Gift Packaging & Stampin' Up!

No doubt you are busy getting ready for the festive season, just like I am. It seemed like a good idea to share a solution I came up with the other day when I was wrapping gifts. Like most of us, I will grab a bag at a discount shop to pop a gift into, but there are a few gifts which deserve a little more.

This gift bag was made using a piece of 12" X 12" DSP (patterned paper) which I'd picked specifically as the recipient has a Turkish connection. The gold colour is on the outside for the Christmas feel, but on the inside reminds me of Persian tiles. Unfortunately, one part of this gift measured the same length as the bag was high and there seemed no way of artfully closing it.

It was then I spied a contrasting piece of paper and decided to make another gift bag, but shorter, to use as a lid. The Foil Snowflakes in gold and silver (#144642) are available until the end of the Holiday catalogue, and I've used nearly all my gold ones, so I'm about to start on silver. The great thing is that the Fabulous Foil Designer Acetate (#141653) comes in both colours, it just depends which side of the acetate is facing up. Don't forget to peel the protective plastic off the silver side when you use this.

I was lucky enough to earn the Merry Patterns stamp set, during the short period it was available, and I have had a LOT of use from it these last few months. The giant bells were in a pack of Christmas decorations at a chain department store, the paper has retired, but what a great way to use it up, and the ribbon was from last years SALE-A-Bration. That's a Stampin' Up!® event which runs from early January until March 30th every year, so brace yourself for some amazing offers. In fact, I will be mailing catalogues soon, so let me know if you're interested in receiving a free copy.

As I've been working, the company has announced that there will be 24 hours of free shipping on Monday 11th December, and orders submitted that day have a very good chance of reaching you by Christmas. Maybe you should take advantage of this opportunity to get a little something from the Clearance rack or even something from the Holiday catalogue before it finishes.When you're shopping you may even notice some catalogue markdowns shown in red. My online shop is open 24/7 and I am here to answer questions, not quite as much as that!!! Use the host code and you'll receive a gift in the following month. Thanks...

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End Of Year Gifts

Thankfully, I've had some time while off work caring for post-op husband, to pop into my craft room and make some end of year projects which I will now share with you. Of course there is lots more still to do, but at least I've made a start!

I've made a bag and card as a teacher gift, birthday cards for grandson and his little sister, a gift and card for a crafty friend and a scrapbook page for my sweet youngest grandchild.

Mainly these stamp sets, Crafting Forever and Pieces & Patterns along with about a quarter pack of Pick a Pattern DSP and some matching card were all I needed to make these, proving you can do a lot with minimal supplies. I did pull a few other stamps off the shelf to help out, but was pleased to feature mainly two.

 I really enjoyed making this gift for a friend, because I know she'll appreciate it. I'm waiting on my pre-order to deliver, when I will decorate some long notecards and envelopes to place in this box. It's a sneak peek from the Occasions catalogue, beginning 3 January 2018. It seemed appropriate to add the pen to the box, and the acetate window with the word framelit was my addition to this project.

I also added a few extra pens to the pot and enjoyed colouring with Stampin' Blends.

This bag and card is for one of my grandsons to give to his teacher. This is a project which I may have to repeat for the others, but it will be my pleasure. Pieces & Patterns really came to the fore here, with the sentiment and of course the fabulous co-ordinating paper. My Gift Bag Punch Board has paid for itself many times over, as I am always putting together a gift bag in minutes for smaller gifts.

I thought the lines  were going to be helpful for my 7 year old grandson to write his own message to the teacher, but I'll check with my D-I-L about the mr. 6.

Isn't the paper perfect for a kid or teacher?

  This is another of the papers from Pick A Pattern DSP but perfect for a little girl turning 5. The bold Happy Birthday greeting is from Birthday Delivery, a very cute stamp set with co-ordinating paper from the Annual catalogue.The primitive flowers are from Pieces & Patterns.

This card is a standard size and can be posted for the usual rate, but with the four panels, it has a bit of a bang! I decided to leave the images black & white as no doubt a 5-year-old girl might like to colour her own.

 But I couldn't resist and had to add some colour and sparkles here on the front!

Now, big brother is very cool. Nothing too baby-ish for him. I've made mistakes in the past and been growled at because he's not a baby! OMG, I think cash might be the only thing to make him happy.

I'm hoping the jeans pocket with green check is okay for Mr Cool.Again, this check patterned paper is fromthe Pick A Pattern DSP, but the other strip is not. Those numbers are from my most-used dies, Large Numbers.

My littlest grandie always makes sure that Gran gets a lovely calendar each Christmas, so I have made a layout for his scrapbook, to remember the Fridays he spends with me. We usually do some sort of craft each week, and cutting paper is currently his favourite. We do stamp from time to time, and he wants a stamp with his name on it like Gran has. I made his name up with the Labeler Alphabet (first time I've used that stamp). Stamped some lines for jounaling with Playful Backgrounds, and then some primary sploshes, from the same stamp set. This time I really let loose with Stampin' Blends to colour the pot of brushes.

While I had the DSP out, I've put together very simple cards using the co-ordinating stamp, Pieces & Patterns, which I'm sure one of the daughter-in-laws will take off my hands for the many birthday parties their little social butterflies attend.

Let me know if you'd like some advice on making these projects, and I'll try my best to assist. If you'd like to shop with me for your craft needs, I will send you a gift when you use the Hostess code at checkout (if your order is less than $250).

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Lovely Inside CI#13

Colour INKspiration is a group of Stampin' Up! demonstrators from the South Pacific, all through Australia and New Zealand. We love to get together for these colour challenges, to inspire each other, and you, to create. We love it when you join in with our challenges to share your work and all you need is a Facebook presence. You can link in here on Facebook.

Our colours this week are Sweet Sugarplum, Wild Wasabi, Lemon Lime Twist and Fresh Fig. These seemed a tricky combination for me, so I made two cards, picked one of them and rustled up a matching gift bag with the Gift Bag Punch Board, I know you can buy these little gift bags for about $2 at the discount chains, but do they match with the card? You can even potentionally match the gift to the bag to the card, as my lovely crew mate Kelly Kent does so frequently.

You'll be pleased to know, these two projects are beginners level. Yes, truly they are. After you've followed the instructions printed on the Gift Bag Punch Board to make a couple of these bags, you'll be able to make them from memory. I used a piece of card 11 inches by 6 inches, and a sheet of card costs approximately 58 cents in Australia. Then you stamp and use a small amount of strong adhesive to finish it off. Why wouldn't you want to make your own? You can use pattern paper too, again to totally co-ordinate.

The key to a good-looking card or other paper-crafting project is pecise cutting. That means it needs to be straight. The measurements need to be accurate and you probably need guidelines on your cutting tool to make sure the corners are exactly 90°. A lot of this comes down to practise, but owning a great paper trimmer like this one by Stampin' Up!® will help considerably too. As well as a cutting blade, there is a scoring blade, and you can buy replacement blades and scorers through my online shop as well.

This is a slightly 'stepped-up ' version of the card. The background paper is actually DSP (designer series paper) called Color Theory. The flowers were stamped on thick whisper white card before cutting out, as were the leaves. There are a couple of strips of card. to 'ground' the work. I've used a big and bold srntiment this time, stamped in Wild Wasabi.
Three is a magic number in crafting, so there are three bursts of colour (flowers) and three splodges (leaves). There's a mix of the colours and Fresh Fig stamped twice, one full strength, one was second generation stamping.

I used a die from the Layering Circles Thinlets, so the edge wouldn't be straight, then snipped around with paper snips. I did have thoughts of adding buttons for flower centres, but wasn't keen on the way it looked, plus we don't have any current ones to suit.

Here are both cards and the small gift bag, all grouped together.
Next your visiting Bronwyn Eastley in Tasmania,

Happy crafting

Rachel

Sparkle And Shine FMS 241

Some more 40th birthday cards are needed in July, and this weekend I've made one for a girl who "needs diamonds". Don't think she'll be getting any from her friends? Anyway, my instructions were to make her a sparkly card, and the kraft card with jewels on seemed to be a good idea too.
I found the sketch by Karren at Freshly Made Sketches really helped with the design process.

This paper has retired now, but fortunately there was enough left for me to make two cards. This particular one has been made to hold a gift card or money with a couple of sentiments from BYOP (Buy Your Own Present) stamp set. Its a little difficult to see but I used the Gift Bag Punch Board to cut the flap, and Lots Of Labels Framelits to cut the labels. It is so usual these days to give a gift card, that it almost seems common sense to accommodate one.

The Large Number Framelits cut the sheets of Glimmer Paper quite easily and of course they make a big, flashy statement! 

Have a great week,
Cheers, Rachel

Little Red Gift Bag 3D Theme CTC#58

Since it's Sunday night, it must be time for CASE-ing The Catty. We are a team of Stampin' Up!® demonstrators who love to use the catalogue to Copy and Share.  You may have just come from my friend Kathryn, her Advent Calendar is AMAZING! Now you're here with me, Rachel, on my blog Stampinpals. Make sure you click on the links at the end of each blog, so you visit each of the design crew.





This week at CASE-ing The Catty, we are featuring 3D projects and I'm sure the rest of the design crew will have some fantastic projects to share. Usually, I find 3D difficult, although I've mastered Card-in-a-Box these days. Stampin' Up!® saved the day for me when they added the Gift Bag Punch Board to the catalogue, you'll find it on page 150 of the catalogue, along with the Envelope Punch Board and Gift Box Punch Board,

With a bit of thought I can make these bags too, which stopped me buying  the Gift Bag Punch Board for just a little while, but I'm finding it so easy to whip up a colour co-ordinated gift bag now. I flicked through my Holiday Catalogue searching for ideas on how to "Christmas-It-Up" and decided on Kraft Corrugated cardboard around the top to reinforce it for the ribbon, some stars in Gold Glimmer Paper and a Snowflake Element tied with Gold Cording Trim were perfect.


I'd seen all of these products scattered through the Holiday Catalogue and they definitely give a festive look to cards and gifts.



The gusset on the side is easily done with the Gift Bag Punch Board, you just follow the directions written on the board. There is also a hole punch which helps with evenly spacing the ribbon holes around the top. After punching out a tag with the Ornate Tag Topper, I stamped with a simple stamp from Day Of Celebration.

Now I'll head off to make more bags to hold the gifts for the kids at school, and you pop on over to visit the lovely Helen at H2Designs



Cheers, Rachel

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Gift For A Gardener Case-ing Gift Packaging CTC#40

This week the CASE-ing The Catty Crew are CASE-ing the section of the catalogue titled Gift packaging, pages 55-66. You may be starting here with me, or perhaps you have come from Rebecca's blog, Mommiedom.
If you've started here, you can continue to blog hop your way right around for plenty of CASE-ing The Catty inspiration by clicking on the link at the end of my blog. If you happen to get lost along the way, you can get back on track at Case-ing The Catty.




I was absolutely sure that I didn't need the Gift Bag Punch Board even after trying it out at Convention. After all, I can make a gift bag without it. Then I had another think about it and ordered, because it is fairly inexpensive at $32.00, and when I need to make multiple gift boxes for Easter or Christmas gift-giving, this is going to be much quicker. I'll have more time for decorating the boxes!

The Gift Bag Punch Board arrived in my last order along with lots of other goodies that I've use to make this Gift Bag. After having a couple of practice runs, I had memorised the steps, it was easy-as and super-quick, so I'm hooked.

In the same order I received Stake Your Claim stamp set, Floral Wings Hostess stamp set and the Textured Impressions Embossing Folder Brick Wall.  This bag was inspired by the pretty pink bag with a piece of Embossed Butterfly decorating it, on page 58, so pretty and it uses Oh My Goodies bundled with the Deco Labels Collection Framelits. Before I assembled the box, I stamped it with Sahara Sand ink and the Hardwood stamp. Looking at it in the pictures, it might have paid to have stamped that with Tip Top Taupe, it's quite subtle. I was inspired to emboss the wall onto Sahara Sand card, but you wouldn't know that now as I went nuts with a sponge and Tip Top Taupe, Cajun Craze and Delightful Dijon inks to give it warmth and texture. The grout lines of this folder are very deep, but it doesn't break the card. I've seen it used with either side as the feature too. Also, it is a BIG 6" X 6" and still fits through the Big Shot!

Gently tearing the bricks along the grout lines gave it the rustic, tumble-down look and before I adhered it with Tombow, I stamped two meandering vines, from Floral Wings. I might go back and add some flowers to that vine. I suspect it is a climbing rose, madly out of control, judging by the fowers in Floral Wings!!! I had a bit of fun die cutting the plant pots and trowel out of scraps. I had the Handpicked Framelits  already,from the Occasions Catalogue but you can still purchase it because now Stake Your Claim is the co-ordinating stamp set. That's where the 'birthday' stake is from. It was stamped in Rose Red, 2nd generation as I've heard some call it. That means it's been stamped once and then stamped again with out re-inking.

You can see the first stamping of the stake in front of the box here, I was concerned that the colour was too bright for the bricks etc., but later, after filling the Gift Box with hand and nail care products, it has brought a bit more of the pink into the picture, This was such a fun project to put together, I think I might just run a gift packaging class later this year.

If you need any of these products, the product list takes you right to that item in my online store, and the Hostess Code is 6J7FYB24. I'm closing this 'party' at the end of July, and it has already reached the hostess dollars mark, so you will be awarded 10% of your order in product - sharing the love of Stampin' Up!

My inspiration, page 58

Now you're off to the next blog on the hop, Alison is bound to have something super to share,
Cheers
Rachel

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