Non-Traditional Holiday Colors come to Life

Happy Holidays!

I thought I had an original idea brewing, but the Internet told me otherwise. (Thanks, Pinterest and Mommy bloggers!). Plus, I was inspired by the brilliance of a classic artist whose wise words spanned time:

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.  ~Paul Gauguin

This month, the 7 Girls & a Smoking Gun design team, put together fantastic projects you can recreate for the holidays in non-traditional colors.  

But first, let’s start with our showcase designer this month, Donna O’Leary, the infamous midnight scrapper. The Designer's Showcase is a chance to show us the best, favorite techniques in a project of the designer’s choice.  

I think the box that Donna decorated would be a wonderful gift in itself even without goodies tucked inside. Take a look!

Donna O’Leary

“One of my favorite things to do is making something new out of upcycled unwanted objects and with Christmas only around the corner I have been busy with a few project.  Today I am going to share a jewelry box I altered.  Hard to believe this started out as an old white box.”

I have embossed the entire box with a mixture of Opaque Pastel Blue, Opaque Bright White and Metallic Gold Rich Pale with the Vintage Wall Paper Back ground stamp.

Here I have embossed the butterfly from the Simply Amazing Stamp set with a mixture of Neutral Ultra Shimmer, Opaque Bright White and just a sprinkle of Opaque Pastel Blue.

The Bird Cage has also been embossed with the mixture I made for the box and while I was embossing I added extra embossing powder to areas to highlight it.

"Hope you enjoyed my share today.   Remember to look at those things you are about to throw out as you never know what you could turn it into."

Sherrie Suttles

Sherrie did a whimsical paper stocking with her Cricut machine and Wow! Embossing Powders. I love this idea! I can see many fun stocking treats now being created by me and my kids to hang on neighbors’ door knobs. Are you familiar with “Elfing”?  Well, check out the link herefor the history and the poem, get inspired by Sherrie’s project, and then create away!

“For the stocking I chose to do it in brown and light blue for my non-traditional colors. Who says stockings have to be red and white anyways? My stocking was cut out using the Cricut Trim-A-Tree cartridge. I used a piece of brown cardstock for the background that I stamped with the Circles Strip stamp from the Funky Border Strips stamp set. Then the top piece of the stocking was cut out of a piece of white cardstock which I then covered completely with Opaque Pastel Blue Embossing Powder. And then to finish it off I added a strip of white ruffled trim to the top and along the border, using Earthtone Pepper Embossing Powder, I used the MerryMerryChristmas stamp from the Merry and Bright Christmas stamp set.”

Irit Shalom

I have many Jewish friends, and am familiar with Hanukah as a holiday is about light. "It's about reflecting your inner light outward."

I did not know red-orange were also Hanukah colors. What do the traditional colors of this holiday signify? Irit explains, “The Hanukkah is all about light: so red- orange are for light and candles, the blue is a Jewish traditional color - our flag too as it's for Talith- the ritual scarf for men.

Irit put together for us in non-traditional tones, a beautiful frame with the words "GREAT MIRACLES WERE HERE" (or, as she says, also out of Israel we use “were there").

The great miracle in the Jewish tradition is the historical and significant parable that a jar of oil that was so small that it should be good for one day of lighting, actually kept made it for all 8 days of Hanukkah. What most people don’t know is that this is not a religious Holiday at all.  It is a celebration of the win over Greeks and liberation of the Temple.

“This is an altered frame- was totally shiny white- made as Hanukkah wall frame. I made it with nontraditional colors, as Hanukkah is usually blues, silvers and red- orange only. So peach pink and gold and black are  non-usual colors. I covered the frame with Ultra High Gold powder, as well as this old wooden dreidel too using Clear embossing ink only. The letters are foam letters from our craft store and covered with glitter black, glitter gold  and silver powders, Is says :" Great miracle was here" and those are the letters on each side of Hanukkah dreidel. “

Anne Brown

Moving on from candles to sparklers….Anne designed terrific New Year's Eve Invitations. I love the burst of colors!! I want colored sparklers now to go with this invite. And guess what, you can make them! Link is here. But that seems like a skill set is needed. You can buy them! I found some at sparklesrus here. But, I think I need to get them on my site, of course – deals.ebay.com! (Shameless plug.) 

 “It was a fun challenge to use such unusual colors in conjunction with a holiday party. I created a set of 5 party invitations using a color palette of yellow, grey, silver, white and a little bit of black. The image is a digi stamp by Kenny K, which I hand colored with Copic markers, and the papers are from DCWV's Lemon Flower stack. I used WOW embossing powders in Metallic Silver Regular and Black Glint on the front (Please Join Us) and inside (clock, banner and invitation details)”.

Jen Deal

I also did a little something for New Year's...a Party Hat!  How fun is this? When is the last time you wore a hat for fun? This year's been full of hats for me. Fedoras, baseball caps, Fascinators, hats at the amusement park...you name it...I tried it on for size.

I drew a large half circle on a 12x12 paper and shaped it into a cone. The pocket watch was stamped around the hat and I embossed one of them to really stand out. I also cut out "countdown" numbers on my Cricut and decorated them with embossing powders using the Embossing Pen. Top it off with a ruffle around the bottom cuff. I made mine from a party streamer.

I hope you've found some inspiration here today. Whether you use traditional colors or not, make it a memorable holiday season!