Winter Wonderland- A Vintage Journey December 2017

Hi Everyone and Welcome

Happy December to you all! According to the calendar The Christmas countdown and Winter season both start today and so does our new Challenge over at A Vintage Journey. Lovely Sandy will be your host this time with the challenge "Winter Wonderland'. 

Here's what Sandy says :

'For the month of December let's think of the season as well as the holiday with Winter Wonderland. As the song goes, sleigh bells ring, snow is glistening! Let's see some snow, snowmen, bare trees would be nice or some snow covered pines in the meadow. Whatever Winter Wonderland means to you in your vintage, shabby, mixed media; art journalling; industrial or steampunk style'.

I bought a Kaisercraft advent calender a fair few years ago now and had all good intentions to make it ready for the following Christmas but yes, you guessed it - that never happpened! So I saw Sandy's challenge as an ideal opportunity to finally unearth it from the undergrowth (my stash) and rectify my unfinished business of yesteryear. I constructed and altered the calender with paints, mediums and papers and created a Snowy Winter wonderland scene in the central window box . 

I got so caught up in the creative process that I didn't get any process shots but hopefully the photos I do have, will, with a little narration speak for themselves .

Kaisercraft make a few different styles of this sort of advent calender. I had trouble sourcing any on their website but I did find this link that shows you a few of the different styles available on the market. They all come flat packed so you have to 'self construct'- that is assemble the calender structure itself and each one of the 24 boxes. Believe me there were times when I thought I was going to 'self destruct' during this process when things weren't going as smoothly as I planned and I knew I had a deadline to meet but I carried on regardless in the hope that it would come together in the end - I think it did! 

The main Calender structure 

This was primed with gesso and painted on all sides (inside and out) with white acrylic paint. The outside walls of the structure were then painted with silver acrylic paint 

and crackled with White Deco Art crackle paint . Once the cracks start to form they reveal the colour of the paint beneath - in this case silver. 

The boxes

These were each adhered together before being primed and painted with white acrylic paint. I then selected 3 different papers that I thought would compliment the colours and tones in the focal paper - the 'winter forest 'that would set the scene for my Winter Wonderland. Only one of the papers is from a Christmas collection pad- the type print from Tim Holtz Christmas paper pad ,2017 release , the other two are from 'Engraver' paper pad by Prima Marketing. 

I cut them to size (8 of each paper) and adhered them to the front of each box, trimming around each of the box front indents by hand.

The Winter Wonderland 

I came across this fabulous 12x12 scrapbook paper of a wintry forest by Kaisercraft and knew it would be be perfect for my project.

I measured, cut and adhered the main panel in place and then because I'd cut from the middle of the 12x12 I was able to use the remaining edges of the paper for the sides and top of the window box ensuring I lined them up well to achieve a continual flow of the forest.

The base of the window box is covered with Tim Holtz Grit Paste and DecoArt Snowtex, sprinkled while wet with a little Distress Stickles glitter- just to achieve the odd twinkle and glisten here and there. 

The 2 gates are mdf, primed with gesso, painted with Tim Holtz Ground Espresso distress paint, DecoArt Paynes grey media fluid paint

and finished off with a touch of snow!L

Looks like someone's managed to snag a selfie ...

Meet Buster and his best pal Jake who have enjoyed a fun filled day cross-country skiing in the Winter Wonderland - ok Jake skied, Buster ran! 

Either way it was one of those 'Remember the Now' kinda days

Snow buddies forever!

My 'Winter Wonderland' project!

I'm not sure at present whether I will use this as an Advent Calender or as a storage unit, so have held back on adding numbers to the drawers until I have decided?? I'll keep you posted :) .

I hope I have offered some creative inspiration and that you will look to joining in Sandy's challenge. Be sure to stop by A Vintage Journey to see the gallery of wonderfully inspiring 'Winter Wonderland' projects created by some of our very talented Creative Guides.

As always at the end of the challenge there will be one lucky winner chosen by Random. Org who will receive our Sponsors Prize who this time is 

Andy Skinner

The Creative Guides will also choose 3 Pinworthy Winners who will not only win a Pinworthy badge to display on their blog but will also be invited to join us as a Guest Designer for a future challenge.

I would like to enter this project into the following Challenges:

CountryView Challenges: December 2017 Christmas

Creative Artiste Challenge #33 Mixed media 'Anything Goes'

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #43 'Believe' 

(Create a Mixed Media holiday project with your interpretation of our inspirational photo) 

The 'colour tones' and the 'glisten' in the photo were my inspiration

Emerald Creek Dares - Happy Holidays, Anything Goes 

Thank you so much for stopping by today, for your follows and for always being so kind and generous with your comments. It always makes my heart happy to know my creativity is appreciated. 

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend

Take care

and 

keep on the happy side

Amanda

xxx