Festival of Trees Gift Tags

This week I was invited to create some holiday papercrafts for the Crafty Chicks monthly craft night!  For the event I went with a Handmade Holiday theme and designed a few projects the ladies could use for their gift giving this holiday season.  Today I am sharing the gift tags we created for the event.

Because I wasn't sure whether the ladies were avid papercrafters or newbies, I decided to keep the projects somewhat simple.  The top of the tag was created using either the angled or the scalloped tag topper punch. 

The first tag used a crumb cake background.  The wreath was created using the 4-petal flower punch from the itty bitty punch pack.  I punched out 12 flowers from garden green cardstock and glued down 6 flowers in a circle.  Then I added the other 6 flowers to the top, staggering the second row of flowers between the bottom layer.  A simple cherry cobbler seam binding knot on the wreath adds a pop of color.  The greeting is from the Cheerful Tags stamp set from the 2014 Holiday Catalog and was stamped in early espresso ink.  I got the wreath idea from another demonstrator (Glenda Travelstead) and I love how easy it is to make!  To add a little dimension I bent each of the flower petals up and only added glue the middle of the flower.

The second tag used the confetti star punch on kraft cardstock which was then layered over Trim the Tree designer series paper.  The greeting is from the Cheerful Tags stamp set from the 2014 Holiday Catalog and was stamped in early espresso ink onto whisper white cardstock. Very simple!

The final tag used paper from the Trim the Tree Designer Series Paper Pack.  I simply added a 2" circle punched from garden green cardstock and used a glue dot to add sequin ribbon and a few sequins to the circle.  The greeting is from the Cheerful Tags stamp set from the 2014 Holiday Catalog and was stamped in early espresso ink onto whisper white cardstock.

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

World Card Making Day 2014 Winner Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Papercrafts & Scrapbooking World Card Making Day 2014 Winner Blog Hop!  

You may have just come from the blog of Jacquie Southas. Her card was gorgeous!  This blog hop does not disappoint!

Wow, I am still in shock that my card was chosen as a winner!  What a great honor to have my work recognized among all these great and talented ladies!  I hope you are enjoying the blog hop!  I know we have been excited to be able to show you our work for a few weeks now :0).  It has been great learning about these fabulous ladies. 

I actually submitted two cards for the contest, one for the Christmas/Season's Greetings category and one for the Hello/Thinking of You category.  I was actually about to be really lazy and not even send the cards I made.  But I kept staring at them on my desk so I decided that since I put the effort in, I might as well submit them.  Obviously, I am so glad I did!!  

Anyway, my card submitted for the Hello/Thinking of You category was chosen as a winner, and here it is....

This card was made using all Stampin' Up! products. As a demonstrator and hobbiest I fell in love with the Four Feathers stamp set and coordinating Feathers Framelits Dies for the Big Shot. These items are in the 2014 Holiday Catalog and were some of the first items I purchased when the catalog went live earlier this fall!

For this card I used two-tones on the feathers.  First I stamped the feathers with the Baked Brown Sugar stamp pad and then added Soft Suede ink to the top part of the feather.  I stamped the feathers onto Very Vanilla cardstock and then I cut them out using the feathers framelit die and my Sizzix Big Shot. So much faster than fussy cutting!

The card itself is made from Very Vanilla cardstock.  I created a top layer (which is half an inch smaller all around than the 4-1/4" by 5-1/2" base).  The two strips of color is Color Me Autumn Designer Washi Tape, the Blackberry Bliss and Crushed Curry tape.  The "hello" greeting is from the Four You stamp set (in the annual catalog) and I stamped it using the Blackberry Bliss stamp pad.  I just love this font.  

I used a paper-piercing tool and the eclectic template to make the two lines that connect the washi tape and the greeting.

Once the lines were added I glued the bottom feather onto the card and then used dimensionals to add the second feather,

The button is a gold basic metal button threaded with metallic gold bakers twine.  I took more metallic gold bakers twine and wrapped it around my fingers a few times and then tied the small bow to the back of the button and added the button to the card with a glue dot. 

Finally, I added the decorated top layer to the base using dimensionals to a little dimension and pop to the card.

As a winner of the World Card Making Day Contest I, along with my fellow winners, received a generous box of goodies!  If I was excited about winning, you can imagine the excitement as I went through the box of goodies!  I am thrilled to be able to share my prize with you and will offer, for the first time on my blog, the chance to win some blog candy!  Simply leave me a comment by December 10th for a chance to win something from the prize pack!  I will announce the winner of the blog candy on December 11th (after a random pick).

Next on the blog hop is Tosha DelJanovan!  Please stop by and visit her blog! She just created the blog for this blog hop so I am sure she would appreciate some views ;0).  A complete list of all of the winners and a link to their respective blog is below.

1.      Jamie Greene

2.      Simone Naoum 

3.      Kristie Larsen

4.      Donna Bowman

5.      Maureen Wong

6.      Mandy LaCroix

7.      Heather Hoffman

8.      Piali Biswas

9.      Christa Laszczkowski

10.  Jacquie Southas

11.  Wendi Lau - you are here

12.  Tosha DelJanovan

13.  Isha Gupta

14.  Jill Dewey Hawkins

15.   Virginia Lu

Thanks for stopping by!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

             

Inspiration from Stampin' Celebration!

Time for another Stampin' Celebration inspiration challenge.  I love, love, love these inspiration challenges.  Great way to think outside the box sometimes! Perhaps colors you wouldn't normally put together or a unique way to use stamps and supplies you have.

When I saw this month's inspiration I was so excited!  Loved the colors, loved the images.  I had a hard time limiting my options.  But, in the end I came up with something I enjoyed creating!

For me, inspiration came in the form of the colors (grays and browns with a touch of red) and the door.  Love the door!  So I decided to make a card using the Holiday Home photopolymer stamp set (Stampin' Up! 2014 Holiday Catalog) for the main images.  I also decided to pull out my aqua painter.  There were so many shades of grays and browns that I knew I had to use watercolor to get the right blend and shades of color.  Watercoloring is not something I do all the time so this was a bit out of my comfort zone, but certainly something I felt I needed to try!

For the background I used the Hardwood background stamp set, versamark on smoky slate cardstock and heat embossed with black embossing powder.  Then I took basic gray ink and my aqua painter and shaded in the hardwood design to give it some darker shading.

For the houses, I stamped them on watercolor paper using black staz-on ink. Then I used my aqua painter and smoky slate, basic gray, sahara sand and soft suede to color in the houses.  I haven't watercolored much so I stamped several of each house so I could practice and use the houses with the right effect.

I wanted to try to create the white fluffy wreath so I stamped the little wreath image from the Holiday Home stamp set using versamark and heat embossed it with white embossing powder. The effect was nice but the wreath didn't really show up all that well.  Here is one of the houses I didn't use on the card, showing the wreath heat embossed.

So, I decided to try making wreaths with white filter paper and the smallest flower on the boho blossoms punch.  Viola!  It worked beautifully!  I punched 4 filter pages at a time and ended up using 8 pieces in all for each wreath,  I used a mini brad to keep the wreath together, the end was colored brown using my blendabilities marker to keep with the browns theme.

A touch of red with the greeting and a pretty card is ready for the gift giving season!

I love how this card came together and hope this has inspired you to do something that might be out of your comfort zone.  You never know what you will come up with!

So Grateful For You

Thought I would post another card we made at my Thankful for You stamp camp.  This one was the "easy" card.

This card uses products from the Stampin' Up! 2014 Holiday catalog.  I used the Color Me Autumn Designer Washi Tape on Very Vanilla cardstock and created the rows of color.  Next, I stamped the "so grateful for you" greeting from the Holiday Home stamp set using Cajun Craze classic stamp pad.  Next, the house image was stamped onto Crushed Curry cardstock using Blackberry Bliss classic stamp pad.  I used the Homemade Holiday Die Set to cut out the house.  Much faster than fussy cutting!  You can get both the Holiday Home stamp set and Homemade Holiday framelits as a bundle with a 15% savings.

The leaves are from the Fun Fall framelits, one is cut using Cajun Craze cardstock and the other using Crushed Curry cardstock.  I stapled the leaves and the house to the card front using the handheld stapler.  Absolutely no glue/adhesive needed for this card!  I think this is a first for me! 

Looking back, this definitely was the easiest card of all that night.

Grateful for You

A quick post today to show you one of the cards we made at my Thankful for You stamp camp last week.

For this card I used the tree from the Nuts About You hostess stamp set from Stampin' Up!.  The tree was stamped using Early Espresso ink on Crumb Cake cardstock.  I then punched out 3 Blushing Bride flowers using the flower from the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack and adhered them to the tree using a dab of Tombow glue.  Some basic pearls in the center of each flower helped give them a little dimension.

The greeting is from the Merry Everything (2014 Holiday catalog) stamps set and was stamped using Versamark and heat embossed with Blushing Bride embossing powder.

The card base is Blushing Bride cardstock with a middle of Chocolate Chip cardstock as an accent.

Have a great day!