Vintage Christmas Church Tutorial

Hi everyone! Today I'm back with another project for the Tim Holtz Holiday Inspiration Series.  If you haven't been following along, make sure you drop by Tim's blog for the links to some great ideas using his new holiday releases.  His team of designers have really come up with some amazing projects.

For my project today, I have used Tim's new Sizzix Bigz XL die, Village Dwelling, along with the Bigz die Village Bell Tower.  The Village Dwelling is the foundation die and the Bell Tower is the add- on that turns the house into a church.  I've always loved those small frosty, glittered house ornaments, so I could hardly wait to make my own.

I love the vintage look so I decided to use a neutral colour for my house, giving it an old stone look.

I love these glass domes, and this one was waiting for something special to create inside.

Here's how I created my Vintage Church:

Diecut the house pieces in chipboard.  There are crease lines in this die, so it is recommended to use a Sizzix XL Crease Pad instead of one cutting pad.  When using this crease pad, the crease lines do not cut out(which can happen sometimes), and you get a nice crease.  The chipboard I have used isn't very thick, it's on the lighter side.  I thought that because the pieces are small, a thicker board would be hard to bend.

I gave my chipboard pieces a coat of Ranger's white gesso.  Gesso primes your surface for painting or applying different mediums.  Without this, the paint would soak into the chipboard and it also gives a nice white base for your colours.

I painted my pieces with a base coat of Walnut Distress Paint.  Let this dry.  Assemble the two house pieces.  On the Sizzix site, there are printable pdf instructions for your 3-d dies.  Just look up your die, and you will see the link underneath the description. These are usually a little more detailed than the ones on the back of your die photo.

To get the aged look, I apply a lighter colour with a dry brush technique.  I used Picket Fence Distress paint and put a small amount on a paint brush then swiping most of it off on a paper towel.  There's still enough on your brush, that when brushing on top of the brown pieces, it will leave lightly leave some colour.  If it's still not light enough, then repeat.

Assemble your house as per the instructions.  I forgot to put on my front posts on, but inserted them later.

Next I die-cut the Bell Tower pieces, also from chipboard.  These were also primed with Gesso.

These pieces were painted the same way, but for the windows and door, instead of Picket Fence paint on top, I used Peeled Paint (Green).  Assemble the tower and adhere to the house.  Adhere the door and windows also.

Once I had my house, tower, and base all assembled, I applied Ranger's Glossy Accents to the areas I wanted my Distress Rock Candy Glitter.  Some areas I applied the Glossy Accents quite thick, so it looked like snow.  Once the glitter was applied and the glossy accents have dried, lightly touch random areas that are glittered with Picket Fence distress paint.  I usually do with this with a bit of paint on my finger.

I wanted a circular base to glue everything to instead of my dome wood base, so I traced a piece of chipboard the same size.  I cut out a piece of patterned paper from Tim's Yuletide Paper Stash and adhered this on top.  Ink the edges.  

Next I die-cut quite a few Tim Holtz Holiday Greens, as I use them under the church and on top of the glass dome.  This is one of my favourite holiday dies, love these greens!  They were cut out from Metallic Silver Core-dinations kraft paper, Yuletide patterned paper, and Core-dinations Distressed Kraft paper.  These were also given the Glossy Accents and Distress Rock Candy Glitter treatment, but just randomly.

Set some aside for the glass top and the rest were adhered around the edge of my chipboard circle.  I have cut some apart for smaller pieces.  My house was adhered on top with a hot glue gun.  I should mention that after I had this piece all assembled, I was thinking that maybe I should have left it unattached in case I wanted a light inside.  Oh well, I will try that next time.  I really like that little square base on the bottom of the house, so if I was to put a tea light inside, I would probably cut a round hole (the size of a tea light) in the square base before adhering it to the house.  That way you could just place the light in the hole.  I would probably cover the windows from the inside with vellum or alcohol inked plastic if I was using a light.

For my Woodlands Trees (TH93049) I coloured them in a ziplock bag.  I just spray these three colours of Distress Spray Stain into the bag, and drop my tree in, close the opening, and smoosh it around.  Once the tree is dry, apply glossy accents to the ends and Rock Candy Distress glitter.  I've also wrapped Yuletide Tissue Tape(TH93242) around the wood tree base.  Once these had dried, I adhered them to my base.

I added a little snowflake from Frozen Alpha Parts (TH93246) that also had glossy accents and glitter added.  My wood base had a small rim, that I also covered it with the narrow Yuletide Tissue Tape.

On to the glass top!

With the rest of my glittered Holiday Greens, I adhered them to a piece of thin clear acrylic.  I find it easier to adhere these parts to a small base and then adhere that base to the piece.  I used acrylic so it wasn't visible on the  glass.  I also die-cut two pinecones from Tim's Sizzix Bigz Tattered Pinecone die and brown Distress Core-dinations Kraft paper.  I lightly sand the die-cut before removing it from the paper. Assemble the pinecone and apply Rocky Candy glitter with Glossy Accents.  Adhere with a hot glue gun to the greens.  

Before adhering this piece to my dome, I finished it off with a few Frozen Alpha Part snowflakes (glittered of course!) a Christmas Typed Token (TH93243) attached with a Looped Pin (TH93200) and a bow made from Metallic Trimmings (TH93251).  This was adhered to the top of my dome with glue dots.  

A few Frozen Alpa Parts Snowflakes were added randomly to the sides of the glass dome also.  I tried taking a photo of this,  it was really hard with the glass, but I also added some hanging snowflakes inside of the dome.  I used one of the larger Frozen Alpha Parts Snowflakes and tied three small snowflakes to it with invisible thread.  I left about fours inches of thread to let them hang down.  I then used large glue dots to adhere the large snowflake to the top inside of the glass.  You can't really see it because of the greens on top.

And there you have my Vintage Church under the Dome!  I'm already thinking of doing another house, this time it will be turquoise and white.  My mom is crazy for turquoise lately, so I think I will give it to her.  I'm going to try it on top of a box this time.  I was thinking even a vase turned upside down would work. With the greens on top, you wouldn't be able to tell that was the bottom.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you have enjoyed all the holiday inspiration.  Thank you for all the kind comments throughout this, they are very much appreciated!

A big thank-you also, to Tim Holtz for asking me to be a part of this! 

Until next time,

Jan