Stretch Your Holiday Style: A Vintage & Shabby Chic Challenge!

Holiday Cards & More Week continues, friends, in Day 2 of what promises to be some challenges that will encourage you to both embrace and stretch your individual style!

Yesterday we explored the clean and graphic style with its white space, clean lines, and simple treatment of text. It tends to have a more modern look utilizing a simple color scheme and bold...well, everything.

Today we're going to venture down quite the opposite path with two styles I've combined here: vintage and shabby chic. They are two different looks, but I've joined them together because they have very similar foundations, as I'll explain.

To help me do so, I've got some moxie fab examples/sneak peeks for you today straight from the pages of our best Holiday Cards & More yet (which goes on sale today, by the way), and I can't wait to see your takes on these styles in today's challenge!

Let's get right to it, shall we?

Shabby chic is a style characterized by layering. It is a soft style, utilizing ribbon, lace, and inking and/or distressing. My friend and colleague, Susan Opel, says she thinks of the words "comfortable" and "worn" when she envisions the shabby chic style. When I heard her say that I said, "Yes! That's it! Comfortable and worn!" Check out this Cold Winter Fun Album by Beatriz Jennings on page 109:

Moxie Fab Alert: This soft, lacy, beribboned album with its glittered letters, pom-poms, and distressed background does look comfortably worn!

Vintage is, in my humble opinion, the hottest style of the day. It is characterized by many of the same qualities as shabby chic--soft, worn, and comfortable with layers of ribbon, lace, glitter, and the use of inking and/or distressing. The difference? Vintage adds old or old-looking images, found-items, or trinkets to the mix. Here's what I mean:

Warm Wishes Gift Bag by Sherry Wright, p. 97

Moxie Fab Alert: Notice the shabby chic elements--the layers, lace, ribbon, and distressed edges. What makes this vintage is the background patterned paper reminiscent of something from the 30s or 40s and of course, the vintage image of Santa Claus as the focal point.

Season of Joy Card by Jessica Witty, p. 12

Moxie Fab Alert: Again, we've got layers, ribbon, distressing, and an image that looks like it came from a bygone day. The buttons are a nice touch as well, and the fact that they are so different from one another makes me wonder if they came from an old sewing box found in the corners of somebody's attic. Other "found" items that are fun to put on vintage projects are sheet music, post cards, keys, jewelry, lace, fabric, and other small items that one might find in an antique store, thrift shop, or estate sale.

Are you ready to give it a go? Here's the how to:

1. Create a shabby chic or vintage holiday card, gift wrap, ornament, home decor item, or paper crafted gift.


2. Upload a photo of your project to your blog, come back here and post the URL to your project (not your blog) in the Mr. Linky box below. Post a link to the Moxie Fab World in your blog's text to encourage your readers to see the other projects that have been linked.
   
   
3. If you don't have a blog, go to this Flickr gallery, upload your photo, and post the URL to your project (not the group) in the Mr. Linky box below.


4. Just for fun, upload your project to the World Card Making Day Website by clicking here. Your holiday card will become part of the worldwide celebration of the joy of making handmade cards just in time for the holiday card making season! Not only that, but it will also become eligible to win a few contests we've got up our sleeves!
   
   
5. Accomplish this task by midnight MDT on Monday, September 7 (that's Labor Day). 2 winning entries will be showcased on this blog on Wednesday, September 9 and will receive the Mistletoe collection from Making Memories:

Whether you're vehemently vintage, chicously shabby, or just stepping out of your comfort zone to give it a try, there's no time like the present to s-t-r-e-t-c-h your holiday style!

There will be yet another challenge on another fun style tomorrow, friends, so be sure and bop on by! And you won't want to miss the sneak peek on the gifts section of this festively fun magazine on Paper Crafts Connection today where you can comment-to-win some moxie fab goodies from our friends at Stampin' Up!

Come to think of it, I'm pretty comfortably worn myself,

~Cath