Meet our November Blue Fern Fan of the month.

This month we are delighted to welcome the talented Dorota Kopec as our Blue Fern Fan of the Month.  You are going to love seeing what she has created for us using the Blue Fern Vintage Christmas collections.  Her style + Blue Fern's style, are a perfect match!   We will turn it over to Dorota now:

Hello.  My name is Dorota and I come from Poland.  I became interested in scrapbooking 10 years ago and have been creating ever since.  Scrapbooking is my great hobby and my job.  I love making cards, albums and other art objects.  Whatever I make it will always be layered and detailed.

I am drawn to vintage, shabby chic styled crafts which I love to create.  I also appreciate the talent of mixed media artists and love the variety of styles and textures that it produces.  I am always inspired to learn and try new techniques in both teaching and my crafts.  I have been teaching at scrapbooking workshops for the past several years.  

My first project this month is a set of 2 Christmas bulbs.  I have used paper from the Vintage Christmas Collections for the background, and cut pieces from the paper for accents.

For this bulb, I painted a the Blue Fern Holly Frame chipboard piece and added it to the ornament.

For the second ornament, I added the sweet pair of mittens from the Cozy Christmas chipboard collection.  They are painted and covered in glitter.

Blue Fern Christmas Blooms were added to each ornament.  

Farewell 'Christmas' Projects by Nicole Doiron

What a bittersweet post this is for me, as after a year of being on this wonderful team,

this is my last post as DT member on the Blue Fern Studios blog.

Through the year, I have been blessed with wonderful scrappy friends,

fabulous quality products from generous owner Leslie and inspiration galore.

I am forever grateful of having been given this amazing opportunity

and will forever hold a special place in my heart for Blue Fern Studios.

***

I've got 3 projects featuring the very festive 

Vintage Christmas collections 1 & 2.

The Vintage Christmas collections not only offer beautiful Christmas patterns, 

but also include lots of papers that are perfect for Winter-themed layouts like this plaid print.  

To go along with it, I chose several Winter chipboard pieces including the Snow Medley board, covered in Snow embossing powder with a touch of glitter dust, and these adorable mittens from the Cozy Christmas set on which I used It's a Girl and Blue Sky. 

You see below the Dangled Flake piece which I cut in half as I wanted to save some of it 

for another project. I added several flowers from the new kits, Christmas Blooms 

and Soft Blossoms.  I sprinkled lots of silver microbeads throughout my page.

I chose A Wonderful Life, covered in Snow, as the title to which I added the word Cozy 

which I 'stole' from the Cozy Christmas piece, as that is exactly the word that comes to mind

 when I look at this picture of Yves and I cozying up to each other 

for a selfie during a Winter stroll.

Blue Fern Studios products used:

Patterned Papers: Vintage Christmas 1 (Greeting Cards); 

Vintage Christmas 2 (Let It Snow, 'Twas the Night, Holiday Cards)

Chipboard: A Wonderful Life, Snow Medley, Cozy Christmas, Dangled Flake

Flowers: Christmas Blooms, Soft Blossoms

Imagine Ink: Embossing Powders (Snow, Blue Sky, It's a Girl)

***

My next project is another layout, this time documenting a very special Christmas wish.

Before I met Yves, I had spent many a Holiday season surrounded by family and friends, but still somewhat lonely, wishing for true love, the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. My wish came true in 2006 and, since then, I get to spend every Christmas with my life partner, my soulmate, my best friend.  This picture was taken on Christmas eve a couple years ago. That is why I chose the title 'Twas the Night Before Christmas as the title, on which I used the new Santa's Suit embossing powder.  It's red and glittery and perfect for any Christmas project!

On my background, I used the Weathered Doilies stamp with the Ebony powder.

I added Holly Springs, covered with Sage and Santa's Suit, to my flower cluster and 

bits of Mixed Chains, covered in 14Karat, along the top and bottom of my picture.

Here you see a piece of the Holiday Vine, all decorated in gold.

And a final close-up of my Christmas wish come true!

Blue Fern Studios products used:

Patterned Papers: Vintage Christmas 1 (Magical, Greeting Cards)

Vintage Christmas 2 ('Twas the Night, Jolly)

Chipboard: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, Holiday Vine, Holly Sprigs, Mixed Chains

Flowers: Christmas Blooms, Soft Blossoms

Stamp: Weathered Doilies

Imagine Ink: Embossing Powders (14Karat, Ebony, Santa's Suit, Sage)

***

I realize this has turned out to be quite a long post, but bare with me please... it is my last! :)

And speaking of last, this is my last DT project... a trio of Christmas cards.

What is great about the Vintage Christmas Greeting Cards and Holiday Cards papers 

is that they are full of beautiful journaling cards and images, perfect for card making.

On this card, I used the Holiday vine and some Holly Sprigs chippies.

I also took a cream flower from the Soft Blossoms and turned it red using

the Santa's Suit embossing powder.

On Card 2, you can see the leftover Dangled Flake from my Winter page above.

These little leaves are the negative pieces from the Holly Sprigs.

I love all the beautiful vintage imagery from these papers.

Card 3 is set up on a misted and stenciled background.

You can see here that I added red gems on the Holly Sprigs.  The leaves were treated with Clover embossing powder and then dabbed with white paint for my signature white washing.

I cut a side of the Stars & Berries Frame, covered it in Snow embossing powder and

added a touch of the new Vintage Gold glitter on the stars.

Blue Fern Studios products used:

Patterned Papers: Vintage Christmas 1 (Wonderland, Magical, Greeting Cards)

Vintage Christmas 2 ('Twas the Night, Holiday Cards)

Chipboard: Holiday Vine, Holly Sprigs, Dangled Flake, 

Stars & Berries Frame, Leafy Page Accents

Flowers: Christmas Blooms, Soft Blossoms

Imagine Ink: Embossing Powder (Santa's Suit, Snow, Clover, 14Karat), Glitter (Vintage Gold)

Thank you for all your support this last year!

It was a pleasure creating for you all!

~ Nicole ~

2 Cards and A Multicolour Technique for Detailed Chipboard

Hi there! Jackie with you today, sharing my November projects.

Christmas season is fast approaching - can you believe it? Every year I promise myself I will be better organized and start my Christmas cards early, and nearly every year I end up re-using gift tags I made in previous years - but not this year! This year I'm getting an early start on my Christmas cards, using some gorgeous holiday-themed chipboard. And in the process I came up with a technique for easily adding lots of colour to detailed chipboard - don't you just love when creative inspiration strikes?

I found the idea for a shadow box card on Pinterest and couldn't wait to try it out for myself. Because Blue Fern papers are so thick, I didn't need to use a cardstock base, I built the card directly from my background paper. Though not a Christmas paper in and of itself, the Picnic paper from the Blue Fern Garden collection easily lends itself to Christmas projects.

Here is a side view of the card showing the dimension of the shadow box.

I love the Holiday Wreath set, and was loath to discard the punch out pieces, but that left me with a dilemma - how could I colour the insets and outer portions in different colours? My end solution was a combination of poster pen, glitter, leafing pen and alcohol markers, covered with embossing powder to prevent the colour looking flat.

I mounted the Christmas Tree from the Let It Snow set on Blue Fern Studios' signature chipboard packaging, punched out the wavy bits and treated those with a snow medium, and while that dried heat embossed the tree with two colours of embossing powder. The stump is made from a punch out piece from another piece of chipboard (I always save these because you never know when they'll come in handy).

Blue Fern Studios Products Used:

Blue Fern Garden paper: Picnic

Blue Fern Studios chipboard packaging

Chipboard: Holiday Wreath Set

Let It Snow Set

I was so pleased with the way the wreath turned out I created a second card with a photo tutorial to show the process.

I began by adding my highlights - for this piece I used a white poster pen to fill in the whorls in the wreath. There are a couple punch outs missing - don't worry, it won't be noticeable unless you're looking for them.

I then began adding colour using alcohol markers. The brush tip allows for precision, and the alcohol ink is not water soluble so it will stay where you put it. For this wreath I chose to only use one colour of ink, however as you can see from the first card, you can use as many colours as you'd like to achieve the look you're after.

I covered the piece with embossing ink, and then with a silverizing embossing powder, tapping the piece off so that the coverage was heavier in some areas than others.

Here is the finished piece ready for my card. The embossing powder gives the piece beautiful sheen and lots of texture.

And here is the finished card:

The mittens from the Cozy Christmas set made a perfect accent piece for the wreath, heat embossed with three different colours of embossing powder (I used a paintbrush to paint on the embossing ink to keep the colours from mixing).

Some red glitter glue completed my holiday wreath.

Blue Fern Studios Products Used:

Blue Fern Garden paper: Signature

Ombre Dreams paper: Susan's Dream

Chipboard: Holiday Wreath Set

Cozy Christmas

Thank you for your visit today!