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

Ronald McDonald House Charities CTC#103

You may have come here from Kelly Kent's blog or perhaps you have started the blog here, but either way, make sure you use the links at the end to hop on over to the next blog until you have gone full-circle. This week at CASE-ing The Catty we are CASE-ing the Ronald McDonald House Charities stamps, My Hero, on the inside back cover of the back cover (page 209). Did you know that $3 of every set you purchase is donated to Ronald McDonald House Charities? Stampin' Up! and their demonstrators support the charity in other practical ways too.

Many make cards which are then available for guests at Ronald McDonald House to use, since it is often difficult to go shopping while you are supporting a sick child.
I was inspired by the splashes of Melon Mambo, and the writing on the heart and umbrella, so picked Peaceful Pines, the only current stamp I own that shares that feature, it has two trees with writing on them.
The Fancy Frost white embossed 12" X 12 " paper in the Holiday catalogue has some lovely patterns, and this starry one was perfect for my project. Because you can never have enough bling. I studded it with rhinestones!
There are also the two supporting trees in Blushing Bride and Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper.

Next I was inspired to make a child's birthday card using a retired hostess stamp Silhouettes & Script. My daughters-in-law are always needing birthday cards for the myriad of parties my grandchildren attend. They certainly all lead very active social lives, but I love to help out with a bunch of cards from time to time.




The confetti comes from Party With Cake, as does the greeting next to the hat on the inside. Again, all inspired by the script on the images in the My Hero stamp set.

Come back tomorrow and I'll share CASE-ing The Catty Crew catching up in Brisbane last week.

 Cheers, Rachel

Now head on over to Krissy Buck

and if you'd like to link your creation at CASE-ing The Catty, this is the link for November.

Christmas Trees -CTC#57 - Season Of Cheer

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 come from Emma's blog, Vintage Graffiti. Wasn't her project lovely? Now you're with 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.

Catalogue sample

Our theme for this week is Season Of Cheer, so some more Christmas cards I think. I visited with my team leader a couple of weeks ago, and she had a stamp set that I don't have - yet! I hadn't bought Peaceful Pines because it was "another tree stamp." However, while using the framelits, I discovered that these aren't just trees, they're trees with a twist. See how there are little 'sticky out bits' on the tree? Well, the framelit does that!!

It's a bit hard to know what to stamp and die cut when you're at someone's house and not actually putting a card together, but I did come home with quite a few little pieces. So using the cards on page 30 of the Holiday Catalogue as inspiration, mainly the mint card, I began to create. I cut the oval to include a tree I had stamped on a rectangular scrap, and made it more festive with gold foil, to surround. The greeting on a banner is also inspired by the mint card, which has a sub-title sentiment on a banner. It came from my Snow Day stamp set, love the exclamation mark!

While the pieces were out, I put together another similar card but broke out the Christmas Greetings Thinlets dies and cut a very glittery red 'merry'. The red tree was cut from foil, as was the gold and there's those 'sticky out bits again'! The co-ordinating stamp set, Holly Jolly Greetings has a number of words and a rather lovely snowflake/star. The good news is that both stamp sets, Holly Jolly Greetings and Peaceful Pines, and their matching thinlets are going to be available after January 4th when the Stampin' Up!® Holiday Catalogue finishes up. That probably makes me more inclined to add this to my collection. It really is a good time to check through the Holiday Catalogue and see what you might be needing, before its gone. I'll have a link to that section before the Goodbye, Adieu, Auf Wiedersehen banner.

 If you get lost anywhere along the blog hop you can head to the CASE-ing The Catty Blog and find all the links listed.






In the meantime, why not hop off over to Alison at Gothdove Designs - she'll have something fabulous to share too.

Shop the Holiday Catalogue before it's too late.

Lighthearted Leaves is a stamp set that will retire, I'm surprised by that. Festive Fireplace was another surprise, and the Sleigh Ride Framelits, Woodland Textured Embossing Folder and of course all the ribbon. There are no reductions at this stage (and probably won't be many as Stampin' Up!® don't import much more than they estimate they'll sell in the Australian market).

Cheers, Rachel

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