Stamperia Vintage Christmas Kitchen Easel Card for Frilly and Funkie

Hello, Friends!  With Christmas right around the corner, you’re going to love the new challenge up on the Frilly and Funkie Challenge Blog.  I’ve made this Stamperia Vintage Christmas Kitchen Easel Card for the “In the Kitchen” challenge, which is hosted by Suzz.  We’ll take a look at it in a minute, but first let’s find out what Suzz has to say:

Challenge Theme: In The Kitchen
This time of the year we find ourselves in the kitchen either preparing food for family and friends or just gathering around with family who is visiting at the kitchen table.  Your challenge is to incorporate the kitchen somehow in your project.  You can use an object from the kitchen in creating your project or you can use a sentiment or image that reflects the kitchen.  You decide how to represent being in your kitchen in your art.

Christmas Kitchen Easel Card: The Inspiration

Baking cookies is a Christmas tradition I’ve loved for decades!  My mom used to bake enormous batches of her Traditional Scotch Shortbread every holiday season.  I can still see her sitting in a chair, my grandmother’s old soup pot clenched firmly between her knees as she worked the butter and sugar together with an old wooden spoon.  These simple and delicious cookies are part of our Christmas tradition every year, but I use my KitchenAid Mixer to cream the butter and sugar.   The whole house smells like Christmas when these buttery cookies are baking!  And it makes me feel connected to my mom, which is a wonderful thing indeed!

Christmas Kitchen Easel Card: The Design

I decided to go big for this challenge, so this easel card base measures a whopping 7″ square.  The large size and easel card design are great for display in the kitchen during the holidays.  It also gave me loads of “real estate” to play around with.  The front cover is actually a pocket that’s been stuffed with loads of kitchen themed goodies.

Christmas Kitchen Easel Card: How to make a miniature cookbook

Stamperia Vintage Christmas is a wonderful collage page filled with delightful cut apart images.  This recipe book page was fun to turn into a miniature book.  Here’s how I did it:

• First, cut out the 3 1/2″ ” x 2 1/2″ recipe book page, then ink and distress the edges.
• Next, spritz it very lightly with water and crumple it up into a ball.
• Cut 3 more 3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ book pages from scraps or copy paper.  Give them the same treatment.
• Now, carefully open the crumpled book pages and smudge them with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.  You can always find the tried and true recipes in any cookbook by looking for the smudged and soiled pages!
• Fold each page in half down the center just like a real book.  Then use a bone folder or the side of a ruler to curl the pages to give them a used, dogeared appearance.
• Run a thin bead of glue along the fold of each page and stack the pages together.
• Next, adhere just the “spine” of the book “cover” to the card base.
• Then,  when the glue has set, sort of push the outer edges of the pages toward the spine while adhering the corners of the book “cover” to the card base.  I added a small dab of adhesive here and there to keep the pages from flying open.

Christmas Kitchen Easel Card: The Wooden Spoon

Dressing this wooden spoon up for the holidays was a blast!  It was a yard sale find that cost me a whole quarter!  For some reason, the spoon has a normal sized bowl, but is only 6″ long.  I can’t imagine what it would have been used for, but now it decorates my card.  Here’s how I did it:

• First cover the spoon with a layer of Aged Mahogany Distress Stain.  I still have the dabber top stains, but you could use the spray stain as well.
• Now, dry the stain with a heat tool.
• Next, open the top of a Ranger Emboss It Dabber and pour a dime sized puddle in the bowl of the spoon.  Then use a paint brush (or your fingers, which is what I did) to spread the embossing ink all over the front and sides of the spoon.
• Then place the spoon in a funnel tray or on a clean sheet of paper and cover with Seth Apter Vintage Beeswax Baked Texture.  Tap off the excess, and put it back in the container.  Then heat emboss.  This transformation is so much fun to watch!
• When the spoon is fully embossed and cooled, randomly paint the edges, handle and bowl with more embossing ink.  Don’t go for full coverage!  Just light coverage and random strokes.
• Then cover the spoon with Seth Apter Ancient Amber Baked Texture, tip off the excess and heat emboss.  The end result is so lovely!

I decorated my spoon with ribbon, die cut Tim Holtz Holiday Greens, Little Birdie Crafts Elsie Florals, Rusty Jingle Bells, Gold Twine and Sherry Shimmer Satin Ribbon.  When I had everything arranged to my taste, I tapped greenery and bells with Distress Grit Paste to resemble snow.  So fun!

Christmas Kitchen Easel Card: Pocket Inserts

I used images from the Vintage Christmas Scrapbooking cards to create a couple of 4″ x 6″ recipe folios to tuck in the front pocket.

The recipes for Mom’s Shortbread and our favorite Gingersnaps are written inside.

Christmas Kitchen Easel Card: A Peek Inside

In this photo, you can see that the “stopper” for the easel is also a pocket.  Isn’t that fun?

I created a little tea bag wallet to tuck inside, along with a pretty ephemera card.

There’s room on the back of the ephemera card to add another recipe.  And you just have to have a cup of tea with a Christmas cookie!

Here’s a peek at what the card looks like when it is not standing up for display.  That’s something I love about an easel card.  You can fold them down for storage or mailing, then stand them upright for display.

Now it’s YOUR Turn!

I hope you’ll play along in this sweet “In the Kitchen” challenge.  To do so, simply link up your vintage or shabby chic kitchen themed project on the Frilly and Funkie Blog before 11:59PM EST on Tuesday December 18th.

The winner  of this challenge will earn the chance of a Guest Designer spot  at Frilly and Funkie, and everyone who enters and follows the rules will go into the draw for the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique. In addition, the Design Team will select three further outstanding entries and those creators will receive a Top Pick badge to display on their blogs!

I can’t wait to see what you make!

I hope I shared some tips, techniques and ideas that you can use in your own crafty adventures.  If so, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheerio,

kathy

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