Hope - Hanging Spring Home Decor Inspiration

 

Welcome in a new creative year!

 

It's wintertime and every day you see nothing but gray in gray. 

 I discovered first snowdrops in my garden, 

which always give hope for spring, 

that inspired me to this pre-spring project.

 

 

 

 

some close up's

 

 

 

used MDF shapes

 

Songbird Trio on Spring Branch MDF Wood Shape

Daffodil Flower MDF Wood Shape

Arched Window

Ancestry MDF Wood Font - Create A Word Hope

Skeleton Tree Duo MDF Wood Shape - Style 1

Sheet of Mini Hares - MDF Wood Animal Shapes

Standard Heart Shape - MDF Mixed Media Board

 

 

Thanks for your visit!

 

Happy crafting!

Kerstin

'The Coming of Spring' by Kat Hazelton

Firstly may I wish you all a happy new year. I hope you all had a happy and healthy Christmas and enjoyed the festive holidays. I cannot believe we are already half way through January and steadily approaching the half way point between Winter and Springtime, which is at beginning of February. This marks the central point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox and are marked by a number of festivals including Imbolc, St Brigid’s day, Groundhog day, and Candlemas, which is held on the 2nd of February. Even though all of them seem on the surface to have differing religious meanings and traditions when delving further back into history the root of all of them intertwines. All of them celebrate and make welcome the changing of the seasons. Saying goodbye to the long cold dark winter months and welcoming daylight and the beginnings of new life. 

One of the first flowers often seen at the beginning of February is the arrival of beautiful beds of snowdrops and in fields the appearance of hares dancing, boxing and chasing each other! Hares are often depicted as magical creatures, often representing fertility, new beginnings and good fortune.

So for my first project I thought I would celebrate the coming of spring by making a mixed media picture showing a group of hares having fun leaping amongst frosty snowdrops. 

To make your own 'Coming of Spring' mixed media picture you will need. 

Canvas board or panel. 

Paints & paint brushes, I used acrylic paints. 

White mixed media sculpting paste and sculpting tool. I used a combination of palette knife, bamboo skewering sticks and an old paintbrush. 

Calico Craft Parts snowdrops

 https://www.calicocraftparts.co.uk/snowdrop-mdf-floral-wood-shape-style-49.html

Calico Craft Parts hares, I used the following. They also have other wonderful hares and rabbit shapes. 

https://www.calicocraftparts.co.uk/leaping-hare-mdf-wood-shape-style-2.html

And

https://www.calicocraftparts.co.uk/running-hare-mdf-wood-shape-style-3.html

Pearl drops

Black fine liner pen. 

Glitter paste or glitter to add some sparkles.

And assortment of moss, twigs, wood bark and charms. What ever you can source in your craftstash or in your garden! 

I started off by adding a layer of sculpting paste onto my canvas board. Using a palette knife, old paint brush and a bamboo stick I added lines and rough grass shapes. I then let this dry overnight. Once dry, using acrylic paints, I added  'grass like' leaves in greens and browns. 

I then painted, again using acrylic paints, my hares and snowdrops. I left these to one side to dry over night. 

To add a tree stump I cut a shape from a strip of tree bark. I then arranged all my pieces and glued into place. To glue the wood bark, moss and snowdrops I used some sculpting paste. I found this worked really well as I wanted a snowy frosty scene so any white showing didn't matter. I also added some details to my hares with a black fine liner pen. 

To finish off my frosty scene I added more sculpting paste and glitter to add some sparkle! 

Finally I added some extra foliage, some pretty pagan charms and some dots of 'snow' with little liquid pearl drops.

The Coming of Spring by Kat Hazelton 

I hope you enjoy my first 'Kat make' for this year. If you have any questions please feel free to ask I will be happy to help if I can. I shall be back again later in January with another make.
Until then. 
 'Happy Crafting' 
Kat 😊 

Christmas Tree Ornaments by Kerstin

Welcome everyone!

 

Soon it will be time to decorate the christmas tree again and every year 

you want to discover something new and special on the tree.

 

Today a few inspirations on this topic, quick and easy to recreate with only a few parts.

 

Use

 

Plain Round Christmas Bauble

Plain Teardrop Christmas Bauble

 

 as base, in the meantime, the matching frames are also available, 

they give ornaments more depth and make it easier

 to attach additional pendants to the lower edge.

 

 

 

 

 

used MDF shapes from Calico Craft Parts

 

Deer Duo MDF Wood Shape Style 8

Holly Leaf Branch

Christmas Holly Wreath with Bow

Group of Deer MDF Wood Shape Style 6

Tall Trio of Winter Fir Trees

 

Should there be any questions about the How To 

please feel free to post on my personal blog.

 

✨  Merry Christmas  ✨

Kerstin

 

Seasons Greetings by Kerstin

 

Welcome everyone!

 

:-) It's beginning to look like christmas :-)

 

Today a DIY christmas gift idea in monochrome style, 

with a lot of structure and texture.

 

Use a

Gothic Arch Shape - MDF Mixed Media Board

 as base, love this shape it is so universal as you can see here

 with our teamies and guest designers, awesome!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

some close up's 

 

 

 

used MDF shapes from Calico Craft Parts

 

Gothic Arch Shape - MDF Mixed Media Board

 

Cottage Window with Curtains

Arch ATC Wood Blank with Plain Frame

Poinsettia, Holly & Berry Corner - MDF Lace Cut Wood Shape

Holly & Berry Border Flourish - MDF Lace Cut Wood Shape

Christmas Bell MDF Wood Shape - Style 4

Seasons Greetings - Wood Words in Coventry Garden Font

 

Thanks for your visit!

 

Happy crafting!

Kerstin

 

Woodland shrine. By Louise Crosbie

 

I seem to be a little obsessed with layering up these trees every winter but they are just so perfect for it. Especially as they come in several sizes.

I wanted to do a night sky scene with Santa but at the same time, I still love the natural wood colour. So I’ve combined the night sky on the outside with a more natural woodland vibe on the inside. I gave my shrine little feet using teeny wee thread bobbins so I can stand it on my shelf .

I’ve not been heavy handed with the paints. I didn’t want the colours to be too saturated. I painted it on then dabbed it off with a baby wipe, leaving just a small amount of colour.

The outside part of the shrine was first painted with black gesso. I then added a colour wash of midnight blue before taking sandpaper and sanding back all the edges. I just wanted to see a little hint of the natural wood to help tie it in to the inside part of the shrine.

Then I was able to glue Santa and the front trees into place. 

 It’s quite 3D inside as the shrine kit has a little bit of depth to it. I put the smallest of my trees at the back then layered more in front of them (as ever, I broke the pieces up to suit my desired effect). I glued a little stick half way in to give me something to glue the tree with the deer on to.

When everything was painted and glued, I added the decoArt snowtex and glamour dust glitter to everything along with some white paint splatters to make it look like it is snowing. 

Calico craft parts used:

Tree scene

Trees with deer and bird

Santa on his sleigh

A vintage Christmas plaque by guest designer Lori Woods

 

Hello creative friends! I'm very happy to be back with my second guest design project for this month. 

For this project I wanted to keep it quite simple and really showcase some of the amazing MDF shapes available. I went for an old fashioned, shabby vintage look and kept the colour palette quite basic.

I started by covering one of the Gothic arch mixed media boards in white crackle paste. Once this dried I went around the edge with some gold paint.   

I applied a quick coat of white gesso to the Santa sleigh, Deco snowflakes corners, and Winter tree scene shapes and then coloured them with acrylic paints. To give that shabby snowy look, I then dry brushed white gesso over the top of everything. For the Mini deer sheet, the colour of the mdf was already perfect for the deer so I just gave them a gesso dry brush.

Then it was time to glue everything to the board. For the santa sleigh and the deer that are at the front of the composition, I layered some thick card underneath them so that they would pop out a little and give the piece some dimension. To finish everything off I added a star embellishment at the top of the arch to guide santa's sleigh! I hope this gives you some Christmassy inspiration for your seasonal crafting 🎄🎅

Believe In The Magic Of Christmas by Liz

  Hi all, well Christmas is just around the corner, so for one of my projects I decided I'd create another exploding box using some of the fabulous MDF Pieces from

Calico Craft Parts,

So the top has this gorgeous script 

Believe in the Magic of Christmas, in Ancestry Font

All I've done to all the pieces I've used is coat them with white gesso, then when dry add some glitter over the top, the sparkle in real life is beautiful,

On the back section of the box, I used this fabulous Trees scene,

Tall Trio ofWinter Fir Trees

                                              This Child Pulling Christmas Tree on Sled 

 also had some texture paste at the bottom added to give a snow appearance, 

This is one the other side of the box, and features

Snowman and Lamp Post scene

On the front section I added a sled again with the snow effect beneath, this one is a Slatted Sled

For the centre piece I used one of the gorgeous MDF windows,

Gothic Arch Stained Glass Window style 1

I added some white Vellum behind this,

Then added a single Tree in front to create a scene,

Christmas Tree - style 5

then some parcel effects too,

I left enough room behind the window, so I could add a battery tealight, love how this makes the window glow,

Happy Crafting!!

Let it snow plaque by Louise

 

Pretty title and much as I love to look at snowy scenes, I don’t much like having to go out in it unless it’s a walk in the woods or up the hills. Shopping and chores are not so great in snow so maybe it could hold off till late  December lol.

I made this plaque inspired by the lovely little sledge shape. I adore winter crafting. Not just christmas (or in my case Yuletide and winter solstice) but I love the snowy scene crafting. Or the cosy fireside images, hot chocolate and woolly socks. Winter birds. 

Ok I’m rambling now. 

Back to the plaque…

I used an ARCH  (large) for the substrate and then by using one of the DOORS, a FENCE, and a TREE along with the SLEDGE and a couple of SNOWFLAKES I created a wintery scene.

I finished it off with the “LET IT SNOW” phrase. 

The Craft Parts used by Louise to create this project are available in a money saving bundle (30% off!) over at the web shop - CLICK HERE to purchase.

I simply used bits of cardboard from the packaging my craft parts came in to cut out bricks to give the impression of bits of a wall. I only added enough to give a hint. I didn’t build the whole house.*

Since Louise originally created this project, we do now have Sheets of Mini Bricks as part of our Architectural Add Ons range.

(I used DecoArt snowtex and glamour dust glitter to creat my twinkling snow ).

Snowy Christmas House by guest designer Lori Woods

Hello friends! I'm thrilled to be back, guest designing some Christmas crafts for you! 🎄

 I love the house and cabin kits from Calico Craft Parts, there are so many ways to decorate them and make each one unique. Because we're entering the festive period, I decided to create a little snowy Christmas house complete with Christmas decorations!

I started by putting together the Church- Schoolhouse MDF kit. The waste MDF from the windows was the perfect size for creating fake bricks on the sides of the house so I glued these on in small groupings to create a brick wall effect. Then I gave everything a coat of gesso.

I used texture paste on the walls to mimic the look of old crumbling plaster and painted it a dirty cream colour to give that extra shabby finish, and painted the bricks a dark red colour. For the roofs, I put down a layer of heavy body gel and scored through this while it was still wet to create the look of wooden planks. When it was dry, I painted the roof and the windows with a brown acrylic paint. I drybrushed white gesso over the entire house to give it a bit of a frosty look and then added areas of snow paste to finish the snowy effect.

To finished everything off I added some twine and colours bulbs made from moulds to look like Christmas lights and placed two little Christmas trees at the front door.

This little house was lots of fun to decorate and I hope it gives you some inspiration for your own Christmas decorations!

 

Merry Christmas by Liz

  Hi, well Christmas is fast approaching and so I thought I'd show you one of my makes for this year using the Gorgeous MDF round lace cut bauble with optional backing piece, from

Calico Craft Parts,

I used distress oxides on the base of the card and on the optional base of the Bauble,

then on the top layer after painting with white Gesso I went over with some fine Glitter, this really sparkles in real life, I finished it off with some gems,

Round MDF Lace Cut Bauble with optional backing piece,

Happy Crafting!!

Hugs Liz x