Hi again!

I hope you had a nice day yesterday...whether you observe Christmas or not!  We had really nice, peaceful family day, with thoughtful and creative gifts, a family board game, and nice meals together.  

Perhaps you have some Happy New Year  or winter birthday cards you need to make?  Today I've got a couple of cards made with the Snowflake Sentiments set, which I used on cards for my parents and brother & sister-in-law.  I will confess that I used a non-Stampin' Up! sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Baaah Humbug set, one of the very few "contraband" sets I own.

Do you recognize the Designer Series Paper? It's from Delightful Daisy!  As soon as I saw this sheet last summer I knew I wanted to use it for a snowy background.

This card was CASE'd from Sue Vine.  I changed the color of the base card, and had to re-figure her measurements since she's based in Australia and uses A4 cardstock and centimeters (I think she tries to include inches in her video, but since the cardstock size is off I had to change things).  The video is great for showing her technique for getting the white overlay to match up to the colored base. and sponging the ombré color on the sentiments.

Don't forget to put my classes and events on it!

January Monthly Class
Make 5 projects featuring a variety of techniques and great Stampin' Up! products. Perfect for experienced and novice crafters!
$20 - all supplies included
RSVP Deadline:  Sunday, January 7
Tuesday, January 9
6:30 - 9:00 pm at Ellen's House in Peoria (near 75th Ave & Deer Valley Rd)
Wednesday, January 10
9:30 - noon in Nancy's Craft Room in Scottsdale
6:30 - 9:00 pm in Nancy's Craft Room in Scottsdale


New! Stamping BINGO

• Stampin’ Up! goodie bag for everyone ($30 value)
• 5 rounds of BINGO with SU! prizes ($30 value)
• One Black-Out Final Round with a Grand Prize Winner
  (approximately $70 SU! shopping spree + 1 half-price item)
• 2 make-and-take projects featuring new SU! products

RSVP & $60 Prepayment due by Sunday, Jan. 7  Click here for form.
Saturday, January 20
9:00 - noon in Nancy’s Craft Room in Scottsdale

Apologies for taking so long to get to this second part!  

This post will show you how I've used pieces from both kits (and a few extras) to make 22 cards from the October Pining for Plaid kit designed to make 10 cards.  

Here are some examples of how the kit was designed to be assembled.  They are really cute and easy shaker cards, and I enjoyed making them.  But there were so many other ideas shared online I had to do more!
​
​The best way to stretch the kit into more cards was to cut up many of the pre-printed plaid on one side, white on the other card bases.  Most were simply cut in half and mounted onto Thick Whisper White card bases, but some were cut smaller or into other shapes and used in various ways. ​

These cards feature a number of elements that weren't in the kits, although all of the white circles are punched out of the shaker card layers and were intended to be discarded.  

The pine trees on the two cards are cut with the Card Front Builder Thinlits Dies, and coordinate perfectly with the pre-printed (and somewhat larger) pine trees printed on panels in the kit - I love how Stampin' Up! thinks of details like this!  

​The bottom, center card's snowflake pennants are from the November Back in Plaid stocking kit.  The card on the right actually uses the larger plaid from Merry Little Christmas Designer Series Paper along with a sprig of leaves from the November kit.

Can you figure out how I made Rudolf?  The Lemon Punch!  His ears are the leaves from that punch, and the antlers are 2 sprigs of leaves from the November kit, sponged with Soft Suede ink to darken them up.

​The center card is a CASE of Rachel Tessman's bridge card.  She "sacrificed" two of the pre-printed tree panels for her card (she must order many kits to use in creating), but I didn't want to use two of them this way, so I used those pine tree dies again, and cut Whisper White panels for the bridge and the back.  The stamp set has snowflakes that match the pre-printed panel that Rachel used in the background, so I just stamped both panels randomly with them in Pool Party.  The base is one of the kit's card bases with a portion cut off and additional score lines added.  You can see all the details on Rachel's post here.

The right card uses more of the pennants from November's kit, along with the strip cut off for the bridge card. 

This gate-fold card actually uses 1 ½ card bases...one is scored at 2 ⅛" on each side to make the gate (ignore the center score), and the other half is trimmed slightly on each long side to fit within the folds to make the inside of the card (and cover that center score line).  I used one of the pre-printed pine tree panels and popped up another die cut pine tree on Dimensionals.  Then I mounted it on a Basic Black square and adhered the left side only to the left gate panel. Fine tip glue worked well to add some of the kit's sequins for a bit of sparkle. Inside I stamped more snowflakes in Pool Party, the sentiment and glued another pine tree die cut flat.

The left card is another mash-up of both kits.  The snowflake is a November kit pennant cut with a circle punch.  The largest Cherry Cobbler circle is one of the shaker layer punch outs, colored with a Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Blend marker, though one could use the Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Spot in the October kit and smear the color right on.

The right card's holly leaves are a clever use of the sunburst stamp in the kit that I discovered in Kathie Zaban's video.  

I love the look of the telescoping card!  I wound up making 3 of these I liked it so much.  Rachel Tessman gives directions on how to cut the squares on a paper cutter, but I "cheated" on my later ones and just nested two Layering Squares Framelits, held them together with washi tape, and ran the panels through my Big Shot.  The outer square is adhered flat to the Basic Black square, then the middle one is mounted with one layer of Dimensionals, the middle with two layers.  I glued 2 of the star sequins from the kit on top of the trees.

The right card simply mounts the gold foil trees punched out of pennant pieces from November's kit on a Basic Black panel along with a sentiment and gold foil mat from the October kit.

Another CASE from Rachel Tessman...this is a Note Card stamped with the pine tree stamp from October's kit multiple times in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and once in Old Olive ink along with the sentiment from November's kit.  I colored rhinestones and pearls with a variety of Stampin' Blends and stuck them randomly on the Old Olive tree.

I still had a number of shaker card pieces remaining, so I used some of the Merry Little Christmas DSP in place of the kit's card bases to make a few more shaker cards.  This shows you all of the 22 card designs I made with this kit.  Here are a few non-card projects:

One card base was used to make these little treat holders...I scored ½" on either side of the existing center score line to accommodate the Hershey's Nuggets, then sliced the base into (3) 1.5" strips and folded on my score lines.  I adhered 3 Nuggets together with Glue Dots, then to the bottom of the holder.  I cut 3 more of the November kit pennants - making squares with the gold foil trees and mounting them on slightly larger Cherry Cobbler squares.  The remaining portion of the white pennants were stamped with the To/From stamp and adhered to the back.  A length of Cherry Cobbler baker's twine from the kit was wrapped around 3 of the kit's clothespins and used to keep the holders closed at the top.

Finally, I made this ornament by nesting some Layering Circle Framelits and cutting the plaid frame from a scrap of card base.  I also cut a Whisper White circle and stamped snowflakes and a sentiment on it, and cut one of the kit's acetate pieces to match.  I used one of the shaker card foam circles to assemble.  A smaller circle of plaid is adhered to the back to hide where the Old Olive ⅛" Sheer Ribbon is attached. A Gold ⅛" Ribbon bow finishes it off.

Whew!  It was a fun, creative challenge to see how many different projects I could make from these 2 kits.  I encourage you to see my inspiration on my Paper Pumpkin Pinterest Board.  There are a lot more ideas pinned there...and I have just a few things left over in my kits that may let me try some!

The October and November Paper Pumpkin kits were a first for Stampin' Up! in the they were designed to coordinate with each other.  The idea was probably that one would make the cards in the October kit, and be able to give them with the stockings in the November kit.  

But you know us creative types...we had to come up with alternative projects!  In this post I will show you everything I've made with the stockings.  The original kits contained supplies intended to make  10 stockings.  I didn't go so far as to cut up the stockings, so I have 6 projects with those.

The kit as envisioned by SU!'s concept artists.

This is my version, but before decorating the stockings I spritzed them with hairspray and ran them through the Big Shot with the Cable Knit Dynamic Embossing Folder.  A big shout out to Arlene Mantle Was Dunham who posted this idea...it really dresses up the plain muslin!  Lindor Truffles fit perfectly into the toes of each of these, and 3 of them are filled with an additional truffle, a mini hand sanitizer and mini hand cream from  Bath & Body Works.  The fourth has 2 additional truffles and the chocolate santa.  Just be sure whatever you're buying to go in has a 2-inch or smaller diameter.

Rachel Tessman, queen of everything Paper Pumpkin, shared these 2 ideas.  On the left a stocking has a marble put in the toe, and it's tied into place with Basic Black Baker's Twine.  Then the cuff is slipped onto a decorated 4 oz paper coffee/espresso cup that's been decorated with some punched cardstock.  The nose is a petal from the Daisy Punch, trimmed to a point at one end and with some black marks for the ridges.   There definitely needs to be something in the cup to act as a counterweight to the marble...this one has one Ferrero Rocher candy in it, Rachel had a K-Cup for a Keurig machine and a couple of Hershey's nuggets in hers.  One of my customers put some coins in to weigh it down and is intending to use her in a festive display.  Rachel also showed one of the stocking caps on a candle that she decorated the same way.

Folding the cuff down an additional time makes the stocking resemble a baby's bootie. I stamped the sentiment from the kit's stamp set and added a Powder Pink bow from the 2017-2019 In Color Bitty Bows.  Baby's first ornament, or a gift card, or a little pair of booties would fit nicely in here. 

Inspired by another post on the Paper Pumpkin Fan Club Facebook Group, I made this bunting/banner/pennant/whatchamacallit.  I stamped the stockings randomly with the small star that is in the kit, and used the Cherry Cobbler pennants and Old Olive leaves, but instead of using the Whisper White pennants with them I cut out Gold Glimmer Paper letters to spell noel.  The letters are from the now-retired Bigz Alphabet Typeset because I thought the Large Letters Framelits might be too large.

December
Holiday Help Hours 
Less than 10 days before Christmas, and Hanukkah has started...are you still needing to wrap things up?  Drop in and let me help with some solutions for

• Gift Tags
• Co-worker/Secret Santa Gifts
• Stocking Stuffers
• Gift Card Packaging
• Gift Certificates for Paper Pumpkin/SU! Product/Classes

Also, feel free to bring your presents and gift wrap and get everything wrapped while socializing and without prying eyes!   

Cost will vary depending on projects made.

Wednesday, December 13
9:30 am - 9:00 pm in Nancy's Craft Room in Scottsdale
No RSVP required, but a heads-up about when you're planning to stop by would be appreciated.  

 January
Monthly Card Class
Make 5 projects featuring a variety of techniques and great Stampin' Up! products. Perfect for experienced and novice crafters!
​$20 - all supplies included

RSVP Deadline:  Sunday, January 7

Tuesday, January 9
6:30 - 9:00 pm at Ellen's House in Peoria (near 75th Ave & Deer Valley Rd)

Wednesday, January 10
9:30 - noon in Nancy's Craft Room in Scottsdale
6:30 - 9:00 pm in Nancy's Craft Room in Scottsdale