It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas AWH Bloghop

Today some of the Art With Heart Stampin' Up!® team have created some amazing Christmas projects to inspire you with the theme, "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!" We have tags, gift bags, teacher gift ideas, decorations and many more fun projects to create this holiday season.

To begin, I'm sharing this gift box, which I used to hold a gift for my Onstage room mate, Kathryn Mangelsdorf. Merriest Wishes was put to good use on this gift box, with simple stamping of the graduated spots all around, just in Smokey Slate. I had to put it aside and leave it to dry, as the box is so shiny it takes a while to set. There is an acetate sleeve included with these white boxes, which I tied a piece of the  silver ribbon around, to attach the tag. 

My chosen colours for the decorations were Emerald Envy and Real Red, and I cut one of each in the various dies in Merriest Tags Framelit Dies, that co-ordinate with the Merriest Wishes stamp set. Eight of these folded tags fit comfortably in this box, you could probably fit ten without any problems.


Using thick whisper white, I cut the cards 14cm by 7cm and managed to get quite a few from each sheet. Simply score at 7cm and you have a perfect square tag.

This year I was determined to get on top of the Christmas cards early, and surprisingly, considering how busy life has been these last few months, I think I've done it!!! My secret is mini-mass production, and if you think that sounds like a contradiction, I'll explain. 

Once the design has developed in my mind, I've endeavoured to make multiples. Ten or twelve is a good number to aim for, because once you've sorted the measurements you're already half-way there.

These Christmas cards are almost the same with some colour changes, but all the patterned paper was cut from Presents and Pinecones designer series paper, at the one time, so I kept repeating the dimensions (easy to remember that way). For the card above I chose to use the Jar Of Cheer with the sentiment stamped on the jar.

This card was even easier as I had the banners and trees already cut from another set of cards I made. Peaceful Pines and Banners For Christmas are the stamp sets for this.

Here we see Merriest Wishes back again, this lacy bauble is my absolute favourite. I have made good use of this set, it's a favourite for sure.

Recipe

Card Base - cut a sheet of A4 lengthwise at 10.5cm, score at 15cm

First layer - Fancy Frost SDSP (30% off 21-28 November) cut 10cm x 14.5cm

Second layer - 8.5cm x 13 cm

Third layer  -  DSP cut at 8cm x 12.5cm

Next, have a session of gluing. My choice for this is the Tombow Multi-purpose Liquid Glue, mainly for the way it gives a little leeway to line papers up evenly.

Lastly, decide on the embellishments you're using.

Easy-peasy?

If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the participants below:

1. Rebecca Jacovou
2. Ros Davidson
3. Kathryn Ruddick
4. Kate Morgan
5. Rachel Palmieri
6. Claire Daly
7. Mary Kelly
8. Monika O'Neill
9. Tina Gillespie
10. Kathryn Mangelsdorf
11. Catherine Proctor
12. Judy May

 So now you are leaving me, Rachel Palmieri, and heading over to the awesome Claire Daly

Cheers, Rachel

Swaps For Onstage November 2016 Brisbane

I was a bit rushed yesterday when I arrived home from Stampin' Up!® Onstage Live in Brisbane. The actual conference began at 2pm on Thursday, but I'd flown in on Wednesday to have time to wander around Brisbane and relax a little. I shared a studio apartment with team mate, Kathryn Mangelsdorf again.

From left around the table:- Kathryn, Julia, Bronwyn, Simone, Kelly, Jackie, Rebecca, me and Tricia.


CASE-ing The Catty Crew were meeting for brunch on Thursday morning to meet face to face for one of the few times we can, since we are from all parts of Australia and even New Zealand. On the left you can see my swap card. We each make a card multiple times to exchange with all other members of the team. It's a great way to collect samples made in a different style to your own, or even with stamps you don't possess. That can be such a bonus, when you share these cards with your team, your class students and customers.
I decided to try a very different colour for my Christmas card, not that different is better. What do you think of Delightful Dijon as a Christmas colour? I've been very pressed for time lately, so my swap card had to be very easy to make. I actually packed all the bits, and stamped, coloured and constructed it while on a weekend away.

I used a variety of stamps for the simple panel, Jar Of Cheer is the main image, coloured with markers. I used the star stamp from Merry Mice on the white panel, as well as the card base. Joy To The World is the sentiment from the stamp set Tin Of Tags, which goes with a kit of the same name. A piece of gold cord has been tied in a bow around the bottom of the illustrated panel, and for a bit more festive fabulousness, a sprinkle of gold Wink Of Stella has been flicked across.

There were 550 demonstrators at Onstage 2016, but despite that, the crew kept running into each other all over the place. Returning from lunch on the third day, I found a lot of CASE-ing the Catty gathered around the sign, so I jumped in and joined them for this picture. Unfortunately, Simone and Bronwyn are missing from this one, but Krissy and Judy were here, after missing the brunch on Day One.


Cheers, Rachel

Holiday Tags CTC#99

Apparently Christmas is fast approaching! All I can say is, "Thank goodness we don't have to celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving in Australia, or there just wouldn't be enough time to fit Christmas in!!! We are having a VERY long school term in Victoria: 11 weeks and 2 days, when the optimum time is meant to be 10 weeks. It won't only be the teaching staff that are tired and towie, the kids will be uncontrollable by the last few weeks.

You may have just hopped from my friend Kathryn's blog, but if you started here with me, make sure you go full circle for your weekly dose of inspiration. This week at CASE-ing The Catty we are focusing on some tags. I took a look through the holiday catalogue, and decided that tags made with the jar stamps and framelits would be super cute.

After cutting a couple of strips of extra thick Whisper White card, I stamped the jar shape from Jar Of Cheer. There are now three different stamp sets that co-ordinate with the Jar Framelits. The first one was Jar of Love in the Annual catalogue, Jar of Cheer and Jar of Haunts in the Holiday Catalogue. You can still save 10% if you bundle and save the Jar of Love stamps with Everyday Jars Framelits. 

Once the jars were die cut, I began stamping out the sentiment. Next, it was time to tackle the lids and so far I have made them with the Gold and Bronze foil paper, and I think silver may just get a look in too. I CASE-d the jar from the Christmas card on page 25 of the Holiday Catalogue, but I don't have the Pretty Pines framelits, so I improvised and used a small leaf from Jar of Love.

If you take another look at the top picture, you'll see that to and from is stamped on the back. This stamp is a handy little one from Merriest Wishes. The tags are finished off with a bow tied in Cherry Cobbler Bakers Twine. This comes packaged with a roll of Garden Green and Gold, so there is plenty of variety for all your Christmas crafting. If you'd like to shop for some crafting goodies, my online shop is open for you all day, everyday and when you use the Hostess code before checkout, (M7F6343W) you'll receive a little something from me in the post too.

We love it when you share your projects with us at CASE-ing the Catty. Just link up here.

Now it is time to hop along to see what clever Kelly  has shared on her blog.

Cheers, Rachel

Everyday Occasions - CTC92

Sunday has arrived very quickly for me this week, but it might just be that I have an awful lot on my plate at the moment. Welcome back for another turn of CASE-ing The Catty blog hop. Did you like Julia's  pretty card made with Thoughtful Branches? We are always telling you how there is so much inspiration to be found within the pages of the catalogue. I do hope you are finding it useful to check out the catalogues to see what the talented designers at Stampin' Up! have made before CASE-ing it. That might mean using the sketch, the colours or some other aspect to stir your creativity into action.

The first card CASES the sketch on page 70 of the Annual catalogue, but changes the colours from yellows to pink and plum. Instead of stamping on the base card, I used my favourite piece of patterned paper from Blooms & Bliss DSP. The stamp set is the same as the catalogue sample, Crazy About You and I even used exactly the same Hello You Thinlet and sentiment. 

The second card uses the same idea, but the banner has been changed to a piece of washi tape, the Hello You Thinlet  has been used with a different sentiment along with Jars of Love stamp set. Jars of Love is one of my favourites amongst the new additions to my stamp shelves, and just wait until you see the Christmas version in the Holiday Catalogue. It is called Jar of Cheer and you can order from the Holiday Catalogue from September 1st 2016- January 3rd 2017. Although I've only used the matching thinlets to cut flowers on this card, they can come in quite handy when you want to make a shaker card using this set too, as I did a while back. 

Don't forget, if you're making an order through my online shop, it will ask for the HOSTESS Code before you check out. August 21st - Spetember 20th it is P2KYFUU9

Next you're heading over to the lovely Krissy Buck, to see what loveliness she is sharing this week. I love it!

We'd love you to share your creations here too. The link to do that is here at CASE-ing The Catty.

I will be absent from CASE-ing The Catty for a few weeks while I take my hard-working hubby on a well-deserved holiday in the sun. There will be other posts from me over the next couple of weeks, but its too hard to link in with the CASE-ing The Catty Crew from afar!!!

Cheers, Rachel