Golden Harvey with Speckled Egg background

I'm still playing with my gold and white Harveys and the colours that go with them. And I'm here with my fourth Harvey who got a Speckled Egg background this time. 

As you can see in this picture below, I tried a red background before the blue, but I didn't like them together. So I put the red background aside and I'm sure I will use it later for another project. Here I painted a piece of 300gsm watercolour paper blue with the Speckled Egg paint, then I inked the edges with Faded Jeans Archival ink. In the end, I embossed it with the old and retired Holiday Knit embossing folder. 

Basically, I kept the composition I chose for my pure gold and white card, but modified it slightly. I placed Harvey to the right side, I placed a Christmas tree next to him and I also put more gold stars.

The big stars are from the Twig&Stump, the tiny ones are from the Festive Things die set.

What I used:

Sizzix Thinlits die, Harvey Colorize (666066)

Sizzix Thinlits die, Festive Things (664191)

Sizzix Texture Fades, Holiday Knit embossing folder (661336)

Sizzix Thinlits die, Mini Christmas Things (662418)

Sizzix Thinlits die, Twig&Stump (666072)

Stampers Anonymous, Tiny Text Christmas (CMS424)

Ranger Distress paint (Speckled Egg)

Ranger Distress Archival ink (Faded Jeans)

Ranger embossing powder (Princess Gold)

Schmincke Arcryl Bronze, Rich Gold

Nuvo Ebony Black Crystal Drops

Don't worry, I will only come back once more with Harvey! I think it's time to say goodbye to him for a while and it's time to work with another dies and/or stamps.

Christmas card with Harvey by Tim Holtz

Hello everyone, although I still have gold and white Harveys  waiting for a place on a card or a tag, I decided to make a more traditional nutcracker style Harvey. Here it is.

The thing is, that I wanted to use the Music&Advert Christmas stamp set for a very long time but the gold and white Harvey just didn't fit to this background - according to my taste :-) This is why I made a red Harvey.

For the background, as I mentioned, I used the Advert stamp from the Music&Advert stamp set. I stamped on a watercolour paper with Vintage Photo Archival ink.

Then I applied diluted Antique Linen ink on the whole surface and inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress ink.

Then I muted back with diluted white paint. I not just tapped the surface with that paint using a piece of sponge, but I also spattered the surface with the same watered paint.

Well, the background is ready. Now I will share with you some tips about Harvey. I've started to use these tricks with the gold Harvey and I used for my new Harvey as well. But I have to add here that my tricks are just additions to the Sizzix video that I also followed when I first assembled Harvey.

If you've already tried to put together a Harvey, you might realise that one part of Harvey's shoulder is deeper than the other part and you have to stick an epaulette here. I wanted to equalise this level difference. So I cut out two sets of epaulette, one from kraft paper and one from gold metallic paper. The kraft paper set were cut half and glued to the lower part. Then I could glue the gold epaulettes to an even surface.

The second thing. You might have noticed too, that the face where the moustache is to be glued is lower than the strap of the hat. I solved this problem by gluing the big white dots I cut out with the die says Face, to the back of the moustache. Here you can see the dots I was talking about.

Then here, in this picture you can see how I glued them to the moustache.

And the third trick is how I make the eyes. Some of the crafters thought I used google eyes, but no, I created the eyes. I used the small dots from the dots of the Face die-cuts. I glue them to the best position then I add a tiny drop of Nuvo Ebony Black Drops.

As you can see, I did't put from the tube directly on the eyes. Instead, I put a small amount on my working surface and with the tip of my poking tool I put an incredibly tiny dot on the eye.

So these were my Harvey tricks, I hope they were helpful for you.

 

What I used:

Sizzix Thinlits die, Harvey Colorize (666066)

Sizzix Thinlits die, Toyland Colorize (664972)

Sizzix Bigz die, Crescent Moon&Stars (658716)

Stampers Anonymous, Music&Advert (CMS358)

Idea-Ology, Paper Stash Metallic, gold and silver (TH93586)

Idea-Ology, Christmas paper pad (TH93988)

Ranger Distress inks (Vintage Photo, Antique Linen, Ground Espresso, Aged Mahogany)

Ranger Distress Archival ink (Vintage Photo)

etc.

Small Christmas tag with Harvey by Sizzix Tim Holtz

Hello everyone, it's November and we start a new challenge on the Country View Challenges blog. The theme is Tags Only and the lovely Jo will be your hostess. For this challenge I created a small tag with Harvey, from the latest Sizzix Christmas release by Tim Holtz.

To make this tag, I first assembled Harvey, and not just one Harvey, I put six Harvey soldiers together. Since I painted gold the gold parts, it was more efficient if I made more than one. 

If you don't know how to put together Harvey, then follow this video tutorial on Youtube. This is an official Sizzix video.

And I will show where I got the idea to make Harvey in gold and white. A few days ago I went to the supermarket nearby where they built a Christmas corner filled with nutcrackers of all shapes and colours. And there was the gold section. 

I cut out the base from white watercolour paper and painted the hands and the face to a skin colour with DecoArt Americana Natural Buff.

Here you can see the drying gold parts.

And here you can see my Harvey army :-)

In this picture you can see, that their eyes are light blue, but later I put a tiny black dot in the middle of each eye because somehow I found Harvey a little creepy without pupils.

For the tag, I used the middle sized tag die from the Tag Collection Sizzix Framelits die set. I cut out one from a 300gsm paper then 2 from a lighter blue cardstock. Then I embossed one of the blues with the Holiday Knit embossing folder. 

I didn't want to put Harvey to the middle, but when I placed him to a side, I felt that something was missing from the tag. So I was looking for something to go with Harvey. It was a package from the Mini Christmas Things die set and some tiny stars from  the Swirling Stars die set.

What I used:

Sizzix Framelits die, Tag Collection (658784)

Sizzix Thinlits die, Harvey Colorize (666066)

Sizzix Thinlits die, Mini Christmas Things (662418)

Sizzix Thinlits die, Swirling Stars (663095)

Sizzix embossing folder, Holiday Knit (661366)

Schmincke Aqua Bronze, Rich Gold

DecoArt Americana, Natural Buff

Now I have to find out what to do with the other Harveys :-)

So if you have a project on tag, please don't hesitate to join our November challenge where a randomly selected winner can have a £20 voucher in the Country View Craft Shop.

With my tag I would like to join the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Christmas

Decoupage wooden box with nutcracker

Here is the brother of the nutcracker of my previous box. 

Here I have used another image of the Caspari nutcracker paper napkin and I have painted blue the bottom.

I used the following DecoArt paints: Wedgewood Blue, Glorious Gold and White Wash. I made the crackles with DecoArt Chalky Finish Crackle Medium.

Soon I will come with other decoupage boxes :-)

Have a nice weekend!

Oval wooden box with nutcracker

Here I am again because I just finished this oval wooden box with a nutcracker... yes, I'm preparing for Christmas!

The image was cut out from a Caspari paper napkin. For the crackles I used DecoArt Chalky Finish Crackle Medium. The basic was dark brown, but after I chose DecoArt Americana White Wash for the top and Mistletoe for the bottom. 

The star was made with Tim Holtz Layering Stencil (Stars) and DecoArt Americana Glorious Gold. 

And because of my nice crackles ;-) I would like to join the November challenge of A Vintage Journey: Cracking Up!

And the Anything But Cute challenge: Rustic Glam

I hope you like it! Happy crafting!