Single Snowflake

I'm a sucker for a stamp with a matching punch, so when I noticed that Stampin' Up! released a new stamp that goes with the Blossom Punch AND it was a Snowflake, I bought it right away.   This stamp is called Bold Snowflake.  It is part of the "Single Stamps" promotion.  There have been a number of stamps from large sets that are now being released as Single Stamps, great when you only like one or two stamps from a large expensive set.  There have also been a couple new single stamps that are currently not in any sets. such as the Bold Snowflake here.   Another fun thing used on this card, but that doesn't show up well in the photo, are the background snowflakes.  I stamped the background snowflakes with the new Illuminate Glimmer Watermark Stamp pad, from the Holiday Seasonal catalog.  The ink has a great shimmer to it.   The red you see is Riding Hood Red on Whisper White card stock.  The Seasons Greetings is from More Merry Messages, Ribbon is Riding Hood Red Taffeta. 

Bold Snowflake Stamp item number 132338  $5.95, Blossom Punch item number 125603 $16.95  

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Grinch Pills

These cute little Grinch Pills are made just like yesterdays candy bar wrappers.  I was given the poem by blog follower Scraphappy666, so I decided that I should make up something to go along with the poem!  Thanks Scraphappy! 

I used some lemon lime Jelly Belly Jelly Beans for the "Pills" and put them into the skinny Cello bags from Stampin' Up!  These bags are $2.50 for a pack of 50.  They measure 1 by 8 inches.  item # 124134. 

I attached a large scallop circle to the bag with double sided tape. 

I then added a white circle on top to cover all the tape mess.

I printed the tags on my computer with a font I found free by doing a Bing search for Dr. Seuss fonts.  I layered a piece of Real Red behind the tag to make it stronger.  I punched a hole in the scallop circle and the tag and attached them together with a piece of ribbon.

I added the Grinch head to the white circle with two dimensionals.  The Poem reads: Feeling kinda grouchy? Holiday spirit can't be found? Just try these little Grinch pills, they're the best medicine around.  Whether eating a whole handful, or just munching one or two, these tasty little pills will take the Grinch right out of you.

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How to: Santa and Grinch

EDIT: I am editing this old post to add new videos showing this Santa and Grinch using current Stampin' Up! products.

WOW!  I can't believe how many people have viewed my little candy bars.  Just yesterday there were 2815 views of my blog post showing some of the candy bars I made for a craft fair.    I didn't bother to post a how to at the time because I felt that the post was repeat, I had made the same candy bars last year in October.  I get a lot of requests for a tutorial for these, and I thought about putting together a pdf tutorial to sell, but then I decided that it seemed weird to me.  I love that people love the candy bar wrappers, so I will just show a step by step here.  The biggest question I get is what candy bars do I use.  The candy bars used in the original posts were from a company that makes chocolate bars for fund raisers called World Finest Chocolate.  My children go to a church sponsored pre-school that does a yearly fundraiser.  Rather than go door to door, or ask friends and family to buy a candy bar, I just bought a case and figured I would come up with something to do with them.  The first year I made some Thanksgiving wrappers that featured the owl punch as a turkey.  I used these as place cards, with peoples names on them, at each place at the Thanksgiving table.  Then I had some left over so I made some Santa's for my nieces and nephews.  The  next year I bought two cases to use at Stamp Camps and we made Grinches, Santas and Snowmen.  Several of my customers requested to make extras to use at their family gatherings and both cases were snatched up fast.  This year I bought 3 cases!  I made up one and a half for the craft fair and sold out, then I made up some more for a friend who wanted some, and a few people had asked me to save a few bars for them to use at their stamp camps, and so I only had about 20 left that I need to use for myself.  So fun!  I am so happy that they are liked by so many people.  But, those candy bars are hard to come by if you don't have a child in a school that needs to sell candy bars!  So, I went to the store to look for other alternatives.  I bought Dove bars, Heath bars, Skor Bars, Fannie May and Snickers.  A yummy way to do research for sure!  What I learned was that other than the Worlds Finest Chocolate bar, the next best choice was the Heath and Skor.   So, the first thing you need to do is measure the candy bar to see what size your wrapper needs to be.  I measured the bars and you need to double the width and add an inch, and add an inch for the length too.   So, the Skor and Heath are the same size, 1 1/2 by 6 1/2, so your wrapper needs to be 4 by 7 1/2. 

By the way, I bought the new paper trimmer from Stampin' Up! and I LOVE it! It is super, but this post is long enough already so I wont go into it now. 

Add sticky strip to the long side of the wrapper and wrap the candy bar.  You will now have a tube sort of thing. 

Now add a piece of sticky strip to the ends.  I cut a piece and stick it in.  You can put the piece in place before you make the tube, but I never get it in the exact right spot, so I do it this way. 

  Once you have the ends closed, it will look like this.

Now you need to punch out your pieces.  You need an Extra Large red oval, a Scallop Oval in White, an Ornament in White, two of the bird wings from the Bird Builder punch in white, and a poof type shape (use the smallest flower from Boho Blossoms or the small punch from the Itty Bitty punch pack, I have used both of these and like them both.) You also need a face from either Blush Blossom or Blushing Bride, both of which are retired but I sort of stocked up, punched from the large oval punch.   The eyes and nose were punched with my 1/4 circle punch.  If you don't have that size you can use the circles from the Cupcake Builder punch or the Owl Builder Punch.  The cupcake punch is on sale right now!!  So is the Paper I used for this wrapper. They are both part of the Online Extravaganza!! The paper is in the Designer Series Paper Patterns Brights Pack, I also used the Old Olive from the pack for the Grinch. 20 % off till Wednesday :) 

Glue your white ornament to the xl red oval as shown.  I use the Tombo multi purpose adhesive for this.

Then glue your scallop oval and the Puff ball as shown.

Next add your face.

Position your bird wing mustache pieces to cover the bottom of  your white scallop oval.  I then tuck the black eyes under the mustache just slightly, I think its sort of cute that way.  Add the nose and you are done!! 

Attach your Santa head to the bar with a couple Dimensionals.  I added a simple tag with the tag punch and some ribbon.

These are the punch pieces you will need for the Grinch.  The Curly Label punch and Owl Builder piece from Old Olive.  The So Saffron circles and black circles are from the Owl Builder punch.  The Santa hat is from the Pennant Builder punch, (also on SALE till Wednesday!)  The white hat brim is from the Scallop Square punch, the white puff ball is from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, and the eyebrows are just little pieces, I have an old punch that was called double slot or something, but you can just cut some strips of paper in Early Esspresso.  

Cut one foot from the Old Olive Owl piece to use as a nose, then glue it and the eyes to your Old Olive Curly Lable Punch. 

Add your eyebrows, pointed down slightly and add the Black eyes, slightly twords the nose. 

 Punch a piece of white scrap with the Scallop Square punch, you just need a bit from the top.      

Put the little piece back into the punch, this is tricky but you can do it, use tweezers if you need to.  Line up the little circles and punch again.

Fold the tip of the Santa Hat over and add a glue dot under the fold.  Add the white trim to the hat and glue to the Grinch head.  I hand drew the Grinch mouth.  Practice a few times till you like the way it looks, then do it on the real one. 

I love the stamp set Tags Till Christmas for Grinch projects because of the "Even the Naughtly deserve something Nice!"  stamp.  I used Real Red and Old Olive markers to ink up the stamp set.  Punch it out with the 1 1/4 square punch and mount that on the Scallop square punch. 

Attach your tag to the candy bar with a bit of ribbon. 

Hope you have fun with these little guys!  I will post an Angle how to sometime this week.

Oh, and dont use a Snickers bar!  No matter how hard I tried to wrap it nicely it just comes out bumpy!!  This was the best I ever got it to look.  Your Santa or Grinch will look pretty messed up with the snickers bar.  

The dimensions for wrapping a Fannie May or Dove bar are 5 inches wide by 7 1/4 long. 

Thanks for stopping by!!

 

Place cards

I thought this little corn from the Perfectly Preserved set was cute, and I wanted to use it again before winter hits us at full force.  I thought it would be cute on a Thanksgiving place card.  You can place one at each guests seat so they know where they are sitting, and since its got chocolate in it, they also get a treat!   

I used the larger tag from the "Two Tags Bigz Die".  It is perfect for this because of that little flap cut into the top.  Normally you would just fold the tag in half and tuck the bottom into the flap, so it ends up flat like a card.  I wanted mine to stand up, so I had to change where the score lines are.  

Add score lines at 1 1/2 and 2 1/2.   No adhesives required to put this together, just fold it and tuck the bottom under the flap!

Decorate the front of your place card any way you like and tuck a Hershey nugget in the center. 

Another fall version using the Autumn Accents Bigs Die.

Baby Shower version.

Birthday party version.

Thanks for stopping by!!

OnLine Extravaganza Starts Monday!

The online Extravaganza starts Monday!!  There will be some 24 hour only door busters!  On sale will be the BIG SHOT!!  the DIAGONAL SCORING PLATE, and THE BIG SHOT DOCTOR BAG!  and much more.    And, to sweeten the deal, if you order from my website during this sale, you will be entered into a drawing for the Four Seasons stamp set (cling mount) or the Sweet Pressed Cookie Stamps which includes yummy recipes to use with the stamps! I've made these several times, YUM!

 

a digi page

We are sick here at the Rush house.  At least Jillian and I are. So, not a lot of paper crafting getting done.  But, that doesn't mean that I can't still get creative.  I have been sitting under a blanket, next to a hot cup of tea, playing with MyDigitalStudio!  There are so many new techniques I am learning with the new and improved MyDigitalStudio2.  This page featuring Jillian uses a new technique I learned in which I can add multiple strips of paper into a punch, like I did in the heart.  I also recolored the bow at the bottom to match the papers.  The hardest part of this page was deciding on what papers to use in the heart.  My Digital Studio classes will Begin again in January.  The download version of My Digital Studio is available now, and the disk version will be available beginning November 29th.  And, don't forget, you can get a FREE trial of the software too!  I think that MY Digital Studio is the perfect gift for Christmas.  Speaking of Christmas, Stampin' Up! is having its annual Online Extravaganza again this year.  There will be discounted items as well as a few door busters.  I don't have all the details yet, we were just told it would happen again this year.  I will post details when they become known.
Thanks for stopping by!!

New Blog Header

I decided to give my blog header a Thanksgiving face lift.  I used the digital owl punch, which I love so much in real paper punch version.  The Turkey feathers are from the Rosettes download. I cropped the embellishment in half with the new embellishment cropper, then resized them so they were getting smaller and smaller, layered them, and done.  Such a fun little turkey.   I saw this done with the bright blooms download too! 

Here is my blog header for my digital crafts blog.

 

Head on over to my digital blog for more details on how to make the turkey.

 

I used the recolor tool to make the rosettes the color I wanted. 

 

Thanks for stopping by!