Birthday Romance

Happy New Year!  Hope everyone had a safe and happy celebration.  I am enjoying spending time with the family and hanging out.

I had a little time today so I decided to play along with a sketch challenge hosted by Global Design Project (#170).

I happened to play with the Wonderful Romance stamp set from the Stampin' Up! 2019 Occasions Catalog.  Loving the cling mount stamps and the Stampin' Blends.

Here is the card I created.  Color combination is Very Vanilla, Sahara Sand, Mossy Meadow, Soft Sea Foam and Balmy Blue.  I tried my hand at no-line coloring.  I used Sahara Sand to stamp the floral image and then colored in with Stampin' Blends.  I did not stamp-off the ink with the Sahara Sand so it's not so much a "no-line" image, although I love how it turned out.

Stamp sets used included Wonderful Romance, Itty Bitty Birthdays (also in the 2019 Occasions Calatog), and Gallery Grunge (2018-2019 Annual Catalog).  I also used Wonderful Floral Framelit Dies (2019 Occasions Catalog) and Stampin' Blends.  The Basic Adhesive-backed sequins added a nice bling factor and the colors matched perfectly!

Both my Grandmother and my husband's Grandmother have birthdays in January, a few days apart in fact!. Both are in their 90s and I will definitely be sending this card to one of them!!  Now to make a card for the other Grandmother.  More to come soon...

3-D gift tags

While perusing on Pinterest I saw 3-D gift tags (check my inspiration out here) and decided I wanted to create my own.  The Rectangle Stitched Framelits Dies in the upcoming 2019 Occasions Catalog from Stampin' Up! were the perfect fit for my masterpiece!  Well, masterpieces.  Most of the framelits and stamp sets are from the Stampin' Up! 2018 Holiday catalog, unless otherwise noted.

Hope you enjoy the tags and get some inspiration of your own!

Waterfront stamp set (annual catalog), Detailed Deer framelits

Farmhouse Christmas stamp set

First Frost Stamp Set, Frosted Bouquet Framelits Dies, Christmas Pines stamp set (annual catalog)

Peaceful Noel Stamp Set

First Frost Stamp Set, Pretty Pines Thinlits Dies (annual catalog)

Holiday boxes and tags

I have another quick project to share.  My youngest is in high school so I decided to send her with gifts for the teachers.

The sprig punch from the Stampin' Up! 2018 Holiday Catalog is one of my favorite punches ever!  While I love the intricacies of the die cuts, the punch is still a quick and easy way to add an element of flare in seconds.  I used the sprig punch on almost everything I made this holiday season.  Such a fun embellishment.

I loved making these tags and they worked great with the silver mini gable boxes from Stampin' Up!

And, the gift box fit nicely with the challenge sponsored by Just Add Ink Challenge #439!

It's been so long since I played along with a challenge!  Glad to dust the blog off.  Might need to spruce it up a bit soon!

2018 Handmade Christmas Card

This year I decided I wanted to make our family Christmas card.  Between working full-time, traveling for work and going back to school, I haven't had much time to papercraft.  However, when I saw the Buffalo Check background stamp in the 2018 Holiday catalog from Stampin' Up!, I could not resist!

And, of course, my design ended up not being a simple one.  I went all out!  I used a lot of different tools, which helps me justify the purchases ;0).

This card was not for the faint-hearted.  It took my hours and hours of fussy cutting (the wood slices), die cutting (lots of Big Shot time while watching the Hallmark channel) and stamping (again, more Hallmark Channel and movies).  I made 120 cards.  I love how they turned out and have gotten a lot of compliments on the design!

Hope your holidays were enjoyable!

And more alpine tags

I wanted to share more gift tags using the alpine sports dies from the Stampin' Up! 2018 Holiday catalog.  I made 50 of these tags!

 I decided to make them more of a winter theme than Christmas.  

Another lovely tag using my favorite products from the Holiday catalog!  

First Frost Stamp Set and die; Alpine adventures stamp set and Alpine Sports dies; sprig punch; snowflake from November 2018 Snowflake special release die

Note: ornate tag topper punch is a retired item from Stampin' Up!

Alpine Tags

Every year I buy my nieces and nephews a small gift for Christmas.  I like to make personalized tags for them as well.  This year I used the Alpine Adventures Stamp Set from the Stampin' Up! 2018 Holiday catalog.  The snowshoes were easy enough for multiples and I hand-trimmed them instead of die-cutting.

Lastly, I personalized each one using the Make a Difference Stamp Set from the 

2018-2019 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalog.

I ended up mounting each tag onto heavier cardboard so they could save them and use them as a Christmas Ornament.

It was a great project and I had fun making them.

Gnome for the holidays

I love the scandanavian gnomes and have been stalking them on Pinterest for years.  I finally decided to make one of my own using my own medium, paper!

The first one I made was a self-closing gift baggie.  I love these gift baggies, so simple to make and they look great.  I found a tutorial for the boxes on YouTube from Pootles Papercraft.  She has some great tutorials!  The baggie can be found at: https://youtu.be/hlxKaoShTqg (Stampin' Up! Scallop Topped Self Closing Baggie).

I made the gift bag from a piece of crumb cake cardstock that was 5.5" tall.  Once the bag was glue together, I freehand cut the hat and made a hat from the Festive Farmhouse Designer Series Paper from the Stampin' Up! 2018 Holiday Catalog.  I made the beard from the braided linen trim, also in the Stampin' Up! 2018 Holiday catalog (and carrying over into the spring).  I hand-trimmed the nose starting with a 3/4" circle.

  

I had so much fun with the gift bag that I decided to make tags.  Below are some pictures of the tags I made.  I used 2" x 4" cardstock and hand-trimmed the hat.  

  

I love how the cable knit hats turned out!  I used the cable knit embossing folder (Stampin' Up! Annual 2018-2019 catalog).  For the trim I wet the embossed cardstock and bent the cardstock slightly to give it a little curve.

Hope you enjoyed the gnomes!!  I am very happy I finally made my own!

Happy Wednesday.