Victorian Holidays guest design spot with Astrid

Hello, and thank you for coming by here today!

I am super excited to be here on the blog, both as guest designer and designer of the Victorian Holidays papers that are part of the December Main Kit as well as the Paper Add-On.

My name is Astrid, and on the web many people know me as Astridchristine. I have been stamping and paper crafting probably for about 10 years or so, but did not get seriously into it until about 2007.

My paper crafting hobby has developed from those early stamping and card making days into using many different media and I would like to call myself a mixed media artist. I love journaling, altering all sorts of objects and playing about with gesso, acrylic paints, collage and many layers. My style is Vintage/Shabby Chic and I love playing around with ribbons, flowers and lace.

I also love designing scrapbook papers in Photoshop Elements, all in vintage style of course, and over the years I have designed many freebies that can be found on my blog. http://astridsartisticefforts.blogspot.com

I was delighted and honoured when Deonna invited me to design a set of vintage Christmas papers specially for C'est Magnifique and today I will be sharing some of the projects I made using the papers and some of the wonderful embellishments found in the other December kits.

My first project is a tag holder, made out of two envelopes, this is the front, and below you can see the inside and the tag to go along with it.

I will be posting more detailed instructions of how I put my projects together on my own blog in the following days and weeks

My next project is a hanger, made from an old 78 record that is part of the Mixed Media Kit

There are two records in the kit and several of the other designers have made them into amazing albums, make sure to check them out! The full content of all the kits is detailed in this post, if you want further detail. Again, further instructions will come to my own blog in the days to come, if you want to know more.

My next project is a mini book made out of one piece of 12 by 12 paper and then decorated with papers from the main kit, and the Flower Add-Ons. If you want to know how to put this together, there are full instructions on my own blog today. The snow flakes and metal bits came from my stash. Below are some of the inside pages:

The little book is constructed in such a way as to have some pockets, they could be used for photos, journaling tags etc. Here are some tags I made to go inside the pockets:

My next project is an altered book box that I had in my stash, it's going to be a gift for a friend:

This is the front, using similar techniques and products that I used for the hanger.

Here you see a view of the back and the sides, both the angel and the santa were fussy cut from the papers in the collection and then embedded into the crackled background to make the whole thing look like an old book.

Here you can see the front and the inside. The lock at the front is part of the Embellishment add-on The top of the box was embellished with flowers from the flower add on.

My final projects are some cards in different styles, one can never have enough Christmas cards at this time of year...

A shabby chic card with many different layers, using several papers left after finishing my other project.

A simple card, using an embossing folder from my stash, the inside holds a sentiment that is printed onto one of the papers

And finally a slightly more complex step card that has a pocket, holding a smaller card made with elements from the C'est Magnifique Card Kit.

I have to apologize for this photo, the angle makes it look as if the flower on the bottom panel is really large, - it's actually not really. I love how the colour matches the paper so well.
Here is the little card that fits in the pocket:

The front, and below the inside holding the message, - part of one of the papers:

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my projects and that they have given you some inspiration. Thank you so much for your visit and I hope you will take the time to check out some of the wonderful projects the Design Team have been creating over the last few days!