ornate frame hanging ornament...

if you're like me...

sometimes things don't go as planned...

yesterday I felt a NEED to play & make an art journal page...

this had been on my mind for several days...

that was my original plan...

I started by covering a 5 x 6 piece of manila cardstock with a new adhesive sheet...

this magic sheet changes die cuts into stickers...

that's the back...

on the front, I spread on my gold metallic embossing paste...

you can see it's a very uneven layer...

some areas are very thin...

some are much thicker...perfect!

the "unique" thing about the metallic pastes (both the gold & silver) is that if you blast them with the embossing tool while the paste is wet, you can create bubbles & texture in the paste & it dries with really cool texture...

so here's the sheet after I blasted it to dry the paste...

it's a very pretty gold metallic with texture...

next, I used tim's sizzix ornate frame die...

 now I have a frame for today & an extra gold metallic oval all ready for another day...

archival inks are awesome over dry embossing paste...

I had a vintage art journal page in mind, so I added some potting soil archival over the dry paste...

below you'll see the ink only over the right side of the frame...

and here's the whole frame inked 

with potting soil archival..

and to show you how much you can alter the color of the metallic pastes, the uninked oval is back in the inked frame for a comparison...

you'll see a huge difference in color...

so the moral of this story is that with gold & silver embossing paste, you can create any color metallic paste you need...

just add any archival ink over the top...

or...you can mix archival reinkers into the paste...

then store the left over colored paste in the mix & store jar...

here is where this project took a major detour...

when I picked up the finished frame to take a photo, I realized that it could make a great hanging Christmas ornament...

forget the art journal page...

on to plan B...

I cut another frame from manila cardstock, and used the archival/alcohol technique to add the background color to the oval insert...

I swiped the cornflower blue pad onto the craft sheet, added rubbing alcohol, mixed it up with the palette knife & dropped the oval into the ink...

the color immediately soaked thru...

then I dried it...

I added gathered twigs to the edges to create a frame...

then used fern green archival to stencil the larger tree & leaf green to lightly stencil the smaller tree...

keeping the stenciling light for the small tree, makes it appear to be in the background, even though it was actually stenciled over the large tree...

now here's my next thoughts...

how am I going to keep the oval from falling out of the frame?

and...

since I cut the frame from manila cardstock 

(because I thought it was going to be glued flat to a page)

how can I make this sturdy so it won't get bent & can easily be packed away for next year?

so...

I roughly cut an oval from black cardstock, just a bit larger than the oval insert...

and glued it to the BACK of the frame...

it's just a little larger than the oval opening...

making sure that the black is NOT visible from the front...

next I cut a second ornate frame from 

clearly for art BLACKOUT...

 after removing the backing sheet from the manila frame, it's super quick to adhere the CFA frame to the manila frame & now it's almost indestructible...

and it looks good/finished & professional from the back...

so if I decide to give this to someone, there's the perfect spot to add a sentiment...

the next photo shows that I replaced the large tree stencil over the stenciled tree & used jet black to stamp the numbers background thru the stencil,  onto the tree...

I used painters tape to mask off the areas that I wanted to protect...

now the tree looks like this...

I did the same thing with the smaller tree, but used fern green archival to add polka dots...

I didn't use black for the stamping, so I could keep the tree lighter & in the background...

to add "merry", I masked off the "christmas" portion of the stencil & added gold metallic embossing paste...

after the "merry was dry, I wanted to add just a bit of subtle snow...

the background spatter stamp combined with 

snow cap pigment is perfect...

subtle...exactly what I wanted...

my next thought was that I wanted to embellish the bottom of the frame...

here's my holly, stamped onto the paper side of a piece of clear CFA...

the paper gets adhered with my fav glue n seal...

with the holly stencil over the stamped image, I added fern green...

and replaced the stencil to ink the berries

 with red geranium...

then cut out the holly...

heated it to soften the CFA, then shaped it...

I needed something under the holly...

so I used the pinecone die to cut these sprigs from CFA blackout...

I inked over them with fern green archival, then sprinkled on the fern green embossing powder, wiped a bit off some of the edges to allow the black to show thru & heated it to melt the powder...

when they cooled, I heated them a bit so that I could shape them...

to coordinate with the gold embossing paste...

after shaking the tarnished brass distress paint, I put a bit on the craft sheet & used my finger to add random tiny bits to the sprig edges...

the next photo shows how to change the color of a mirrored star...

just tap on some tree branch archival ink...

and change the star from clear to vintage gold-ish...

somewhere along the way I added some barn door stickles to the holly berries...

since the berries are small, I put a bit on the craft sheet & used a toothpick to apply it onto the little berries...

and here's the finished hanging ornament...

when assembling it, I decided that I wanted the oval raised, so I added 2 oval die cuts under it...

and I added my usual pen stitching around the oval...

I love love really LOVE how vintage the frame looks...

it's hard to believe that it starts out as a simple manila cardstock die cut...

because all the pieces are made with CFA, this is incredibly sturdy & very lightweight...

using the CFA allows the sprigs & holly to hang off the edge without fear of being damaged...

so...

I didn't make an art journal page, as planned...

but I did

make (ornament) art!

wendy

ps... I guess when your art decides to take another direction, it's best to just relax & follow along!

have a wonderful weekend...

THANKS for coming to visit...