Christmas Stars

Hello again!  Another Monday morning has rolled around and I am back from the Thanksgiving holiday break, ready to rock on to Christmas.  At least here in the States, the passing of Thanksgiving marks the official start of the Christmas season.  So sadly I will put the colors and images of the harvest, my favorite season, behind me for one more year and dive head first into Christmas.  And darned if it doesn't feel like I just did this!  Where does the year go?  I really need to put crafting on hold for a week while I get organized and decorate for Christmas but somehow I just don't see that happening.  Plus my daughter will graduate college one week before Christmas so that will be a trip out of town right at the peak of the season - yikes!  The pressure is certainly on!

Okay, enough already.  Let me tell you about this quick and easy little "Stars" project I did for the Simon Says Stamp and Show Us Stars challenge.  To start with, I cut a piece of chipboard with the Spellbinders Curved Rectangles Mega Nestabilities plus cut a matching piece from vanilla CS.  I layered them together and used the Tim Holtz Concerto mask to create a vintage style background by misting it with my homemade glimmer mist.  

I covered some chipboard with a vintage Christmas carol sheet and die cut stars from it, then sponged the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink.  I resisted buying the Tim Holtz Rosette die for so long but finally caved and bought the Mini Rosette die when it came out.  And I am SO glad that I did.  I really LOVE it.  The rosettes were cut from kraft glassine paper.  Then I layered chipboard stars embellished with vintage glass glitter over the rosettes.  And I had to try out my new Festive Greenery decorative strip die.  It's so cute.  Rather that cut all the die cuts in their natural colors, I opted to gold emboss all of them, keeping my piece in vintage sepias and golds.  I added a couple more glass glittered stars for good measure and topped it with a piece of gold tone wire for hanging.

  

And that was that. It was crunch time the night before I left for the Thanksgiving trip and this whole project probably took less than 2 hours - a record time for me!  And now stop by Simon Says Stamp and Show to see the amazing starry projects offered for your inspiration by my team mates.  This is an easy challenge so I hope to see your entry this week.  Don't forget about the amazing $50 shopping spree at Simon Says Stamp, offered each and every challenge by our generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp!

A quick post update:  A reader asked what is the overall size of the piece and how big are the stars.  The Meta Nestability it is based on measures 4x8 inches.  The stars were cut with a Sizzix die.  The large ones are 3 inches across and the small ones just over an inch.