Melissa Frances

The Christmas Drawer

From Melissa Frances design team member Emeline Seet we have this gorgeous Project to share today.

Here's a little note from Emeline about this project:

Today's project made use of the Melissa Frances Deck the Halls collection.
This Christmas, I attempted to create my first advent calendar in the form of tags.

This simple concept of Christmas countdown is meant for our children who are eagerly anticipating the arrival of Christmas.
Each tag is varied in design and composition. Besides using 'Deck The Halls' pattern papers, I used die cuts, tags and stickers from the same collection. Other Melissa Frances signature products include Old Fashioned Rope Tinsel, resin, super mini envelopes and gold alphabets. I couldn't resist and included more elements from our own Christmas tree decorations (eg: white bells, red satin ribbons and gold flowers).

To complete the look on each tag, I dusted white mica on a small area on alternate tags. These completely transform the look of the embellishments on each tag! These tags were stored in vintage drawers which were decorated with chipboard.

Christmas Tree Tutorial with Sherrie

Today we have a tutorial to share with you from Design team member Sherrie Siemens. While this sample is lovely and elegant, we could also see a less embellished version of this being made as a great holiday crafting project for kids.

Instructions:
1. Cut a 12x12 piece of card stock or patterned paper at 6.5". This will give you two rectangular pieces, one a little larger than the other. Find something circular that just fits inside the parameters of your rectangle. It can be a dinner plate, pie plate or in my case a circle cutting guard. Draw a pencil line around it and cut out. Do this with both rectangles.

2. You will have 2 different sizes of half circles, therefore this will give you two different sizes in trees.

3. Using double sided adhesive roll up the half circle and secure it on one end with tape.

4. Here you have two trees. If you roll them loosely you will end up with "fatter" trees. A tight roll will produce a skinny tree.

5. Wind your double sided tape around the tree, leaving about 1" space as you go up the tree.

6. Adhere your Melissa Frances Tissue paper Garland to your tape.

To finish the project use Melissa Frances resin frames and adhere them to "Deck the Halls" patterned paper as your ornaments for the tree.

Enjoy!

Our Christmas Best Layout and stacking box set

(Supply List: Patterned paper - Kisses Under the Holly (PA374), First Snow (PA378) • Holiday Flashcards (GN535) • Deck the Halls Cardstock Banners (GN541) • Deck the Halls Tag Collection (GN540) • Pop Out Glitter Alphabet (GN16) • Other, non-Melissa Frances supplies: bakers twine, snowflake punch, pen, fabric covered brad, Christmas tree button)

Jill Cornell has had a long standing love of our Melissa Frances product line - in fact, back in June of 2010 she was a featured guest on our blog! So we were so happy to receive these lovely Christmas projects from her to share with you.

Next, Jill shared her Christmas stacked box set. She says:

For a focus on gifts/gift wrap, I created this stacking set of gift boxes. I ended up hot gluing them together because I wanted to use it more as a display piece for Christmas. The boxes are quite tiny in real life so this little set would be for smaller gifts. I also used Melissa Frances tissue trim, tinsel trim, banners, resin snowflake, tag and "Merry" flashcard.

Thanks so much Jill for sharing your creativity and tallent with our readers!

Holiday Gift Presentation

Wendy Kwok sent us this adorable Altered glassine bag. She says:
I wanted to make something to hold a pair of earrings as a gift for a special friend.
Used Melissa Frances papers to personalised it for my friend.

She also shared this altered gift bag. She explains: I misted a white gift bag with blue mist.
Then I cut out a Deck the Halls' tag from one of the papers. Added some Melissa Frances Resin and chandelier drops to decor it.  This bag hold some special purse for someone special.


Thanks for sharing these beautiful gift presentation projects with us Wendy!

Christmas Pennant Tutorial

Today we have an awesome tutorial from Sharon Johnson to share. Especially with Christmas so close, making a few of these - either full size, or mini, would be a great way to decorate a gift bag or present!

Here is Sharon's tutorial:

Rather than making an entire banner, I used only 1 pennant to create an individual wall hanging.  This was SO FUN to do!!!  I love hanging these type of projects on cabinet knobs or hooks around the house and they make GREAT and VERY do-able little gifts to give.

The base is an MDF Board Pennant(5 per pack, I only used 1) by Kaisercraft.

Paper used is by Melissa Frances from the Deck the Halls Collection 

I traced the pennant onto the green patterned paper, cut out, applied with glue, let dry, sanded the edges and then decorated away.  I did color the edges of my MDF Board pennant green with a Copic. 

The paper rosette was made using 2 strips of 6″ paper from the same pad, each cut 1.5″ wide.  Each strip was scored using my Scor-It Minievery 1/4″, then accordion folded on the score lines.  The 2 strips had to be attached together with Scor Tape.  If you’ve never done a flower like this you can check out this Fan Fold Flower tutorial at Split Coast Stampers — it’ll give you a good visual of how to create this fun flower.

On the top of the pennant I used the Deck the Halls Cardstock Banners and topped them off with 2 rows of 1/4″ Ringlet Trim in green and ivory, adhering all with 1/8″ Scor Tape.

1.25″ Silk Ribbon in ivory is run through the pre-drilled holes as the hanger.  The largest punch on my Cropodile fits the pre-drilled holes perfectly, so once they are covered with the paper I’m able to use my Cropodile to punch through those holes so the paper has a perfectly fitted and formed hole.

The sentiment is from Christmas Mini  Sentiments by JustRite, stamped with Versa Fine Onyx Black Ink onto a hand cut banner. 

The Deck the Halls pad I used was 6×6, so the very tip of the pennant didn’t get covered with paper.  To remedy that situation I just cut off one of the tiny pennants from the strip of Cardstock Banners and glued it to the bottom tip, then used the same ringlet trim to top it off. 

Thanks for sharing this tutorial with us Sharon!

A Holiday Frame

Kimberly Congdon sent us this sweet frame which she embellished with Melissa Frances Deck the Halls paper, and the Deck the Halls Cardstock stickers.  She also added Tim Holtz knob, corners, and an ornate plate.  She used glossy accents to adhere everything, 2 game pieces for "Merry Christmas", a die cut tree that she decorated and a few red buttons, along w/ some pom pom trim.

Thanks Kimberly, what a sweet frame to put out each Holiday Season.

A Trio of Cards

We have three GORGEOUS cards from design team member Karola Witczak to share with you today. We love the way our Deck the Halls collection works so well for both the shabby-styled cards (as above), and the traditional bright Christmas colored cards, as below. One fun thing to note, is that on these cards, Karola used our 12x12 papers instead of working with the 6x6 pad. While often the smaller scale of the 6x6 papers works best for cards, in these cards having the larger graphics (for instance the typography in the background of the card above, and the sheet music in the card below) really adds to the design.

Away in a Manger Christmas Card

This beautiful Christmas card, celebrating the religious reason for the season, comes to us from Tammy Roberts. She says:

It features lots of goodies from the Melissa Frances Deck the Halls collection. I had a scrap piece of music paper (taken from an old hymnal) from the song Away in the Manger... perfect for the image used... huh? I simply added a doily behind the sweet little die cut, added some of the usual things you might find on my cards and there you have it... a quick and easy card ready to give out for Christmas!

Thanks Tammy. I'll bet there are a lot of your friends/family who would love to find that card under their Christmas tree! Here are a few more detail shots.

Deck the Halls wee gift box

Sr. Creative Director Carolyn Peeler was asked to contribute a Christmas project for Norwegian scrapbook blog Scrappe Huset's holiday countdown. You can see it today over on their site along with the instructions. Carolyn is excited to share with our Scandinavian readers that she will be conducting Melissa Frances workshops Feb 25-26 at the Sweden Scrap Happening. She would love to meet some of you there!

The supply list for this wee box is: Kisses under the Holly (PA374) patterned paper, Deck the Halls Die Cuts (GN534), Tarnished Silver Glass Glitter (GN350A), along with seam binding, wee bells, and the Ellen Hutson for Sizzix Suitcase XL Scoreboard Die.

We love this packaging idea for giving homemade chocolates, caramels, or jewelry this holiday season.

God Jul Shadow Box

(Supply List: Patterned Paper - First Snowfall (PA378), A Merry Xmas (PA377), Holiday with Henry (PAPA 376), 6x6 Deck the Halls paper pad (GN 537 - sold out) , Box of Christmas Ornaments (WB 010), Silver Tinsel (WB 001),  Mica flakes (GN 285),  Deck the Halls cardstock stickers (GN 533),  Bag of assorted Mini Trees (WB 018),  O Tannenbaum (CX 833),  Pure Silve Glass glitter (GN350 E), Garnish Embellishment (CX 705), Provincial Applique (CX 712),  Small lockbox (CX818), Single swag (CX 852) • other, non=Melissa Frances supplies: Configurations 5"x5" and tissue tape from Tim Holtz) 

Melissa Frances design Team member Anne Kristen made this beautiful Christmas shadow box featuring many of our fabulous Christmas embellishments.

Here is a little bit from Anne Kristen about this shadow box:

Today I will show you a shadow box with a Christmas theme. Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I enjoyed making this shadow box using the tiny vintage ornaments from Melissa Frances along with some treasures from my grandmother. I also love details, and so in this box I have cut out small details from Melissa Frances papers and tucked them into the project here and there. To create a winter feeling, I glued Mica flakes and glitter to some of the "floors". On the top of the box I put the little cute vintage bird and some tinsel. Finally, on the front I added some resin embellishments.

I think you'll agree with me that Anne Kristen has made a shadow box to be treasured year after year with this stunning decor piece.

We wish everyone a lovely and inspired weekend!