St Pat's Cards

 Not a huge fan of St. Patrick's Day -- I do make cards but I do not make treat holders and such. Earlier this year I had ordered the Gnome die set from Jaded Blossoms. For Valentine's Day they sold a die set for the original Gnome die set - Valentine Gnome Add On I believe it was called. I did not order that add on set but.... 

When I saw the St. Patrick's Day Gnome Add On die set I placed my order. Here is a photo of that set:

A recent stop at Hobby Lobby and I picked up a new St. Patrick's Day card stock print for my cards for this year:

The shamrock print was more of an emerald green and I knew I had solid emerald green card stock for my card stock bases in the stash so I was happy to find this print. Using my scraps I decided to cut out the gnome for St. Pat's. With this die set having so many tiny die pieces I decided not to cut the die pieces apart but to keep it as a one piece die set:

Die cut the gnome base, hat, nose, shoes, and beard from the original die set for the gnome. From the St. Pat's set I die cut the hat, pot of gold, hands, and shamrock using scraps. Assembled the gnomes and here he is:

I have the Diagonal Stripes hot foil plate in my stash from Spellbinders and I wanted to use that for background for the gnome. To start with I cut the emerald green card stock for the card base with it scored at the top. Used a piece of white card stock for the card front and trimmed the shamrock printed card stock for the card front. Put the card pieces together using the ATG. With all my gnomes die cut and assembled I decided to foil a background frame piece. 

Using the Hammermill card stock I used the Glimmer hot foil machine and Spellbinders diagonal stripes hot foil plate and their gold foil for my background piece. Once the white card stock was foiled I set that aside. Using the PinkFresh solid hot foil plate I used the same piece of foil I had just used on the white card stock background and foiled that onto a new piece of white card stock - once that was done I peeled off the wasted foil piece and this was all that was left of the wasted foil:

Here are two cards I made using the same piece of gold hot foil:

The card on the left was the first piece that was foiled and the card on the right uses the wasted piece of the gold foil left from the first card. For the foil panels once I did all the foiling and then used the solid plates for the wasted foil pieces I used the Stitched Stax Rectangle die set from MFTStamps to die cut the foil panels behind the gnomes:

The one thing about the solid hot foil plate is because it is solid it not only holds the heat longer but it is also a heavier hot foil plate. My magnetic pick up tool from Spellbinders can not lift and hold the solid hot foil plate off the machine over to the rubber cooling mat that comes with the machine. So off to the kitchen I went and now when I lift the solid hot foil plate off the machine I use a spatula to lift it up and over to the cooling mat:

Definitely an improvement using the Hammermill card stocks for hot foiling. Also I use the "hinge" method to keep my hot foil plates straight and where I need them to be on my card stock. Will say PinkFresh has many really nice hot foil plates but I had a hard time trying to buy their Perfect Sentiments - Holiday hot foil plate with matching die set..... Everyone had it sold out or on a back order. I wanted to buy both the hot foil plate and dies together but finally gave up on locating any sets anywhere..... decided I would try to buy the die set from one place and hot foil plate from another.... 

Was able to buy the die set from a seller on Etsy and then bought the hot foil plate from EllenHutson.com during one of her 20% off sales. That will probably be my next hot foil project so I will have lots of holiday greetings ready for cards and treat holders for Christmas. Very happy I was finally able to buy these two products for holiday hot foiling..... 

Also my PIC (stamping Partner In Crime) had gifted me the foil trimmer from Spellbinders and that is what I trim my foil pieces with and it cuts down on static and keeps the foil flat when trimming it to the size you need:

Also -- this a size comparison photo of the Jaded Blossoms Gnome I used on my St. Patrick's Day cards and the Gnome from SimonSaysStamps release awhile back:

Happy the St. Patrick's Gnome arrived this week and has already been put to use in the craft room. DH wanted to stop at Harbor Freight this week so I picked up a couple of plastic bins for organizing smaller items in the craft room:

I like the smaller boxes inside also snap closed so it will keep smaller beads or bling together in an organized space.... never know what I can find at Harbor Freight for the craft room..... Off to clean up and start on Easter projects this week - will post those once I get them done....