Simple Cardmaking Ideas

The Tailored Tag punch makes it simple to create a very eye-catching Quilt Pattern design on your Christmas cards using Designer Series Paper - in this case, Under The Mistletoe DSP from the Stampin' Up! annual catalogue.

And what's more - you can punch out dozens of the elongated hexagons in a very short time, so it's perfect for your Christmas card production line.

This first photo shows the fun I had coming up with a design for our Christmas in July class. It got better!

I loved making the samples using the new Designer Series Paper, but when it came to prepping for the actual event, because of the timing of the event vs when the new catalogue started, vs me coming back from Italy and then going to Alaska . . . I decided to use up a heap of This Christmas DSP that was already in my stash from last year! It meant changing from Real Red to Cherry Cobbler, and from Shaded Spruce to Garden Green, but I think the design still works just as well.

At the event we had several card making stations, so for each of the projects I prepared a 12"x 12" board with some basic instructions to help less experienced people get through.

It was also a great opportunity to use up heaps of that excess Cherry Cobbler ribbon I seem to have accumulated, and to use those beautiful wooden snowflakes which I was storing for "one of these days".

I'm certain all of us have Christmas paper, ribbon and embellishments in our stash that need to be used up not hoarded?

If you go ahead and make some cards like these ones, I would love to see them!

Product List

Tailored Tag Punch [145667] $31.00

Under The Mistletoe Designer Series Paper [146921] $19.25

Under The Mistletoe A4 Cardstock Pack [146923] $14.75

Stampin' Up! Christmas Card Ideas

Are you a person who likes to make dozens of Christmas cards to send out to your loved ones, or even to give to charity or to send out to a worthy cause?

When November clicks onto the calendar, it's quickly getting to be that crazy time of year when your realise if you're going to get started, it better be now!

 Over the next little while I'm going to share some of our projects from Christmas in July (and since then) including many of the details of how they were created. Hopefully this will inspire you to get started, or get on with it!

One thing I love is a good production line!

But not too many fancy steps, and not too many cards.

There's nothing worse than coming up with a design which includes colouring and fussy cutting, cutting all the card stock to make 100, and then realising what a massive task you've got before you! If you're going to do a production line, keep it to 15-20 cards and have more easy layers rather than lots of colouring or fussy cutting.

Pre-cutting the pieces like this also means making it very transportable. If you are going away for a weekend, or going to watch the boys play cricket, you can easily pop all the bits into one small plastic tub and take it with you to do some assembling! My dear friend Wendy Costa-Davis is an expert at this, preparing in advance so she can complete dozens of cards when she is away on craft retreat weekends.

My most excellent Stampin' Up! buddy, Michelle Corbett designed this sweet and simple Christmas Card for our classes at the Stitches and Craft Into Christmas Show at the Royal Exhibition Building last November. It was a great one to revamp for Christmas in July.

It uses the Painted Harvest stamp set which is not a Christmas stamp set so it gives you a great variation for how to use the sunflower stamp, and we used up a stack of last years' In Color Designer Series Paper in the gorgeous Tranquil Tide which is a perfect darker Christmas green.

The card also uses Cherry Cobbler ink, the Every Day Label Punch and the Snowflake Sentiments stamp set. A very simple and yet effective card.

I'm sure you have several of these items in your craft collection. Why not have a go at a card like this today? 

Product List

Painted Harvest Photopolymer Stamp Set [144783] $37.00	Silver 3/8" Metallic-Edge Ribbon [144213] $12.25	Tranquil Tide Classic Stampin' Pad [147146] $13.00
Cherry Cobbler Classic Stampin' Pad [147083] $13.00	Everyday Label Punch [144668] $31.00	Snowflake Sentiments Clear-Mount Stamp Set [144820] $38.00

I'll be back with more of our Christmas projects before you know it! See you then!

Kathryn

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

Well, it's that time of year again for our wonderful Christmas in July card making and papercraft event.

This is an event where several of my Stampin' Up! team members work together to bring you a variety of Make & Take projects, awesome display of projects and products, a sumptuous afternoon tea and the opportunity to make an extra card or two for a deserving charity.

I have been researching on Pinterest (wink!!) all sorts of amazing Christmas projects using some of the stamp sets and tools which you may have purchased from your demonstrator last year - so you will get a whole range of new ideas for using products already in your collection. Or if you haven't already got them, these are products which carried over into the new annual catalogue, so you can still order them.

Here's a screenshot of some of the ideas I have been gathering - thanks to the clever demonstrators who created them for sharing such fun ideas!

We won't necessarily be making all of these cards exactly but they are a great source of inspiration and we will have some lovely variations! There will also be some new Christmas products on display.

So, if that has whetted your appetite, you'd probably like to know some of the details right?

WHERE: ParkLife Church Cafe, 1 Saint John's Road, Wonga Park Victoria (easy to find, off street parking, accessible).

WHEN : Saturday 7th July 2018 from 12 noon until 4pm.   Afternoon tea is quite lavish, so feel free to have just a light lunch or brunch before you come and use some of the time in the afternoon to enjoy a cuppa and refreshments while catching up with your stamping friends in between making cards and Christmas projects.

COST: $40 each - tickets to be purchased via Eventbrite prior to the event. Buy Now.

WHAT TO BRING:  Your basic tool kit - pencil, scissors, adhesive, babywipes, bonefolder, etc named and in your little pencil case. No need to bring large tools.

Any questions?

Contact me on 0418 361 931, or via Facebook Messenger.

Hey there!

Can you believe its Monday again?

And its almost over! Just sneaking in a really quick Making Merry Monday.

Our lovely Stamp Club ladies got to create a couple of Z-fold cards last week to compliment the other Be Merry Christmas Cards I had finished earlier.

They made an awesome display at our casual kiosk on Friday.

I'll be putting together some Christmas card stamp-a-stacks for coming weeks.

Let me know which weekday you can attend.

I have been starting to think about the projects for Christmas in July!

I love that so many of last year's popular Holiday Catalogue stamp sets have carried over so we can still buy them! Including : Hang Your Stocking Stamp Set and the Christmas Stocking Framelits.

I am really looking forward to having a play with these - the old Christmas stocking stamp set and punch were so popular, and these are even prettier!

Did you buy this stamp set last year? What did you make with it?
I will be back soon with some sneak peeks of my Hang Your Stocking Stamp-a-stack for Christmas in July! Look out for it.

BE MERRY SUITE

I just love how many Christmas products there are in the new Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue - a good mix of cute new ones, but also, delightfully, a lot of last year's favourites carried over, which means we get to enjoy them for longer! This makes me happy!

And, I have all sorts of ideas for Christmas in July swirling around in my head!

This year there is a return to traditional red and green. I know a few people who will be very happy with that, and to celebrate, I am offering product shares of the beautiful traditional papers, ribbon and embellishments on pages 112 & 113 of the catalogue - from the BE MERRY SUITE.

I will be using all of these products during my Christmas in July events, so you will get lots of inspiration, and if you order a bundle now, you will have your own stamp set to use at the events.

There are several options for these product shares. 

First Option, there's the I Want It All Bundle which consists of full packs of all the products in the product suite:

Your order will include:

Merry Mistletoe Stamp set, in either woodmount $47 or clear mount $33
Be Merry Designer Series Paper 12 sheets, 12"x 12"  $19.25, Boxwood Wreaths x 12 $10.50, Be Merry A4 Cardstock Pack - 24 sheets, Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green & Thick Whisper White $14.00,  Metallic Enamel Shapes 100 pieces in silver and gold, $12.25, Cherry Cobbler Double Stitched 1/4" ribbon $12.25
Total bundle Woodmount $115.25 + postage or Clear Mount $101.25 + postage

Second Option - Half share
Your order will include the Merry Mistletoe Stamp set in either Woodmount $47 or Clearmount $33

And half share of all other products in the suite:   Be Merry Designer Series Paper (6 full sheets) $9.65, Boxwood Wreaths x 6 $5.25, Be Merry A4 Cardstock x 12 sheets $7.00, Metallic Enamel shapes x 50 $6.15, Cherry Cobbler Double Stitched Ribbon x 1/2 roll (4.55m) $6.15
Total : Woodmount $81.20 + postage or Clear mount $67.20 + postage

Third option - 1/4 share
Your order will include the Merry Mistletoe Stamp set in either Woodmount $47 or Clearmount $33

And a one quarter share of all other products in the suite : Be Merry Designer Series Paper (6 sheets, 12"x 6") $4.85, Boxwood Wreaths x 3 $2.65, Be Merry A4 Cardstock x 6 sheets $3.50, Metallic Enamel shapes x 25 $3.10, Cherry Cobbler Double Stitched Ribbon x 1/4 roll (2.25cm) $3.10
Total : Woodmount $64.20 + post or Clearmount $50.20+ post.

I just love the quirky stamp set images and the gorgeous traditional colours of this product suite, teamed with such awesome embellishments. I can't wait to start showing you some project inspiration at my Christmas in July events. If you want to start getting prepared, you can order Option 1 - The I Want It All Option by clicking here and ordering online.

If you would like to order one of the half or quarter share bundles, phone or email me with your order as I will have to divide up the paper, ribbon and embellishments for you. Payment accepted via cash drop off, Direct Debit or Credit Card.

NOTE: If you don't live locally to me, there may also be a postage cost from my place to your's after I cut and sort the shares. This is normally $8.50 in a red satchel but with the stamp set, may be extra and will need to be weighed and cost confirmed at time of posting.

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.

The retiring products list has thrown everyone into a spin, but there are some great Christmas sets that are carrying over from our current catalogue into the new one, and on top of that, some of the favourites from our Holiday Catalogue are reappearing too. This is so good for our advance planning!

Here's a couple of projects I did using a non-Christmas set, and just decorating them with a few bits to make them for the Festive Season.

The cute racoon is from Foxy Friends stamp set which will be in the new catalogue.

See how I have popped the "Hardwood" layer up with dimensionals to make it look like a frame and the little raccoon's head is on the inside, but his body is outside.

This is the inside of the card. The vine leaves are also from Foxy Friends stamp set.

I'm looking forward to seeing what new Christmas paper we get in the new catalogue but in the meantime I'll be happy to use bits and pieces like this!

Have you started yet? Comment below and let us know what you are making.