Reindeer do Fly!

 Sleigh kits!  

Need I say more?

This month Alpha Stamps is all about the Sleigh. Be them big, little, flat or 3D.  What is a sleigh without some Reindeer.  Have no fear, Alpha Stamps has them too and boy did I have a great time playing with all these goodies.

So grab some hot chocolate, eggnog, hot toddy, etc and enjoy!

 I'll start with the simple and work my way up to the flying reindeer, because, well there is a story there LOL.

I used the Chipboard Sleigh to hold all of Santa's presents.

HERE is a link to most of the supplies I used from Alpha Stamps.

To achieve the rich red on the sleigh I started by stamping the Fancy Flourish Clear Stamp, painted over that with red paint, grunged up the edges with some black ink and then painted over it all with crackle distress paint.

 In my world everyone is nice and Santa's sleigh is overfilled to the point that the reindeer get extra feed.

The gifts are 7/8" wooden cube blocks wrapped in Christmastime paper.  Oh my, these are stunning, I prefer the 6x6 pieces because the pattern/designs are smaller.  Wrapping ribbon around them would have hidden the pretty patterns so I used gold mini rosette Dresden boarders to act like ribbon and then tied a bit of seam binding to make the bow on top.

 Along all the edges of Santa's sleigh is rich gold metallic single loop braid ribbon. The rest of the swirls that are on the sleigh are painted with metallic gold paint and coated with gold stickles.

 I made a bunch of wreaths for this project, and I mean a bunch.  Tim Holtz's pine twine came in very handy. To accent the wreaths on the sleigh I added small pine cones,  ribbon from the Christmas set, and a few of the red glittered holy berries.  Everything, and I mean everything, got a dusting of extra fine white glitter. A small snowflake charm, that I painted gold, hangs in the center of this wreath.

And here is what inspired all those wreaths.  

I wanted something to break up the sled, why not some greenery and a charm.  I used more of those holy berries, small pine cones, clear acrylic spray that I coated in olive alcohol ink, and the deer charm. Once this became part of the sleigh it was only natural for the rest of the sleigh to get a wreath concoction too. There is a wreath on the front and back of the sleigh.  

 Okay, so here is where my art brain went a bit wild.  

When I envisioned this piece it had flying reindeer. I approached my husband to see if he could help me with this.  He of course said yes because he is a HUGE enabler ;)  We scoured the internet for bits and found some carousel pieces that would work.  Alas, we couldn't get our hands on those because the poor woman broke her arm.  Did that deter us, nope.  We built our own!

We shot for the moon and landed among the stars.

Before I get to the moving parts let's pause and pay homage to Rudolf.  You knew I was going to light something up ;)  

Rudolf is a chipboard reindeer covered in the scrumptious Christmastime paper with a wreath around his dainty neck and gold metallic mini braid ribbon for a harness. His nose is, and this is ironic, Red Demon Eyes - LED lights-large.  I removed one of the red lights and hid the wires with a wired pine needle stem wrapped around Rudolf post and then a gift strategically placed in front of the switch and battery pack.  

Okay onto flight!

As I mentioned earlier we shot for the moon and landed in the stars.  Only one set of the reindeer currently move, but we have a plan to fix that.  As soon as we get all the kinks worked out I will repost.

 Once everything is moving correctly I will attach the lead lines.  I have gold DMC thread and some fabulous beads (minuscule ones) from Alpha Stamps to put on it.

 So all that machinery needed a home and that home needed some decoration. 

The tree's are from a fabulous pack that makes 3D trees (they should be HERE) by slipping two of them together.  I didn't need anything 3D (OMG that is the first time I have ever said that!) so I did not put them together, instead I covered them with paper and added some glitter.

 For the houses I used Black chipboard windows and Die-cut chipboard houses with windows.  And do you see what I see?  Yep, more wreaths.  I made most of them, but the two here are tiny felt wreath stickers.  

Each house is outlined in a narrow gold fleur dresden boarder.  Can you believe this is my first time using this bit of Dresden?  One of my new favorites for sure. 

 It is impossible to see in the photos, but all the windows are coated in the distress rock candy crackle.  

The base is finished off with more garland and star tinsel. 

Well, that's it.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  

I am off to get myself a cup of hot chocolate and watch my reindeer fly!

Happy Holiday's to all!