Twelve Days of Christmas --with Brenda and Melanie!

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Hi friends! Welcome to the third annual blog hop between myself and friend Melanie, from Mels Inky Fingers! For the next twelve days you can toggle between our blogs for some fun holiday inspiration! I will be sharing a mix of scrapbooking and card inspiration with you over the next twelve days on a rotating schedule with Melanie. I am so happy you are here and please feel free to leave me comments!

Of course I want to kick off our 12 Days with a fun scrapbooking project! I love to scrapbook and I am getting a jump on some holiday page designs. After Christmas I will be able to simply pop some photos on my pages and it will feel so rewarding!

Many of the scrapbook pages I am going to share over our 12 Days, use the A Little Bit Festive Specialty Paper found in the Holiday Catalogue. This is such a fun and economical way to scrapbook as you can create so many different layouts with the pieces found in this collection.

I started with a base of Garden Green (probably my favorite holiday green if I had to pick) and used a pieces of Real Red as a photo mat for a 5 x 7 picture.

This paper collection has a bunch of shapes that you can pop out and a sheet of six 4 x6 cards. I chose the card with the ornaments and actually fussy cut these out for the top right corner of my page. I stamped the little snowflake image around and under the ornaments using the Happiest Day stamp set. The phrase ‘Good Tidings’ is from the Sophisticated Sled stamp set.

A little Real Red & White bakers twine and some Gold Ribbon through the Good Tidings tag and some Peppermint embellishments finished off this little section of my page.

For the bottom section of my page, I stamped the same image again in the background and popped up the three ornaments from the collection. I added a bit of the Blueberry Bushel gingham pattern from the DSP underneath the top and bottom of my photo mat.

The sentiment is from the Reindeer Fun stamp set that I punched out with the Modern Oval Punch. A added a little more Red & White twine behind it and some more Peppermint Embellishments.

I hope this page inspires you to do some holiday memory keeping. Now its time to head over to Melanie’s blog to see what project she is kicking our 12 Days of Christmas off with! Click the image below to visit Mel’s Inky Fingers!

Please consider shopping my online store if this page has inspired you. Your support helps me continue to love what I do!

12 Days of Christmas--Day 2!

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Welcome to Day 2 of our 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop! This is my and Melanie’s second time offering this fun blog hop and we each have a ton of fun projects line up for you—in total you will get to see 24 super inspiring holiday projects!

My second project is one inspired by two of my fellow Artisan Design Team members—Tammy Wilson for the cool tree idea and Charlet Mallet for the fun pop up portion on the inside!

The base and first layer of this card are Basic White and I ran the first layer through the new Snowflake Sky embossing folder. I love how the little snowflakes on the folder are on scale with this project!

The sentiment is from the Throughout the Year stamp set in the Holiday catalogue—its a perfect stamp set as it covers off so many wonderful occasions throughout the year in a variety of fonts.

 

I cut the tree from the Merriest Trees Dies and used my Blending Brush with three colors—Lost Lagoon, Pretty Peacock and Garden Green.

After blending I flicked my water painter over top—the water acts like an eraser of sorts. I then took some Whisper White re-inker, squeezing a small amount onto a block. Using another water painter (I have one designated to this craft ink) I flicked a few sprays of white over top of the tree. What I love about this fun technique, is that every tree you blend will look different!

I cut some of the sprigs from the Christmas Classics Dies—including the sentiment. I used Pretty Peacock and Garden Green card stock with a little bit of the Vanilla & Black Check ribbon behind the sentiment. Note the color of ribbon!

TOP TIP: Use your Stampin’ Blend markers to color ribbon to your liking to match your projects!

A few sequins from the Adhesive-Backed Sequins Trio from the Annual Catalogue, finished off the front of the card!

But remember I mentioned something fun for the inside? Earlier this year Charlet shared this super fun tip on how to create a little pop up in the cards! The sentiment from the Merriest Trees ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ was perfect, die cut with one of the smaller trees from the dies.

Isn’t this little pop up tree so cool? Thank you for such a cool tip charlet!

To make the fun pop up, according to Charlet’s awesome instructions, is to cut a piece of card stock, that matches your card base, to 3 x 3 inches and score this in half. Fold. Line up the folded edge on your trimmer and at each 1 inch mark cut a 1 inch snip. Unfold and score from snip to snip at the 1/2 mark.

Pop the center fold out. Line up interior fold and adhere to the center of card at the fold line.

I used some Tear’n Tape on each side of the pop up to keep it in place on the top and bottom.

I stamped the sentiment in Pretty Peacock and used some Lost Lagoon ink to softly blend over top so that the tree stood out a little bit more.

I hope this card inspires you to try a fun pop up on the inside of your next card!

I can’t wait to see what Melanie has created for you! You can click on this image to go visit her blog!

If my projects inspire you and you are needing some supplies, please consider shopping my online store so I can continue to do what I love!

Be Inspired Blog Hop--Mini Catalogue!

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What has been inspiring you out of the 2023 Mini Catalogue? There are honestly SO MANY fantastic things that I can’t even really choose! But I am excited to see all the awesome creations today from my fellow Blog Teammates as we shared projects featuring this Mini Catalogue!

We had our first snowfall of many this week so I think it is perfect for me to share a set of holiday cards that are on a nice crisp white background. With a bit of a fun and bright color palette!

I created this fun and bright set of holiday cards featuring the Joy of Noel Bundle. I just love being able to stamp and cut out ‘Noel’ with some fabulous dies.

I knew I wanted to create these cards using one of my favorite color combination—Coastal Cabana, Flirty Flamingo, Lemon Lime Twist (welcome back, I have missed you!) and Pool Party (you know, Coastal Cabana’s bestie).

I wanted each letter to be a different color, so why not make 4 cards mixing up the colors of each letter? No brainer and so efficient!

I did a little background stamping with the image from the Joy of Noel stamp set that looks like a sweater pattern. I stamped it off on my scratch pad in Pool Party first so it was just a light color and then flicked my Pool Party Stampin’ Blend over top. I also used my Stampin’ Blend to color some of our Basic Rhinestones.

I cut a 1 1/4 x 4 1/4 inch strip of Basic White that I could add my “Noel” to. I cut the letters (all cut with one die, so awesome!) on the Foam Adhesive Sheets first, then inlaid the individual letters after stamping and die cutting them. This way the letter is raised and completely solid. I love it!

Behind the panel I added three die cut sprigs cut with Lemon Lime Twist card stock and the Joy of Noel Dies.

I also added a bit of Silver Cord and White Iridescent Ribbon (trimmed in half) behind the Noel.

I LOVE how these set of cards turned out and I cannot wait to mail them out to some friends this holiday season. I think they are so bright and festive, even though they are a bit of an unusual holiday color combination.

I am really excited to see what Janneke has designed for us this month! I love her creations and am always so inspired by them! Click on the image to head straight to her blog!

I am so happy if my project inspires you to create some projects using something other than red and green for holiday cards! Please click any image to shop with me and help me keep doing what I love!

Creative Convention--Day 6!

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Welcome back friends! I hope you are enjoying everything I am sharing so far! I have had some much fun preparing all of these “Creative Convention” project ideas for you in anticipation of the new upcoming Holiday Catalogue! We are getting so close to the happiest time of year (which is my world is Sept-Dec!)

My project for today is a card with a fun fold that I make EVERY SINGLE YEAR! Its just one of my go to favorites as its a great way to give a gift card inside or hide some money or even a flat little chocolate.

This project is a combo one that uses both of the stamp sets from the Joy of Christmas Suite collection!

I love how these bundles work together so that you can build off of each one of them and I do appreciate the traditional aspect of this suite. I knew I wanted to add the Shaded Spruce gingham pattern from the Joy of Christmas 12x12 paper so I decided to make the card base the same color.

This is a standard card that is scored at 4 1/4, and then you score one side at 1 1/4 to make the flap that folds down creating the ‘pocket’. I also rounded the pocket on the flap and base for a little extra touch.

I added a 2 1/4 x 5 1/4 layer of Shaded Spruce that I ran through the Exposed Brick 3D folder in the annual catalogue—if you do not have this folder you need #addtocart now as its awesome and works with SO MANY things!

Both the Joy of Noel and the Christmas Classics stamp sets are a part of a bundle and the Christmas Classics dies have all the labels and some greenery, while the Joy of Noel dies of the word ‘Noel’ and some larger greenery. I am going to say that you will just need them both, hahaha!

The fun part of this card for me is the greenery that you see emerging from the top and bottom of this fold. I die cut this shape, which is really designed to be a label with the greenery and I cut it in half!

 

I then tucked this greenery under the DSP on the right and under the flap more in the middle leftish.

I sealed the card with 2 staples that you don’t see, to make the pocket. The I sealed the flap down with some Dimensionls.

Sometimes to keep the card closed I will use twine or ribbon. However, this time I wanted the Pecan Pie ribbon to be more of an accent in between the layers of my sentiment.

The sentiment is stamped in Cherry Cobbler and then I used one of the large images from the Joy of Noel set to stamp some imagery behind the sentiment. I used Crumb Cake ink that I stamped off on my scratch paper (or grid paper) so that it would be faint. I added the sentiment onto of a 2 1/4 inch circle of DSP to bring in a few color just peeking from the outside ring.

Lastly I added some embellishments, Adhesive-Backed Star Trinkets, from the O Holy Night suite. I thought they were a more unique touch to this project than just a gold sequin or such.

I am really really pleased with how this card turned out and I will no doubt be sharing it at my upcoming ‘Joy of Christmas’ Virtual Stamp Camp/Retreat.

Joy of Christmas Stamp Camp —co hosted with Tricia Schaelow from @stampint—if you are not following her, please do!

When: Saturday, Oct 21 at 10:30 am on Zoom (which is awesome as anyone from Canada can join in the fun with us)

Fun Stuff: The stamp camp is $75 and includes everything you see below —Joy of Noel stamp set, full roll of Black & Very Vanilla ribbon, and half a pkg of the Joy of Christmas 12x12 paper PLUS a special guest demonstration from my friend Julie @thepaperhaven and 6-8 make’n takes! These won’t be your ordinary make’n takes either—they will be a mix of 3D, holiday decor and cards!

Registration closes on Sept 30th for this event and your kit can be shipped anywhere in Canada at your expense! Please reach out if you are interested in registering (one of these days I will figure out how to take payment through Squarespace!)

I have one more project to share with you tomorrow as a part of my ‘Creative Convention’ weeklong extravaganza! I hope you will come back and please feel free to leave any comments!