Christmas Elves

I decided to share one bonus Christmas home decor project. I recently got the Holiday Village by Tim Holtz and decided to expand it a little bit using partial die cutting. I created a small scene featuring elves preparing presents for children in the village. I wanted to try something new, something different than a box or a card and I was inspired by Kath Stewart's project she created last year for Simon Says Monday Challenge. I am extremely satisfied with how it turned out and I wanted to share the idea. 

First, I started assembling the village. Especially important are two dies: "WHITE" and "BLUE". I die cut them partially, so that the bottom edge of the die did not cut. I also made sure I was using a big enough piece of cardstock, so that there was enough space underneath, because it was going to be a future base for my scene. I always use the upper plate as a cutting one, so I marked the bottom edge of the die on the other side of the paper. I have Big Shot Plus, which is a little bit bigger, but I used standard cutting plate and this and allowed me to run it through sideways. 

The photos above show how I cut the die called "white" and I did the same with the one called "blue". I die cut it out of white cardstock as well, but I used Speckled Egg Distress Ink to colour it. When it was die cut, I sketched the road and cut it using scissors. It did not matter that this piece was a little bit smaller that the white base, because I covered it later on with texture paste. 

I die cut the rest of the village out of different cardstocks and distressed the edges with Walnut Stain, Ground Espresso and Black Soot. I also scored the "white" piece and folded it. 

Later I decided to add mountains (Alpine die set), so I die cut them out of white, white metallic and grey metallic cardstock and added a little bit of colour with Hickory Smoke and Old Paper. I wanted the middle one to appear a bit more in the distance, so I made it lighter. 

Next, I created a base. I cut it out of 3 mm cardboard as shown on the photo and glued both pieces together using hot glue. Since the cardboard is grey, I also painted the edges and the back with white acrylic paint. After the paint was dry, I attached the village. 

Next, I worked on different elements I wanted to use for my scene. I die cut two elves - one is from Thin Ice die set and the other one is from Santa’s Helper die set. The one from the Thin Ice die set had ice skates, so I had to remove them, for it would be very difficult to attach him that way. I cut each elf six times out of black cardstock and applied some Speckled Egg Distress Oxide using small flat brush. I also used the presents from Santa’s Helper die set and trees from Thin Ice die set. I cut them out of different cardstocks, gold mirror cardstock or used Speckled Egg Distress Oxide Ink. I also added shading using Walnut Stain and Black Soot.  

Then I started planning my scene. Since I created the base out of cardboard, it was very easy to cut. That is how I attached all the elements of my scene. I marked a line where I wanted them to be with a pencil and cut a small slit along the line using craft knife (and I made it a bit wider using a pokey tool). This way I was able to tuck all the elements into those slits. There was just one problem - I also wanted to imitate snow using grit texture paste. I had to proceed slowly. I started applying it from the back and each time the texture paste filled the slit I created previously, I cleaned it, filled it with glue and placed the element I wanted to use inside. Surprisingly, all of them stayed in the position even when the texture paste was still drying and did not fall. Now that it is dry, the texture paste serves as an extra support and everything seem to hold very well.

I hope I brightened your Monday a little bit and I cannot wait to share more projects. 

Dana

Supplies:

Tim Holtz Sizzix THIN ICE Thinlits Dies 664750
Tim Holtz Sizzix SANTA'S HELPER Thinlits Dies 664192
Tim Holtz Sizzix HOLIDAY VILLAGE Colorize Thinlits Dies 664737

Tim Holtz Sizzix ALPINE Thinlits Dies 664225

Distress Oxide Ink - Speckled Egg, Hickory Smoke, Black Soot, Walnut Stain
Distress Ink - Old Paper, Ground Espresso
Cadence Dora Acrylic Paint - Rich Gold
Cadence Premium Acrylic Paint - Beyaz
Munken Polar cardstock 300 gsm
Stardream metallic cardstock - Silver, Diamond

Colorite Rainbow cardstock - Black
Primo Grit Structure Paste 3D