5 for 5 Christmas Inspiration Day 5 - Tree

Welcome to Day 5 of our 5 for 5 Christmas Blog Event. I can't believe it's our last day,  the time has flown by! Today our theme is "Tree". We are all sharing a Christmas Tree themed project. Each day our 5 Designers will post a Christmas Inspired Project based on a theme. Some of us are offering prizes, so be sure to visit all the links below and leave comments. My prize is shown at the end of this post, check it out!!

This project started back in September when I took a Powertex class with Cheryl Boglioli in Boiling Springs, NC at a fabulous LSS called Dorothy's Stamps and Scraps. In the class, they were making female sculptures using Powertex. But, I had another idea. I wanted to try to make a Christmas tree. So, while everyone else made beautiful figures, I worked on my tree.

Cheryl was great. If you ever get a chance to take one of her classes, I highly recommend her. I also took a class on Gelli Printing that was tons of fun!!

First we shaped our sculptures with wire, then covered them with tin foil. I had to really fill the inside with the foil. Then we covered them with masking tape. It might not look like much, but getting the tree shape and especially the star took quite a lot of work. 

 Then we covered them with strips of cloth coated in the Powertex. 

Since the class was only using brown and gray colors, I brought my tree home and created a green color with my  DecoArt Americana paints. 

Then I painted the tree with several coats. 

I decided I wanted to glitter it up, so I proceeded to paint it with several different colors of DecoArt Twinkles Glitter paints. 

Then it was time to paint the star. I start out with my Americana paint that I thought was a little to orangey so I went over it with my DecoArt Acrylic Primary Yellow. Then I covered it with yellow

and gold glitter Twinkles.

I'm still considering whether or not I want to add ornaments and trim to it. 

But, for now I like the super glittery look. 

My prize for this event is two Tim Holtz Blueprints Wood Christmas Stamps - Stocking and Candy Cane. Just follow my blog and leave a comment for a chance to win. I will announce the winner on my blog Saturday, December 12. Thanks for stopping by!

Donna Bowman (me)
Rachel Kleinman
Lynn Kopas
Karen Crossen
Kris Lancaster

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #13 - A Year of Choices (And Some Changes)

It's the first of the month. That means it's time for another challenge over at The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge. We are celebrating our 1st Birthday!! It's been an awesome year and we have lots of fun things planned for our birthday celebration. Be sure to check out this month's challenge post for some amazing inspiration.

We are also implementing a few changes to our challenge rules, so be sure to remember the following when creating your June post.

1. You must include the challenge graphic.
2. You must comment on at least 3 design team member's blogs to be eligible for prizes and recognitions.
3. You may combine with 4 other challenges.

Also, our sponsor this month is Maya Road and they are offering 2 prizes filled with Maya Road Goodness to our 2 lucky random winners.

Our theme this month is "A Year of Choices." You can pick out any theme we have done over the past year. How fun is that? For my project I used several themes: Spray Inks, Around the House, Stamps and Flowers.

I made a very Patriotic American Shadowbox. Since Memorial Day was last week and the 4th of July is coming up and I bought an awesome new Unity Stamp Company Patriotic Stamp set, I was in the mood to make some thing red, white and blue.

Michaels has had these 7 Gypsies Shadowboxed in the Clearance section a while now and I finally picked one up.

To create the background I brushed on some Decorate Twinkles Glitter Paint in Blue Galaxy.

Then I sprayed on Decoart Spray Ink in Primary Cyan and Maya Road Spray Mist in Strawberry.

Here's the final project.

When I was trying to decide what to do, I thought my big Unity Flag Stamp would fit perfectly in the big opening - and it did!! I also used the smaller round star with stripes Unity stamp. I used Decorate Media Matte Medium to adhere the stamped images to a piece of thick chipboard before I adhered them to the box. I stamped Let Freedom Ring on a Maya Road Ticket and stenciled a red star on the ticket with Decoart paint and an Andy Skinner Stencil. I attached it to the shadowbox with a Maya Road Mini Clothespin in White.

In the lower left corner of the box I added a Maya Road Kraft Flower that I colored with Stampers Big Brush pens in red and blue. Then I added a wood 4 and 3 blue Maya Road flowers. For the rest of the embellishments I used stickers from various companies. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will play with us this month!!