Quarter Fold Snowflake Thank You

  Only 2 days left!  Do you have all your shopping done?  Do you have all the presents wrapped?  Are you all ready for the hoard of relatives that are coming to visit?  Nope on all 3 for me!  Usually I'm pretty organized but this year I'm just feeling behind for some reason!  Maybe I shouldn't be on the blog writing a post?  Well I've got laundry going so at least I'm on the right track of getting ready.  The guest rooms will be cleaned and made up today, one last stop at the grocery store today for the Christmas morning breakfast items that I forgot yesterday when I did my big shopping and the rest of the gifts will get wrapped tonight after little eyes are fast asleep.  

  Here is a card that took me forever to finish.  I think I started it right after we came home from Thanksgiving and just finished it last week.  It was a Creative Crew challenge on Splitcoaststampers for November and I had the idea in my head and just never had the time to put it all together.  I would work on it for a minute or 2 at a time but it's finally done and while it doesn't match the idea I had in my head I still think it's a fun winter card.

   I got a catalog in the mail from Tiny Prints; a photo card company where you just insert your photos to their templates and they print up your cards for you.  This one color combination jumped out at me and I thought I would use it for this Quarter Fold card I was attempting.  I used the closest Stampin' Up! colors that I could...Poppy Parade, Tempting Turquoise and Not Quite Navy.

   Looking at it now I should have centered all my snowflakes but at the time I was wanting them to be all off set like snowflakes falling randomly down from the sky.  Oh well!  This card is neat because it folds together like you do to the top of a cardboard box, one flap tucked under another alternating all the way around.

  For my 3 white panels I ran them through the Big Shot with the Perfect Polka Dot embossing folder.  For the snowflakes I stamped the Simple Snowflake on the colored cardstock with White Craft ink and then punched it out with the snowflake punch.  They are each mounted to their panel with a white brad in the center.

  For the white snowflake on the Poppy Parade panel I used one of the old assortments Real Red brad that matches really well to Poppy Parade and added a white baker's twine bow and a little Thank You circle.  The "Thank U" stamp is from the Pennant Parade stamp set.  I figured I had enough Christmas cards when I made this one that I better start stocking up on thank yous for after Christmas.

  Here it is opened up:

  If you want to learn how to make a Quarter Fold card check out Jana's blog HERE for the measurements and scoring details.  Basically your 2 base cardstock pieces form a cross or plus and make the flaps that you fold together. 

  I probably won't have time to post another project until after Christmas so I wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas!! 

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Simple Snowflake, Pennant Parade

Ink: White Craft


Paper: Poppy Parade, Not Quite Navy, Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise

Accessories: brads, baker's twine, Snowflake punch, small circle punch, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Treat

  I wanted to share this project before it was too late!  Christmas is only a few days away and then we'll be needing to think about Valentine's Day!  This project is also appropriate today as late yesterday Stampin' Up! announced that the Stocking Builder Punch will not be carried over to the new catalog in the summer.  In the past punches carried over so you always had a second chance if you didn't get it during the mini catalog.  Right now the Stocking punch will be available while supplies last and will not be available after January 4 when the Holiday Mini sales period is over.  So if you were thinking about getting the Stocking Builder punch (or if you bought the coordinating Stitched Stockings stamp set and were waiting to get the matching punch) do not wait....order it today before it's gone for good.  Stampin' Up! did soften this blow a little bit by teasing they were working on new holiday items for next year! 

 

  Hello Rudolph!  Yes, this little cutie was made with the Stocking Builder punch!  The head and the ear are from the Stocking punch, the antlers are the snowflake punch and the eyes and nose are from the owl punch. Cute isn't he?

   The head and ear are Crumb Cake with Chocolate Chip sponged lightly on the edges.  The antlers are Chocolate Chip.  The nose is made from the awesome red Glimmer Paper.  The eyes are Whisper White and Basic Black.  I added a little Real Red 1/8" taffeta bow to get him dressed up for the occasion.

  I made a whole herd of these guys to tuck into my stamping ladies November orders.  I ended up having extra pieces punched so I put those together to give to the ladies that work in the elementary school office.  I just adhered the heads to top of the candy cane wrapper.

  So if after seeing this and you need to get the Stocking punch before it's gone for good head over to my online store and click "shop now".  The Stocking Builder punch is item 124095.  Also, the Clearance Rack Blitz is still going on with a ton of greatly discounted products so you can order yourself a nice little Christmas gift!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: none

Ink: Chocolate Chip

Paper: Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, Red Glimmer Paper, Whisper White, Basic Black

Accessories: Stocking Builder punch, Snowflake punch, Owl punch, 1/8" Real Red taffeta ribbon, mini candy canes

Rolled Designer Series Paper Ornament

  Well I'm back!  The last 2 weeks have been pretty hectic and I think I have finally gotten caught up with everything.  Sadly, in the middle of the fun of preparing for Christmas my aunt passed away after a long battle against cancer so I was out of state for a few days last week to attend her funeral and be with my grandparents, mom and other relatives.  We sure are going to miss her but know she is in a better place with God and is no longer in pain.  Once I got back home I was able to get all of my Christmas cards mailed out (Thank goodness I had them all made from doing the Christmas Card Challenge all year!), finish decorating the house, make my cookies for a cookie exchange and make the gifts for the boys teachers.  Wow!  That makes me tired just typing all that and leads me to what I'm showing today...A fast, easy gift to make!  We made these at my last stamp club of the year and I also made about 13 more for teacher gifts.  Rolled DSP ornaments!

  For the life of me I couldn't get a decent photo of these glass ornaments so you'll have to bear with me and use your imagination a bit to see how cute they are!  First get some of the empty clear glass ornament balls and take the metal cap off.  Cut thin strips from your DSP.  At stamp club we used strips between 1/4" & 3/4" wide.  Use a pencil to tightly wrap the paper strip and put it into the ornament opening and gently slip it off the pencil.  The paper roll will unravel slightly and that's OK.  Keep filling up your ornament until the paper strips are packed tight but not smooshing (yes, that's the technical term!) each other. 

  Next, using the Silver Glimmer paper and the Simple Alphabet dies cut out whatever initial you need for the person you're giving it too.  Some of my stamping ladies had a hard time deciding if they should use their own first name initial, their last name initial or make it to give to someone else.  I told them the ornaments were easy enough that they could make more at home!  I chose to make an "m" for "Mertz" and hang it on my own tree.  We punched a hole in the Glimmer Paper inital and punched a little tag with the jewelry tag punch and wrote the year on it.  We threaded some bakers twine and tied everything to the wire loop at the top of the ornament.  Next, take a few pinches of Champagne Glass Glitter and sprinkle it into the glass ball. To finish the ornament off put the metal hanger back on and use either seam binding ribbon or 5/8" satin ribbon to make the loop to hang on the tree.

  For club we used the Letters to Santa DSP and matched the ribbon and twine to it.  Some of my ladies even used some small scraps of Glimmer Paper to add to their ornaments and that looked really cool too.  The ornaments that I made for gifts I used the Frostwood Lodge DSP from the Holiday Mini and just changed out the ribbon colors.  This is a great personalized gift that you can make in no time at all while sipping hot chocolate and listening to Christmas music or watching your favorite Christmas movie.

  Thanks for sticking with me even though I haven't posted at all lately!  And thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?


Stamps: None

Ink: markers to match your DSP


Paper: Letters to Santa DSP, Whisper White (small tag), Silver Glimmer paper

Accessories: clear glass ornaments (non-SU), ribbon, baker's twine, Simple Alphabet die, jewelry tag punch, glass glitter

Clearance Rack Blitz!!!

I know I've been neglecting the blog terribly lately but I've had a ton of things going on and just haven't found the time to sit down and focus on it.  But I wanted to make sure that everyone knew about Stampin' Up's! Clearance Rack Blitz.  So many great items at HUGE discounts....paper, punches, ribbon, Big Shot items!

  Anyway check it out through my online store and have fun shopping!  I hope to be back with some projects in the next few days!

SHOP NOW!

Hidden Gift Card Holder

  Here is the second project we made last week at stamp club.  It's a hidden gift card hold and is so easy to make you won't believe it.  As a side note, I have a few hostess club spots left for next year.  If you're in the Richmond, VA area and are interested in joining me for some stamping fun in 2012 just let me know and I can get you all the details!

  The base of the card is Bashful Blue which I have sorely neglected since the color renovation 2 summers ago.  I had seen this color combination used on a Christmas card last year and liked it so much I made a note of it to try it myself this year.  So out came the Bashful Blue!

  Let me show you the inside of the card and the "hidden" part and then I'll explain how to make it.

  See how the gift card is tucked into the slot behind the ornament panel??  So cool huh?  To make this all you do is fold the front flap of your card base in half towards the inside of the card.  Then take your word window punch and put the "flap" part in as far as it will go...don't worry you can't go to far, the punch is only so deep!  Punch it just slightly off from center.  Then move your word window punch over just a bit along the first punch and just punch about 1/3 of another word window and that gives you the slot.  Now adhere the flap to the inside by using adhesive just along the top and the bottom.  If you put adhesive near the slot there won't be enough room for your gift card to slide in.

  Now to decorate the front.  I used a panel of Rich Razzleberry topped with a Whisper White panel embossed with the Northern Flurry embossing folder.  I stamped an ornament from Delightful Decorations in Rich Razzleberry and then punched it out.  I stamped the little Merry Christmas greetings in Bashful Blue and punched it out.  I adhered the little circle to the ornament and added a rhinestone to the center.  I adhered the ornament to the snowflake panel and then finished it off with some organza ribbon. 

  Make sure when you adhere your front panel to the flap that it is positioned so that it will cover the gift card in the slot. 

  I have to try to take a picture of the third project we did last week.  It's an ornament and is kind of hard to photograph.  It's another super cute and easy project to make.

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Delightful Decorations, Four the Holidays

Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Bashful Blue


Paper: Bashful Blue, Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White


Accessories: Word Window punch, Ornament punch, circle punch, rhinestone, organza ribbon, Northern Flurry embossing folder

New Year's Pine

  I have been totally MIA lately!  So sorry!  I had stamp club earlier this past week and then we got some electrical work done and since the electricians needed to make some holes to run the wires we have to have a drywall guy come and patch things up and then paint so my house has been in a state of disruption since Tuesday night (even more so than usual with 2 little boys!!).  That doesn't even count starting to decorate for Christmas which is pretty hard when you have furniture piled up in the front hall, rugs rolled up and extra chairs stacked up in the dining room.  I hope I can get back to stamping this week.  In the meantime I'm going to share one of the cards my stamping ladies made at club last week.

  I got my original inspiration from this card by Rita Wright.  Isn't that fabulous??  As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to design something similar using the Crayon Resist technique and the pine tree from Lovely as a Tree.  I also wanted to incorporate the Simply Scored on for one of the elements.  This is what I came up with....what do you think?

  I used the color challenge from the Paper Players from a few weeks back.  The challenge was to use Riding Hood Red, Always Artichoke and River Rock.

  The card base is Always Artichoke.  Then I scored on the diagonal using my Simply Scored to get the cool diamond patterned background on the River Rock layer.  It's a bit hard to see on the photo but it's really cool in real life.  It's easy once you get into a rhythm.  If you look at your Simply Scored you will see a larger diamond pattern across the whole surface.  Just line up your cardstock with one of these diagonal lines and then start scoring...for this larger diamond pattern we scored every fourth line.  Once you score across the cardstock turn it the opposite way along one of the diagonal lines and score every fourth line again.  Super easy once you get started and you can make a smaller pattern just by scoring more often.

  Next, I stamped the pine tree in Always Artichoke ink on Naturals White cardstock.  Then using a white crayon drew some "snow" on the tree branches and under the tree.  Next, River Rock ink was sponged right over the tree.  To get the snow to stand out just buff over the whole image with a tissue or paper towel.  How cool is that?  The tree image was then mounted on a layer of Riding Hood Red.

    Finally for the accessories and finishing touches...I inked up the sentiment from Petite Pairs with a Riding Hood Red marker to omit the "and" and then stamped on White Naturals and punched it out with my 1 1/4" circle punch.  I did a bit of sponging as well with River Rock.  It was then layered with a 1 3/8" circle punched from Always Artichoke.  I poked a Vintage Trinket safety pin through the circles and added a knot of linen thread.  The whole thing is then adhered with a dimensional.

  So thanks to Rita for a wonderful inspiration card and to the Paper Players for a great color combination.  I made a few extra of these for myself as there is always someone who sends us a Christmas card that I didn't send one to (oops!).  How does that happen?  My Christmas card list has about 100 names on it!  That's like everyone I know so I don't know how some people don't get one!  I like to send Happy New Year's cards to those people so I always like to have a few ready to go right after Christmas!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Petite Pairs

Ink: Always Artichoke, River Rock, Riding Hood Red- marker


Paper: Always Artichoke, River Rock, Riding Hood Red, Naturals White

Accessories: Simply Scored, 1 1/4" & 1 3/8" circle punches, Vintage Trinket, linen thread, dimensional, white crayon (non-Stampin' Up!)