze, Soft Sky (SU!)
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Old Photo Distress Ink (Ranger)
Accessories: ribbon (craft store); Copic markers; buttons/twine (PTI); 3 snowflake punches (Martha Stewart); Cuttlebug/large snowflake (ProvoCraft); Polar White Flowersoft; glue stick, craft knife, cutting mat, sanding block, emery board, glue dots, tape runner

~Recipe For the Accordion Project~
Stamps: Cool Yule, Pure Innocence--Snow Day, Bling 'Bet (MFT)
Paper: Jack Frost (ADT); Perfect Paper Panels (MFT); Night Of Navy (SU!); silver metallic card stock (Office Max)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark
Accessories: Cuttlebug/snowflake die (Provo Craft); ribbon slider die (Spellbinders); Copic markers; ribbon, silver cord, rhinestones, grommets (craft store); three snowflake punches and icicle border punch (Martha Stewart); Crop-o-dile; fine detail silver embossing powder/heat gun; silver glitter glue (Gary Brolin)