Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth,
for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:  it is the time for home. 
                  ~Edith Sitwell

As much as I love not having to own a winter coat in Texas, I still miss the Indiana white winters. This month the Paper Garden Project design team is taking us on a winter wonderland tour – you know, just to make me more homesick for a Hoosier Christmas. Whether you're cursing the white stuff while shoveling your walk, or, like me, wishing for a good snowball fight, I hope you enjoy our winterland walk. While you visit along the walk, be sure to take note of each designer's name and their special holiday treat in their blog post. For example, my name is Linda and my special treat is Pumpkin Pie – yum. Once you finish your tour, you can send an e-mail to custserv@papergardenprojects.com with the list of designers and their holiday treat for a chance to win any four digital stamp sets of your choice, including the gorgeous new Christmas Foliage set.

Here is the garden tour guide list.

• Cathy
  
• Amber
• Tangii
• Linda (You are here)
• Andrea
• Alyssa

And, of course, here is my winter wonderland project using the precious stamp, Winter Swing, by Penny Black.

I've been a follower of Anna Wight for years. Anna is a fellow Texan, and an illustrator, rancher, seamstress, photographer, and incredible paper craft artist. I love her style. With two different sized paper punches, clear-drying adhesive like Crystal Lacquer, and glass glitter, you can follow her tutorial to make these luscious crystal snowflakes, here.

Anna says she likes to use a makeup wedge sponge (one of my favorite and cheapest tools) to dab matte finish gel medium onto the body of her project and then add some crystal glitter for sparkle. I didn't have a gel medium, so, I experimented with Tim Holtz crackle paint. I painted the entire surface of the paper with Tim's Rock Candy crackle paint and then added sprinkled fine glitter around the edges of the oval. I love how it antiqued the whole project.

As usual, I did a lot of paper piecing. I like to use a W1 Copic Marker to shade my paper pieced elements. You can get some other ideas for shading paper pieced pieces at the current challenge over at Copic Creations, Challenge #39. And, because this is a Penny Black image, you might want to also check out the challenge at the Penny Black Saturday Challenge, our favorite things (mine being, of course, glitter).

I found the birch bark wooden star in a gift shop as a close-out item. It was perfect for embellishing. Here's the rest of the recipe and the Copic markers I used. I provided links for the items you can find at Paper Garden Projects – everything at the store is 23% off during the 1-2-3 sale.

• Fibers: Household twine
• Glitter: Diamond Dust, Crystal Ultra Fine
• Ink – Memento Tuxedo Black; Ranger Distress Ink in Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain and Fired Brick; Copic markers
• Paper – Neenah, Prism Cardstock, The Girls' Paperie
• Stamp: Penny Black Winter Swing Cling Set
• Tools: Nestabilities, Sizzlets die cuts, EK Success Punch
• Embellishments: Matte Button
• Misc.: Ranger Distress Crackle Paint (Rock Candy), Crystal Lacquer