A cosy fireplace

Dear reader,

A friend of mine lives in California in the States, so I don't think she will have a fireplace burning for the festive season. So I thought I would make her one.

I decided to take pictures of the work in progress. Just to show the various steps.

I started out with regular card stock. I embossed it using the Cuttlebug and an embossing folder to get the brick wall effect. I then coloured it slightly beige using distress ink and an ink blending tool. Then I blackened an area to make it look like charred stones. Using liquid pearls in blue, red, orange and yellow to make the flames. Around the flames I used some glittery stickles here and there to make it look like it is really burning. I thought it looked rather real!

  The sides of the fireplace I made from parts of a die cut using the Baroque die from Tim Holtz, I cut it out of grunge board. It is a bit thicker so it has more dimension. I painted it with a grey crackle paint. The faux wrought iron I made from regular card stock cut with the iron gate die from Tim. I painted it with black acrylic paint and gave it a glossy shine with a glue. The beam I cut from kraft glassine and I embossed it with a wood grain embossing folder in the cuttlebug. The inside of the sides and the bottom of the faux beam are also blackened with a tiny bit of black ink.

You can't have a festive fireplace without a Christmas stocking.... I still had a die cut lying around that I put to use here. I painted it red and white and let it dry. Then I covered the red with stickles and the white with my snow marker. Looks so cute! I first thought of adding white or gold stripes but I am glad I didn't. It looks perfect like it is.

I stamped a garland on some white card stock and cut it out using a pair of scissors. After all a fireplace at Christmas needs a garland.

I put some red and green distress ink on my craft sheet and with a water brush I coloured in the garland. The flowers in red and the rest in green obviously... The berries I touched with white liquid pearls. And with gold stickles I made a trim in the whole thing.

The next thing the fireplace needs is candles. You cannot celebrate Christmas without candles. So I stamped a few candles and cut them out.

I coloured in the candles with biscotti liquid pearls and the little flames with gold. The area around the flames I brushed slightly with stickles to give it a glow.But I coloured it yellow with distress ink beforehand. On this picture you can also see a close up from the garland.

Here you see the whole thing together. The sentiment is embossed using the cuttlebug, it is silver card stock and I sanded it slightly to make it look weathered. I distressed it a bit using walnut stain, green and red distress ink and added a gold trim. I think the whole thing looks quite cosy. The edge of the card is also distressed and I chomped the corners to finish it all off. I hope Megan likes it.

You can almost feel the warmth of the fire, right?

I hope you enjoyed this mini tutorial..... and stay tuned.

Frederique