David visits Santa

A super quick post today of a super quick page.  I am using the next few days to organize and found some older photos that were lost in my husbands office space.  I was going to file the photo away and scan it later for digital scrap booking, but then decided to use some of my older stampin supplies to create a page.  I bought some great ribbon on the Stampin' Up! clearance rack a while back, and they worked great on the page.  I didn't want to add to much to the background because the mall where the photo was taken added some framing around the photo automatically, and so I kept my additions pretty simple.  The snowflakes are from the beautiful Snowflake Soiree set (#127925) stamped in white craft ink on Night of Navy paper. I matted my photo in Real Red, added some tags with journaling, and I was done.  I may go back and add a title to the page, now that I'm looking at it on the screen it seems to need a title.  what do you think? 

Photo Tree

A family at Church gave me a Christmas card that had their photos arranged in a tree shape.  I just had to try it myself in My Digital Studio.  I may play around with my page a bit more after the Holidays, but I thought I would post it for today.  I hope you all have a very merry Christmas!

Santa Suit Favor Box

I saw a similar bag made by another Demo named Cindy Schuster, who is a My Digital Studio demo who's pages I often really like.  I decided that I needed to make up a few of these.  I made about 10 in under an hour, so fast!!  Most had nice little tags and I handed them out to the teachers and aides at the school with gift cards and chocolate in them.  But I made a few with these cute "even naughty people deserve something nice" tags.  The tags were a FREE download at Stampin' Up!  If you didn't grad it already, you should go get it.  Its item number 132810, put it in your shopping cart and there is no tax, shipping or waiting! download it and start using, very fun!  The download embellishment looks sort of written on a chalkboard.  The download also comes with a stamp version, so you can make it any color you want. 

Here is how I made the box.  The base of the box is made from the Fancy Favor Box.  This is a great box, not too big, not to small.  I use it all the time. 

Then I cut out a strip of paper with the same die, just so the top would match.

Then I tore the sides.  Did you know that if you tear towards you, you get a rough edge, but then if you tear away, you get a smooth edge?  For this reason, if your picky like me, you have to tear both sides the same way so they match :)

I like the rough side up so it looks more fluffy, like a Santa suit.  I also added some glitter to the edges. 

 

A 1 1/2 inch square in silver glimmer paper and a 1inch square in black make a buckle.
Add some tissue and your done! 

I printed out a sheet of the free tag download and attached them to my bags with a bit of ribbon. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Congrats Renee!

My sister-in-law Renee graduated from nursing school on Friday!!  YEA!  She is a mom of 2 and did this in what little spare time she had.  It was a long road and we are all proud of her for her hard work and dedication!! Way to Go Renee!!   My sister Amy and I got her a gift card for a store called Scrubs  so she can buy some more work clothes.  Here is the card I made to go with the gift.  Cute huh?   I saw a version of it on Splitcoast stampers.    I used papers from the Floral District Designer Series paper.  I used a marker to make the stitching along the hem and neck and sleeves.  The tag punch made the pocket, I just turned over a bit at the top to reveal the other side at the top of the pocket.
The inside of the card has a pocket to hold the gift card.  Fun to make, I hope she likes it!

Gingerbread Man!

I think this little gingerbread man is super cute!  I even decided what sort of cookie to make based on this little guy!  Crazy right?  I like to make up small gifts for those people who make life a bit better, and this year I decided on cookies.  I've done hot chocolate and candy in the past.  So, I had to make gingerbread.  I didn't shape the cookies though- no time unfortunately :(  but they taste super yummy and are still home made.  I packaged them up in a cellophane bag and tied a cute tag to the top.   The tag is just a 6 x 3 piece of Real Red cardstock, folded in half.  I used some scraps of designer series paper from a simple scrappin kit from last Christmas to make the background.  A good thing about Stampin' Up is that the core colors remain in place, so you can mix and match for years.  Sure they may change out a few now and then, but the core mostly says and your Designer patterned paper will always have a match in it somewhere.   I then added another red square and background paper, and then the cute gingerbread man from the Scentsational Season stamp set from the Holiday mini Catalog page 16 (ending Dec 31st).  

 

The stamps are cute on their own (121190 $14.95 cling  121026 $18.95 wood) but you can also get matching dies for the shapes as part of a bundle so they cut out perfectly! ( 129946 $32.95 cling and 129945 $36.95 wood)

 

Reindeer Day

I love paper, truly I do, but when you are crazy busy, its hard to get started on a new project.  So, whats a crafty person to do?  Digi Scrap!  I seriously get so much more scrapbooking done with MDS.  I made this page this morning while sipping my coffee before the kids got up.  No mess to clear off the dining room table, no need to reprint pictures to get them exactly the right size.  All done on my laptop in about 30 minutes.  It will go off to the printer in January with my other Christmas pages!  Fun!
Anyway, I thought I would share it here on my "Paper" blog, since I haven't been able to post a paper project, and maybe talk some of you into jumping on the My Digital Studio bandwagon.  I love it! And, I was the MDS Monday Master for the last challenge on the MDS Monday blog :)  That was so fun, to go to their site and see my page chosen.  Here is the MDS Monday site.  And, for more details on this page, go to my "digital" blog to see how to color a stamp with MDS2.

crazy busy!

So my sister told me I should make a post explaining my absence :)  I only get a bit of time to create in my craft room, and the past few weeks I have been using those precious child free hours to Christmas shop! I am almost done, so I should get some crafty time soon, which is good because I think creating paper projects in therapy for me!   It relaxes me to be in my craft room making pretty things!
Tomorrow I am the parent helper at kindergarten for Reindeer Day, so I'm sure to have some pictures to scrap!  And I have to get some teacher gifts together in the coming days too. 
See you here soon!   

Snowflake Gift Box

Stampin' Up! always has nice packaging to give sweet little gifts all year round.  The Current Catalog has these cute little Kraft boxes, sold in sets of 4 for just $2.95 (item number 124106).   I dressed this one up with some snowflakes made with the Snow Flurry die.  I also stamped some snowflakes from the Snowflake Soiree stamp set directly on the box.  The paper band is from the Snow Festival Designer series paper.  I added a vintage faceted button, a rhinestone, and some dazzling diamonds glitter for some bling.  Quick and Easy and very pretty. 

And, there are two Packaging Bundles on special right now for those last minute gifts or to make your home made goodies look even better.

 Bundle one has cute little glassing bags, ribbon and felt ornament (item number 132770 $13.50).   Bundle two has gusseted cellophane bags, cute pre printed tags and sweater trim ribbon (132769 $13.50)

Thanks for stopping by!

Newsprint Ornaments

 I love the Holiday Ornaments Framelits and have used them for cards and scrapbook pages and ornaments.  Fun!  This card was made for the Creative Crew Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers.  We were challenged to make projects using the First Edition Specialty paper, which is the newsprint paper you see here.  But, no mess like you would get if you used real newspapers :)  And, the 3D ornaments can be flattened to mail. 
 To make the ornaments, I cut LOTS of ornaments out with my Big Shot.  You can cut through a few layers of paper at a time.

I cut out three layers thick in several of the shapes. The Framelits come with 8 ornament shapes.  

I then folded all the ornaments in half, and burnished them with the bone folder to make sure the crease was good.  I used the new Silicone Craft Sheets to add a strip of glue (tombo multi purpose) the length of  the ornament.  I then placed them onto the glue strip, about 5 folded ornaments back to back per glue strip.

You can see on this picture how I have several of these groups of folded ornaments going.  Then you just have to let them sit for a while to dry.  Have dinner or leave them over night.  When they are dry you can just peel them off like a sticker. 

To add glitter I put some glue on a sponge and applied it to the edges. 

I then rolled them in some glitter.

 

If you are going to use them on a card, you are done with them, but you can put two together to make an ornament.  Add a piece of ribbon to the back after you peel if off the silicone, then stick two of your groupings together to make the ornament.

I added some pretty bows. 

My Digital Studio Christmas Cards

 My Christmas cards this year will mostly be made in My Digital Studio.  I will of course make some stamped cards too for those people who know me but not my kids, but I thought I would share these with you in case you were thinking of getting My Digital Studio for Christmas!  Here is one version I am making, it is a postcard designed on both sides. 

Side two

 Here is the second version I came up with.  I made this one more like a scrapbook page.

Side Two.

Thanks for stopping by!!

 

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  

Thanks for stopping by!

 

   

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.

Thanks for stopping by!!

 

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!!