Christmastime in July

Hello, today I am sharing this lovely box which I created using some of the new Sizzix Chapter 3 dies as well as some older ones. I repurposed the Halloween houses from last year and gave them a Christmas makeover. 

I started with the box, I cut all the pieces out of thick carboard (3 mm) using craft knife. I cut the back as well as all the sides and glued them together using hot glue. Then I mixed a little bit of silver acrylic paint with blue and black and painted the interior of the box. The exterior was painted with dark gold acrylic paint.

Then I created the houses. I used Halloween houses (Ghost Town die set) and transformed them into Christmas ones. I left out the church, because the windows were too crocked and did not look as Christmassy, and I die cut the tall house twice instead. I cut off the chimney in one of them, to make it look a bit different. I die cut each one three times out of kraft cardstock - I stuck two die cuts together and used the last one to create a roof. I coloured them with Ground Espresso and Black Soot and added a little bit of gold gilding wax. I also stuck a piece of gold metallic cardstock behind the windos. Finally, I added texture paste on the roofs, chimneys and windows to represent snow. 

Then I created the background mountains (Alpine die set). I cut the base out of white cardstock and applied Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide Ink. I cut the snow tops out of white and silver metallic cardstock and added some shading with Black Soot. Then I also die cut the moon (Gate Keeper die set) and applied Stormy Sky Distress Ink. 

After that I created snowbanks, I measured the box and cut them with my scissors. The one in the background is just a plain piece of cardstock and the one more in the foreground has little tabs to help me stick it into the box later on. 

Next, I die cut a focal element - the couple (Christmastime die set). I cut them out of white cardstock and coloured them with Distress Oxide inks (Speckled Egg, Fired Brick, Aged Mahogany, Walnut Stain, Ground Espresso, Forest Moss, Black Soot, Pine Needles). I also die cut the lamp (which is part of the Christmastime die set) out of black cardstock four times. I stuck two die cuts together for more stability and inserted a piece of gold cardstock between these two layers so that it looks like it is lit up. 

Then I started to assemble everything. First, I stuck the first layer directly to the background (the mountains, the moon and the first snowbank). Next, I added some white speckles to represent snow and gold speckles to represent stars (I used gold and white acrylic paint). Later, I decided to add some actual stars (Falling Stars die set), which were cut out of black cardstock and painted with gold acrylic paint. I also added white speckles to all the other elements, so that it looks like it is snowing in the whole village. I had to apply it to each element separately, otherwise there would be a "shadow" behind the foreground elements. Then I attached next layer, which is the other snowbank and one of the houses. I stuck the snowbank down using the tabs and attched the two houses on the right as well as one of the lamps to it. The house on the left is stuck to the background using foam tape. 

Finally, I attached the couple and the other lamp by cutting a slit into the bottom of the box, filling it with glue and tucking them in. This way they do not need to be attached to anything and are quite stable. I also applied a texture paste on the bottom of the box, which also helped to keep them in place. 

This is my last project for this year’s Christmas in July. Thank you so much for taking time to stop on my blog and Merry Christmas in July!

Dana

Supplies:

Tim Holtz Sizzix Ghost Town Thinlits Dies 664194
Tim Holtz Sizzix Alpine Thinlits Dies 664225
Tim Holtz Sizzix Cchristmastime Thinlits Dies 664731
Tim Holtz Sizzix Gate Keeper Thinlits Dies 664734

Tim Holtz Sizzix Falling Stars Thinlits Dies 664732
Distress Oxide Ink - Speckled Egg, Fired Brick, Aged Mahogany, Walnut Stain, Ground Espresso, Forest Moss, Black Soot, Pine Needles
Distress Ink - Ground Espresso, Stormy Sky
Cadence Dora Acrylic Paint - Rich Gold
Cadence Premium Acrylic Paint - Siyah, Beyaz
Munken Polar cardstock 300 gsm
Stardream metallic cardstock - Silver, Diamond
Koh-I-Noor Acrylic Paint - Silver
Primo Structure Paste 3D