These days we give (and receive) lots of gift cards or vouchers rather than physical presents.

In our house we like to top those gift cards up with some stocking filler type gifts too and for me, it seems really important to then go to some effort in packaging these tiny token gifts so the recipient can see that some effort has gone into it.

It's kind of the opposite of tying a bow around a new Masserati . . . and no, I'm not planning on doing that for anyone this Christmas LOL.

The packaging doesn't have to be complicated. These shiny gold striped treat bags from Stampin' Up! are perfect for adding a tag and a bow and creating a very elegant gift. There are 10 bags in a pack and they are food safe if you are into baking Christmas goodies!

The tag(s) in this case are so simple - layered squares of white cream and gold with the initial of the recipients name cut in gold foil card adhered to the top. Easy!

Why not give simple gift packaging a go next time you have a trinket or treat to give someone? 

Product List

Striped Treat Bags [144255] $9.50

Large Letters Framelits Dies [141712] $172.00

Gold Foil Sheets [132622] $7.00

Hey there papercrafters!

I promised some friends I would add a few details of my latest project here to the blog, so hopefully you can get enough information from it to give this project a try yourself.

My project inspiration came from a gorgeous album I saw on Instagram. You can see it here.

Start with Chipboard for your covers - 3 pieces, front, back and spine.

Connie's album is 9.5 x 9.5 cm. I found chipboard which was 11 x 15.4 cm so I decided my album was going to be 11 x 11 cm so I'd only have to do one cut in each piece with the steel ruler and craft knife. The off-cut of one piece then also became the spine, so there was little wasted.

I selected the piece of designer series paper which was going to form my cover  - I had a stack of 6" x 12" pieces from my team product share - and I laid the chip board pieces on it to see if it would wrap around like when you are covering school books.  It was pretty much the perfect size leaving about a 2cm fold on all four edges, with about 1/2 cm between the pieces to allow the covers to fold in. If you butt each piece of chipboard hard up against the next one the DSP will tear when you try to close the book - you need to leave a gap so it's flexible.

I applied double sided tape all over one side of each piece of chipboard then placed them sticky side down on the DSP. Then fold in the edge pieces, sticking them down as you go exactly if you were covering school books. You can see a bit of what that looks like in the photo below.

Next up was the concertina fold which forms the mechanism of the spine. The pocket pages are each attached to one of these tabs.  I made the tabs 1cm deep and 0.5cm apart.  In effect that meant scoring the Whisper White card at 4cm, 5cm, 6cm, 7cm, 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, 10, 11, 12, 12.5 . . . or at intervals 1cm, 1cm, 0.5cm, 1cm, 1cm, 0.5cm, 1cm, 1cm, 0.5cm etc until you have as many tabs as you need. I could have easily fitted one more in this spine so I had 7 pages, but I was happy having the extra 1cm on each end.

Attach this into the cover with Tombow Mono Liquid Glue or Tear'n'Tape.

I then attached 2 lengths of Poppy Parade ribbon to the inside of each cover and cut 2 squares of Poppy Parade card to cover the make sure the spine mechanism is more strongly attached to the cover. I then added a diagonal DSP pocket to each cover using that gorgeous flocked striped paper from the Santa's Workshop Designer Series Paper pack. It is such heavenly paper!

 Next step is the pages and Oh Happy Day! because I made the album covers 11cms, I could get away with cutting my A4 card stock in half lengthwise so I had two 10.5cm x 29.7cm pieces. I used Garden Green, Poppy Parade, Coastal Cabana, Crushed Curry and Gray Granite.

Score at 10.5cm, and 21.1cm, then trim off the end so you just have a 2-3cm flap for joining the piece in a loop.

The fun part was coming up with the decorating and I knew I wanted to use lots of the cute images from Santa's Workshop DSP and also from the Memories and More card pack.  Rather than trying to plan each page out one at a time, I find it easier to just cut a stack of images and coordinating papers then mix and match them.

Out comes the trusty Big Shot, because guess what!! Yes, the DSP is designed so that the images also fit the set of Santa's Signpost Framelit Dies which in turn matches the stamp set - HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!!

How Awesome is that!! Depending on how you line them up on the platform, you can cut up to 6 images at once!

I used matching pieces of patterned paper from our 6"x 6" Designer Series Paper Stacks - Crushed Curry, Poppy Parade, Coastal Cabana and Garden Green and also added a couple of ovals of Whisper White cut with the Layering Ovals Dies and the Stitched Shaped Framelits.

This shows you just how simple it can be.

Next I selected Memories and More cards to be the basis of the pull out tabs would be hidden inside each of the pocket pages, matched them up with card stock to make them 10cm x 9cm and punched a tab for each one.  I also went back over each page and insert tab to see if there were any glittery die cut stickers in the Memories and More kit that I could add to the each page to embellish it without over-doing it.

With the pages all finished it was time to attach the pockets to the spine of the album. I run a thin bead of Tombow Mono Liquid glue on each side of one tab (one at a time) and slide the pocket page over the tab, centering it vertically in the album, then hold it in place for a minute or so until the glue grabs, before moving on to the next one.

I then let is sit overnight before inserting my pull out tabs into each pocket too.

And Voila!

Last night I created a Facebook Live presentation of the finished album on my Facebook Business page. If you would like to see it, click on the photo below.

All of the products in this project are currently available through my online shop, to shoppers anywhere in Australia.  Click on the thumbnail images below to go straight to the item to order your own, or contact me if you need help. 

Product List

Santa's Workshop 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Specialty Designer Series Paper [147809] $24.25	Santa's Signpost Framelits Dies [147911] $56.00	Santa's Workshop Memories & More Card Pack [147905] $17.50
Poppy Parade A4 Cardstock [121694] $14.75	Garden Green A4 Card Stock [108605] $14.75	Card Stock A4 Crushed Curry [131288] $14.75
Card Stock A4 Coastal Cabana [131302] $14.75	Poppy Parade 1/2" (1.3 Cm) Textured Weave Ribbon [147813] $13.00	Gray Granite A4 Cardstock [147008] $14.75

Thanks for reading all this way!! Remember, if you need help with this, check out the video for a closer look, and send me a message if you need more information. Talk soon!

Kathryn

This week I am enjoying creating using new products from the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue, being inspired by projects and pages straight out of the catalogue (or Casing the Catty - as we call it), and sharing that inspiration with members of our wider Art With Heart Stampin' Up! team in a "Case the Catalogue" Blog Hop.

If you have arrived here from my lovely friend Kathryn Manglesdorf's blog, welcome. If you are starting here, grab a cuppa and follow the next button on each blog to do a full circle of creativity. And please leave us comments! We love to hear what you think.

Last week I was on our casual kiosk at Chirnside Park shopping centre all day Friday, and as I was packing my stuff on Thursday night (and trying to think what I would stamp all day Friday at the kiosk), my mum brought over Sweet Storybook Stamp set and framelits bundle and says, "You do want to stamp mice all day tomorrow, don't you?"

Oooh my! Yes Please!!!

Here's the super cute picture that is on page 160 of the Annual Catalogue. It's really hard to make out what format the cards take (which type of fold) because of the very light colours against the white background, but that gave me lots of scope for using my imagination in coming up with my own projects.

I stamped and stamped and cut out mice and leaves and had a fabulous day working with these gorgeous colours and these super cute images. I decorated four gift bags and made 3 cards.

The ribbon on the bags is Granny Apple Green. A lovely splash of green to match the leaves of the vine image.

I had a great deal of trouble stamping the little red flowers because of the string handles and the extra layer of strong reinforcing card on the inside of the top of the bag - made my image miss-stamp each time, and because it was such a tiny stamp it was very easy to get an ink halo.

I discovered later that it was much easier to get an awesome image of the flowers by putting all 3 flower stamps on a block at once. There is also a framelit for each of the flowers so you will see that the cards I completed next have the flowers stamped and cut out separately instead of being stamped direct on the background like I tried to do with the bags.

Here's some close up's of each one.  The first was just a normal fold A5 card, but with 3 layers on the front being 4 Stampin' Dimensionals deep.

The next card was a tri-fold card with a window through the first two panels to show the inside of the card.

And lastly I created a diorama card with 3 layers which will fold flat to fit in our standard envelope.

All of these projects are made using Whisper White Card stock, Soft Sea Foam Card stock, Granny Apple Green Classic Ink Pad, either Lovely Lipstick or Calypso Coral Classic Inkpads for the top of the mushroom and the flowers, Crumb Cake Ink painted on with an Aquapainter for the mushroom stem, and a combination of Crumb Cake or Gray Granite Ink for the mice, with outline stamps in Momento Black.

Aren't these just too cute?

Product List

Sweet Storybook Photopolymer Bundle [148409] $77.25	Soft Sea Foam A4 Cardstock [147012] $14.75	Granny Apple Green Stampin' Pad [147095] $13.00
Lovely Lipstick Classic Stampin' Pad [147140] $13.00	Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad [147116] $13.00	Blender Pens [102845] $21.00

 If you've left me a comment (thank you!!) and are ready to continue on in the blog hop and see what everyone else has created, then please click on the next blog picture here and go see what gorgeous projects talented Kate Morgan has created!

Catherine Proctor
Kimberly Hern 

Monika O’Neill

Caroline Manwaring

Kathryn Mangelsdorf 

Kathryn Ruddick 

Kate Morgan 

Alisha Watson

Rachel Palmeri 

Andrea Roberts 

Ros Davidson

Rebecca Jacovou

Rachel Woollard

Tina Gillespie

During late November, some of my lovely Stampin' Up! team members and I were at the Stampin' Up! stand at the Melbourne Stitches and Craft Show.

We love meeting people at the Craft Shows - and the Royal Exhibition Building is something super special - except for the fact that the weather was like this week and that dear old building doesn't have Air Conditioning!! Boy was it hot!!

I've taken a break from the major craft shows for the last year or two, as it's a) a lot of work!! and b) quite expensive . . . but this year to offset our costs of having the stand there, we agreed to prepare and sell kits for various papercraft projects.

There are a few of these left over, and I'd like to share them with you, in case you didn't get to the show and would like to get your hands on some great ready to make kits, and excellent instructions.

Explosion Box Card

First we we have two Explosion Box kits. 

Kits include all pre-cut pieces, card, paper, labels and ribbon, as well as full instructions. You will need to provide adhesives and in some cases a Christmas (or other) greeting stamp set.

In-Colour Butterfly Explosion Box, and Christmas music Explosion Box. $20 each + postage. Kit size is 12" x 12"

Next : Box in a Card Kit

Kits include all pre-cut pieces, card, paper, labels and ribbon, as well as full instructions. You will need to provide adhesives and in some cases a Christmas (or other) greeting stamp set.  Kit is $10 + postage.

Third, a cheerful, floral all occasions card.

Could be used for birthday or thinking of you.

Kits include all pre-cut pieces, card, paper, labels and ribbon, as well as full instructions. You will need to provide adhesives and in some cases a Christmas (or other) greeting stamp set.  Kit is $8 + postage.

If you would like to purchase any of these kits. please comment below with your email address, or email kathryn@katlodesigns.com  Payment via DD, CC or Paypal. Kits will be posted as soon as payment is received. Multiples of each kit still available.

Hey there!

How are you going? If you are like me in Melbourne today, you are probably rugged up inside with the heating cranked up, two jackets and a beanie on, as well as thick socks and slippers, and I'm still freezing!!

Terrific weather for stamping - if you can get your frozen fingers to work!

I have had a busy month or so in the lead up to our Stamping Retreat last weekend, so I'm pleased to be finally back with another Making Merry Monday post.

This past week or so, a customer has been asking me all about the Envelope Punch Board. It's a great tool, and you don't just make envelopes with it!

Apart from making SIXTY SIX different size envelopes, did you know you could also make Christmas Bon Bons with the Envelope Punch Board?

You can make them in various different sizes, and we always have some on display at our Christmas in July events that are coming up soon. If the bon bon in this photo looks familiar to you - I made this one in December 2013 when I was in Tasmania with my sister after a tragic accident took the life of her partner. The funeral was only a few days before Christmas, and we took some time out to make some thank you cards for the well-wishers, and I was asked to show them how to make the bon bon.

Did you notice the matching card has the punched out pieces (the leftover scraps) from the envelope punch board, arranged as Christmas baubles? So clever!

That year we also used the Envelope Punch Board to create cute little snow-men gifts / placeholders.

See how the indent punch from the punch board shapes the snowman's neck as well as the hat? And the leftover pieces have become his big happy smile.

These hold one Ferrero Rocher each - a very cute treat to decorate your Christmas in July table!

I'm so pleased after all these years that Stampin' Up! still has the Envelope Punch Board in their range and carrying over into the new annual catalogue.

BUT . . . did you know . . .

We also have two other punch boards and one of those is retiring and won't be available after Wednesday when the current catalogue finishes.

That's right, the Gift Box Punch Board, which makes boxes up to 4" square will no longer be available after this Wednesday, 31st May.

You can see it, plus all the other retiring products in my online store here.

We are really coming to the end of a great annual catalogue now - just a couple more days to go and some of my favourite stamping items will no longer be available. If you have been sitting on the fence holding off from buying something that's retiring, please don't be the person to email me on Thursday and ask me if you can order one of these or one of those? Or a Gift Box Punch Board. If they are not sold out before, their item code will be switched off at midnight on Wednesday and they will be gone forever.

Check the retiring list here to make sure you don't miss any favourites.

I'll be back with a reminder on Wednesday for those who are happy to order online.

Happy Easter to You!

Hope you  have a safe and enjoyable day with your families no matter where you are and what you are doing.

In my "We Create Wednesday" class this week, we created some pretty Easter projects.

We decorated the mini egg cartons by spritzing with Mint Macaron Ink Refill, and wrapping with Sweet Sugar Plum Patterns Paper from the In Colour Paper Stack.

The little bunny stamp is from the Made With Love stamp set, the gorgeous greeting stamp is from Suite Sentiments stamp set, the little lamb is from Barnyard Babies and the "eggs" are upside down balloons with the knot cut off, from the fun stamp set, Balloon Adventures.

These were all really quick, easy projects and next time Easter falls right at the end of the school holidays, projects similar to these would be great to make with the kids when you start to hear, "Mum, I'm bored!"

Have an awesome day and stay safe!

Are you ready for another blog hop with some of the awesome ladies in the Art With Heart Stampin’ Up! team? 
Today we focus on the new Stampin' up! Occasions Catalogue and also Sale-a-bration! If you place an order with me during Sale-a-bration, you can choose a free item with every $90 you spend in one transaction. There are lots of fabulous free items to choose from (ask me for a brochure and an Occasions Catalogue). The promotion goes right through until 31st March.

Better still, become part of our awesome fun, friendly and supportive Art With Heart team. We have a really large team Australia wide that has been around since Stampin’ Up! came to Australia. We have a very active team forum and also have in person stamp days, challenges, card swaps, product shares and more. When you join with me during Sale-a-bration, you get 2 extra free stamp sets of your choice (of any value) plus $235 product (whatever you choose). That's up to $414 product for just $169. You also get free postage! It’s quick and easy to join online too. Ask me about joining today.

I just love the Carousels and Cupcakes Product Suite in the Occasions Catalogue, so it figured that I would go kind of crazy this past week or so with some creations using this gorgeous stamp set and Designer Series Paper Stack. The three cards you see at the top were all cased from Pinterest and my stamp club ladies enjoyed making them last week, to get our mojo into gear for 2017.

Here are some close ups.

But what I really wanted to do, and something I started planning a couple of weeks ago, was an actual carousel using the gorgeous carousel horses. My birthday is coming up, and I thought, how amazing to make my own cake topper with these gorgeous products!

This one is seriously just a prototype because it's kind of wonky and I used a stack of glue with the hot glue gun, but how gorgeous, gorgeous is it??

I was more than happy last night to discover the Global Design Project theme this week is 3D projects so I'm waving the #GDP071 flag too, along with the Case-ing the Catty Team who have Cupcakes & Carousels as their inspiration this week!

The next link in the blog hop is our creative team leader, Claire Daly, click on the arrow to go to her blog! 

If you click the arrow at the end of each blog post, you will go full circle and come back here. 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. Ros Davidson
2. Rebecca Jacovou
3. Tina Gillespie
4. Judy May
5. Kate Morgan
6. Rachel Palmieri
7. Kathryn Mangelsdorf
8. Monika O'Neill
9. Kathryn Ruddick
10. Claire Daly
11. Rachel Woollard
12. Alisha Watson
13. Kim Dallinger

Square Tea Light Holder or Lantern

I said I was going to show you more projects I have made recently with the Botanical Blooms Builder Framelits, but I have scheduled that post for another day, because in the meantime, THIS happened!!

I posted this photo on a demonstrator only group on Facebook and in less than 24 hours had 500 reactions!! And plenty of really lovely comments too! Including requests for the instructions.

So, since it has been so well liked, I thought I had better share it with my other stamping friends too, not just demonstrators!

Start with an A4 sheet of Crumb Cake Card stock. Cut it in half lengthways. You'll have two pieces, each measuring 10.5cm x 29.8cm.

Score at 11cm and 22cms, then cut off the end at the 22.5cm mark.

Cut a 13 x 13cm square also of Crumb Cake, score all four sides at the 1cm mark. Snip out the corners.

Line up the largest thinlet from Detailed Floral Thinlets within each square of the side wall pieces and cut it using the Big Shot. You will need to cut it twice in each piece.

Apply Stampin' Up! Tear 'n' Tape as shown in the picture and join the two side wall pieces together.

Decorate by stamping and sponging with Cajun Craze and Soft Suede Ink Pads. I used the border stamp from the co-ordinating Floral Phrases Stamp Set and the spatter stamp from Swirly Bird Stamp Set and lots of sponging with my Stampin' Up! sponge daubers.

When you have done enough "antiquing" its time to attach layers of vellum on the inside of each panel. I used the Stampin' Up! Card Stock Vellum - love this gorgeous, smooth, thick vellum. The start attaching the base by wrapping the long side wall panel around the base starting in one corner and working each side.

Insert a battery operated tea light and enjoy the gorgeous warm glow.

How much do you love that antiqued look and the beautiful cut-out design?

The Detailed Floral Thinlets are $49.00 AUS or can be purchased in a bundle with the lovely co-ordinating stamp set, Floral Phrases which is available in Stampin' Up!s quality red rubber in woodmount or clearmount, to adhere to your clear blocks.

There is in fact, a whole beautiful product suite on pages 76 & 77 of our catalogue. See it here.

One of the exciting things that happened on our wider (local) Stampin' Up! team in the past couple of months was a Platinum promotion. Now if you are not a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, that probably means zero, zip, zilch to you. But to my fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrators, it means an awful lot.

Since our "career plan" changed in October last year, this was the very first promotion to Platinum level in Australia and it was our very own Claire Daly from Lilydale who promoted. I think this promotion is a big deal, and obviously all our Stampin' Sisters / cousins / grandmas etc across Australia thought the same, because when I suggested creating a special handmade Platinum gift for Claire to commemorate her promotion, lots of people jumped on board.

I suggested each person cut out and decorate a scallop circle and include their name and that somehow I would assemble them all into some sort of frame or album. Kathryn Mangelsdorf from Adelaide suggested we stick to a colour scheme - obviously the silver for platinum, but also Mint Macaron and Blushing Bride. Before I knew it, all sorts of gorgeous scallop circles were arriving!

I got far too many to fit into a frame, so I decided to use the Lots of Labels Framelits and make an accordion book with a black base to mount them all onto.

This "banner" ended up being 2.7 metres long! So of course it then had to have a gorgeous box to keep it in. I felt a black base, with silver lining, and an acetate lid would do just the trick. so I measured up my folded banner to see what size I would need to make, and constructed a box with separate lid.

I was heading off to Auckland for 4 days in late March, so in the end it was a real rush to pull all this together, but for such a special promotion, I was glad to spend the time and make a really special gift, and the look on Claire's face when she received it, along with a ginormous arrangement of flowers and a bottle of bubbly, was definitely worth the effort!

Congratulations again Claire for setting a benchmark and achieving your goals as a Stampin' Up! team leader and business builder!

#likeaboss #likeagirl #tickingboxes #gogetthosegoals #platinumpromotion #artwithheart #stampinup 

We had such a busy month in July with our Christmas in July event and trying to kick the Christmas crafting into gear, that I still have a couple more projects I haven't shown you close up!

This first one is such a fun gift!

In the basket is a stack of Chocolate Sliders.  What is a chocolate slider? Well, essentially it's a cute cover with a bow attached that you pull, to slide the chocolate out from the cover. It's a really cool way of giving someone what is in essence, a really simple gift, but it's been personalised in a really special way for them.

I don't have a template for this, because each time I have made chocolate sliders, I have purchased the chocolate block first, then made a new template in the matching size - in other words, I get out a steel ruler and make the cover from scratch each time depending on the size of the block.

Can you see that the snowman on the Soft Sky chocolate slider (and the coordinating card in the background) is made entirely from different Stampin' Up! punches?

The 1" square for the hat, the Word Window for the hat brim, a circle punch for his head, two scallop circles for his body, the Tree Builder punch for his arms and the hearts on his chest.

The Santa's body Chocolate Slider uses a circle punch and the 1" square punch too.

Let me know if you'd like to attend a class to make these. They are such fun to make, and to give as gifts, I'd be happy to schedule a class to teach you how.

Related articles

Christmas in July - Blog Hop

Christmas in July Event

Awesomely Artistic - ESAD Blog Hop