Shopping......

Pretty sure July is a pricey month for my craft room between sales, new releases, and all the Christmas in July videos show casing items...... but there is no local store for me to shop at so sales and new releases it is..... this first arrival this week is from ScrapDivaDesigns from her new July release. I bought her "Butterfly Mini Album" die set which has a smaller and much larger butterfly die set:

On the right of that in the photo is her large Gift Pouch treat holder. I have seen lots of projects made with both of these die sets and I am looking forward to making some items up for future projects in my craft room as well... LOVE her dies and the designs she offers... My most favorite butterfly die set is the last butterfly die set I bought from her and made the layered butterflies using the acetate sheets from Mikes:

Love the size and the shape of that butterfly as well as the details the die embossed on the butterfly wings. This new butterfly die set has cut out areas on the wings with itty bitty hearts on the edges of the wings..... Anna from Serenity Creations on YouTube made a beautiful project using the larger butterfly in this new set and the details are really nice..... Love it!

Next I ordered the "Sweet Treats Goodie Bag" die set from Divinity Designs for treat holders for the holidays ahead..... Here is a photo of that die set:

Looking forward to making up treat holders with that die set - also in with my order was a free gift from them:

Very nice to get a greenery die in a scroll shape - can use it as one piece or even cut it apart for placement on projects. A nice surprise and a usable die -- how many "thank you" dies over the years have we all received as free gifts??? Happy to get this surprise gift..... key to this whole expensive July thing is to skip videos.... But after all it is Christmas in July..... or maybe skip new releases..... but that won't work either..... oh well..... fun projects ahead!!!

Shhhh.... Who's There? Halloween Card

Catherine Pooler Designs had a sale last week and I picked up three items -- first is her hot foil set "Sweet Nothings" which will be good for Valentine's day: 

This next item is her "Christmas Glory Cover Plate" die:

and of course I had to buy a Halloween cover plate for a favorite holiday..... It is her "Who's There? Cover Plate" die..... and here is the card I made:

My card stock base is black card stock from PaperTreyInk and I cut and scored that at the top. I used a spiderweb Better Press plate to hot foil holographic foil onto a black card stock. For the "Happy Halloween" greeting I used an older Spellbinders Halloween hot foil plate set and I used plain silver hot foil for that. Used banner dies from Pink & Main to cut that out.

With the hot foiling done I used the Who's There cover plate die and cut that out on the spiderweb foiled piece. Went through the stash and found one sheet of lime green card stock I trimmed down  to put behind my die cut eyes piece for the card front. Used liquid glue and put the spiderweb card front piece onto the lime green card stock. Used liquid glue and put these onto the black card stock base. 

With using the holographic foil for the spiderweb piece I decided for the greeting I would use plain silver foil. With the greeting piece die cut into the banner shape I used foam tape behind the greeting banner to put this on the card front for dimension - did not want the white edges of my white foam tape to show so I used a black Sharpie and ran that across the sides of the foam tape so it looks black. Put this greeting banner on the card front using the Pear Blossoms Card Maker's T Square ruler to line it up to not only make it straight but evenly placed in the center of the card. 

Here is a photo that shows the spiderwebs are holographic -

Very easy card to put together and spooky for BOO Day so a fun card.... Happy to be able to use some of the hot foil plates and foils from the stash as well as making a spooky card using sale items!  BOO!

Badge Holder Shaker Embellishments

Gina @ scrappinology on YouTube recently posted her Halloween embellishments video to show what she was working on for Halloween projects. She was using items/papers/dies from her stash to make all the embellishments and one of the items she showed was her badge holder shakers. I really liked that idea so I went through my stash and here are the badge holder shaker embellishments I made:

To start with I pulled out Halloween card stocks from the stash. This project is good to use the smaller scraps on hand. These badge holders hold an ATC card and so I cut my printed card stock to the 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 size to fit the badge holders. For the "boo" badge shaker with the ghost I used a white piece of card stock and I used a piece of painters tape and laid that across an orange ink pad to pick up the ink and laid it over the white card stock and pressed down with my fingers to transfer the ink from the tape to the white card stock. I wanted to use the ghost and boo die cuts from my scrap die cuts from last year projects but did not have a printed card stock I liked with those so I made my own using the tape and ink pad.

I made four of the badge holder shakers for Halloween and for the die cut items on my shakers I used all scrap die cuts I have on hand from last year's projects - left overs. The shaker on the right uses the "BOO" die from This Calls For Confetti. The ghost is an older die from Cuttlebug that I have had for years. I used garment pins to hang my dangle on the left side of the holder. For the crinkled seam binding bow I put the seam binding through the holes at the top of the badge holder and tied a bow. The holder on the left is left over scrap star printed card stock. I used a Halloween ticket stamp from the stash and fussy cut around that to give it the ticket shape. The small jack o lantern pumpkin is made using an old pumpkin face punch from Marvy and I used the solid pumpkin punch by M Stewart for the pumpkin. Sponged the edges of the pumpkin and used a marker for the stem. Again tied the crinkled seam binding on the top and made a bow. 

Here are two others I made:

The holder on the right uses spider web card stock and a stamped label I had in the bag of extra holiday items. Used a chain to tie on the dangle and for my bow I made the bow and then used Aleene's  Tacky Glue to put the bow on the top of the badge holder. For the holder on the left I used scrap card stock for that and a Diamond Press die set I bought used for the "Oct 31st" and I cut that out of holographic card stock. Used a strip of spider paper that is a strip from the shelf strips from Walgreens that the gal gave me for free many years ago. I also used a washi tape at the bottom - which is behind all the shaker bits.

For the backs of these shakers I also used scrap card stocks:

I had the badge holders in the stash for ATC cards -- you can buy them on Amazon and they sell both the vertical - taller and top close or the horizontal - wider and top close for your shakers. To make one:

Cut your front and back card stocks 2 1/2 x 3 1/2

Using liquid glue put these pieces together - wrong sides together

Use a corner rounder punch for the corners

Use liquid glue to decorate the front piece with items - die cuts, washi tape, etc. Let dry

This is a plastic holder so to add my shaker bits I first used an anti static tool to rub on the bottom and sides of the small dish I mix my shaker mixes in. I opened the badge holder and put the decorated card stock piece inside. Then I poured in the shaker mix to the front side of the badge holder. Pressed the zip top closed. 

Pulled out beads from the stash and made small dangles for the holders. Put the dangles on the holders using garment pins and a chain for one of them.  Added bows and seam binding to the top to decorate that. Here is a photo of the Aleene's glue I used for the ribbon bows that I picked up at Hobby Lobby:

These badge holders went together quickly as I used scraps from the stash and I also used already assembled die cuts or paper punched items from left overs from last year. Certainly a great project for scraps and extra parts and such. I also made another shaker for Fall using left over mushrooms from my Fall project from last  year:

and the back:

I used a leaf design wider washi tape across the bottom of the front to tie in the blue on the back printed card stock. These badge shakers will be good to hang on a gift bag or use for an embellishment swap, etc.  As I was watching her video Gina was saying what dies/products she was using from her stash and altho I do not have all she used I certainly have other things I can use from my stash. A HUGE thank you to Gina for sharing this idea, as well as other Halloween embellishments on that video, to help use more of the stash we all have.... plus another good use of the badge holders besides for ATCs.  Fun project for sure!

Summer Cards . . .

This is a card I made for summer this year:

For the card base I used kraft card stock. Used the LDRS "Quilted Plaid" cover plate die for the white card front. Used a rectangle frame die from the stash and cut out the green gingham frame for the card front. For the half watermelon I used scrap card stocks and cut out a watermelon from an older Taylored Expressions watermelon die set. I die cut the "happy summer" summer border die from Lawn Fawn using silver poster board from the Dollar Tree for the "happy summer". I trimmed that to size for the card front. I added red and green gems from the stash. To add a little sparkle and shine to the card front I used clear Wink of Stella over the black seeds on the watermelon:

Fun to dig through the stash and use products on hand..... or so I thought..... off to the 4th of July cards....

Plan in place for the 4th of July cards and I wanted to use the WaffleFlower Postage Collage die and stencil set they have for the 4th of July. Simple plan.... or so I thought.... 

First night after work I die cut all the postage collage card fronts using the postage collage die. Using red and navy blue inks from Catherine Pooler I stenciled the card front. Set those aside. I then cut out the mat pieces for the front of the cards as well as the card bases. 

Second night the plan was to stencil all the stars and the background stars from the stencil..... First problem???  The red and navy inks bled when I would add anything over them - white ink, stencil paste, etc.... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Third night - let's begin again -- had to cut all new stencil collage die pieces for the card fronts and I used a red ink from another company and a blue ink from another company..... tried to keep my stencil paste to a minimum on these cards not knowing what would happen..... so on these cards I used a yellow ink for the little stars as accents rather than try a stencil paste or anything else. So happy I had in my stash a jar of the TCW Stencil Butter paste and here is a photo of one of the final cards that I made:

The TCW stencil butter paste was used for the stars on the flag, the hat, as well as the banner. This paste was easy to use and it did not alter the colour or texture over the second inks I used for my cards that other pastes I had in my stash did.... this process has been over 2 weeks so I am glad I was finally able to get card fronts I could use for the July 4th cards. Really like the postage collage stencil sets that are available - you can use it as a one piece card front or cut them apart to arrange on other card fronts or tags, etc.. Just happy I was able to find products that work well together so I could get these cards in the mail BEFORE the holiday.....

Crepe Paper BOO Day Embellishments

Crepe paper flowers were made following a pattern from Septeria I had seen on YouTube long ago. I made orange, black, pink, and purple flowers. (The camera shows the purple as dark blue but they are purple):

For my flowers I used 7 layers of crepe paper and used a 1 3/4" circle pattern I have in my stash to trace onto the crepe paper for my circle. Used scissors to cut the circle stack out:

As shown in the video I used a small stapler and stapled the center of the circle stack to keep them together. Then I scrunched up each layer and here is what the flower looked like before I opened it up:

Once all the flowers were opened I put them in a scrap cardboard box and sprayed them with a can of spray starch to help the flowers keep their shape since crepe paper is thinner:

The spray starch gives them some shape but they are not overly stiff. Once thoroughly dry I put the flowers in a box with the Witch Brooms I had made before for storage for upcoming BOO Day projects:

Also made two orange fringe flowers - shown in photo with pink flowers:

Also made some crepe paper fringe for gift bags or tags for future projects using 6 layers of the crepe paper - black, orange, and pink layered with hot glue and I used the fringe scissors by M Stewart for those:

The fringe strips do not have the spray starch on them as they hold the scrunched shapes well. Easy embellishments to make for Halloween projects ahead!

Whisper Blossom Thank You Card

Brass & Bliss (used to be RubberneckerStamps) recently had a sale and I bought their Whisper Blossom Die set. I wanted to put together a card using this die set using other stash items. Here is the die set packaging:

Here is a photo of the finished card I made:

The card stock base is white card stock, cut and scored at the top. For the front of the card I used a piece of light pink card stock. I wanted to use a cover plate for the card front so I looked through the stash and decided on a lattice looking die from Gina Marie Designs that I had picked up at a stamp show I had attended:

I cut the cover plate die out of white card stock. To adhere this die cut piece to the light pink card stock for the card front I used Artist-Tac. Once the lattice was adhered to the pink card stock I used liquid glue to put this layer onto the white card stock base. Set this aside.

Used scrap card stocks for the green stem, leaves, and a darker pink for the flower pieces. I used inks to blend over the stem and flower pieces. With that done I used two layers of flowers for both the larger and smaller flowers using liquid glue to put them together.. For the circle in the center of the flowers I used a small circle punch from the stash and punched out a circle from silver holographic card stock. Used liquid glue to put the circle on the centers of the flowers. Used foam tape for dimension on the flower backs:

Used liquid glue to put the stem/leaves on the card front.  Wanted to use a hot foil greeting on the front of the card so I used a hot foil plate from Spellbinders - "All You Need Sentiments" which is a Glimmer of the Month set that I bought on sale at Spellbinders. This hot foil set has the word plates as well as matching dies to cut out the sentiments. I used thin foam tape to put this on the card front:

Easy card to put together using stash supplies - card stock scraps, a cover plate die, hot foil plate and die set, as well as holographic gems on the card front. 

More BOO Day Embellishment Parts

Of course when Stampin Up had released the Bewitching Bundle I had not seen this and I did not order it.... but had seen projects here and there from this bundle I liked but not the SU price..... forgot about it until I wanted to make Halloween embellishments and I liked that witch hat that punch made.... went to Ebay and put in a watch for the SU Bewitching Bundle so I could decide what price I was willing to pay with my craft room budget...... there were a lot of the sets on Ebay but for $50, $60, or higher with shipping. . . too high for my budget.  No hurry so just put in the watch and waited.... Finally a price I was willing to pay and the condition is mint..... my set arrived this week and here is the stamp set:

and the stamps:

and the matching punch:

To start with I wanted to make up the witch hats using glittered black card stock. I soon discovered the only glittered black card stock I have is scraps - so I need to buy more - but the scraps I have have a white core. Punched out all the hats from the glittered card stock and then I punched out hats using scrap solid black card stock. I used liquid glue to put the solid card stock behind the glittered card stock. (I wanted the back of the hats to be black on my projects I will use them on).  Once those layers were dry I used a black Sharpie pen to go around the edges of the hats to cover the white edges. I used glittered green card stock for the band across the hat. To put the green band onto the glittered black card stock hat I used Beacon 3 in 1 glue. Set those aside to dry. 

Using small flowers from the stash I added a flower to the hat bands using hot glue. Here are the finished hats:

To punch out hats with hat pointing in one direction I punched out the hats with the glittered black side facing up. To get the hat pointing in the other direction I turned the glittered black card stock over, with the white side up, and punched out the hats. Here is a better photo of the hats showing the glittered card stock:

I turned over a few finished hats to show the Sharpie marker covered the white edges:

Happy I was able to find this bundle on Ebay for a better price than SU originally sold it for and in the condition it is! These witch hats will look good on matchbook holders, treat bags/boxes, or on a Halloween embellishment banner. The punch makes a good size witch hat so they can even be used alone on a project. 

Fall Embellishments

Used items from the stash to make some fall embellishments for holiday projects ahead. First I made these banner embellishments:

First I made the folded banners using card stocks from the stash and the Ruffles and Doiles die set from Coco & Reno. I used liquid glue to keep that folded. Wanted to add more gold across the front of the banner so I used a die set from Sunny Studio and I used their rick rack die and cut out some gold foil poster board from the DollarTree:

For this banner:

It is hard to see but I did not want a wide rick rack piece so after I had die cut a regular piece with the rick rack die I then put this die on the edge of the cut poster board with a little of the gold foil showing and die cut that again - this gave me two die cut rick rack pieces:

Here are the two pieces die cut from one pass in the machine:

Here is a better photo showing the thinner rick rack piece across one of the banners:

For the rosettes I used the Sizzix rosette die set:

I used hot glue to put these together using my make-shift tool so I did not touch the hot glue:

The tool is one of the handles for ink blending and on the bottom of this tool I have glued with E6000 a circle of my brown craft no stick mat:

Used my circle patterns from 110# weight card stock to cut out two pieces of sparkle tulle to put on top of the rosettes:

I wanted to use a gold foil circle behind the banner in the center for the rosette to be in front of. Once I punched out the 2" circles I decided to put three of those behind the banner and I did that using liquid glue. To make these circles more sturdy I cut a piece of white 110# weight card stock one inch wide by 3 1/4" long and I used tear and tape to add this to the back of the circles:

Using two word dies from ScrapDivaDesigns I cut the words out of the gold poster board and the shadow pieces from solid card stock scraps. Used liquid glue to put the words onto the solid shadow pieces and set those aside to dry. With the rick rack pieces across the banner pieces I used tear and tape to put the banners onto the gold circles. Then used liquid glue to put rosette in the center of the banner. Used a dab of liquid glue to put the tulle on the rosette front. Used gold metallic thread to put on top of the tulle and then hot glue to put the word/shadow piece across the front of the rosette. Added holographic sequins to the banners for some sparkle and shine:

Also made some of the embellished ticket embellishments I had seen long ago made by Septeria on YouTube. Used scraps for mine and a ticket corner punch:

Here is a photo of how to make the tickets using her pattern:

In the photo the green piece, 1 1/4" wide by 2" long is the larger ticket that is the bottom ticket. The piece on the right is the top ticket and that is 1" wide by 1 3/4" long. I used a ticket (photo punch) punch for the corners for both sizes and with all four corners punched these look like tickets - like the plaid piece on the lower right of the photo. I used foam tape to put the smaller ticket on the bottom ticket piece for dimension. I used a 1" circle punch and punched out a circle from solid card stock. Used a 7/8" circle punch for the second circle on top of that. Used liquid glue to stack those. 

For the small banner under the pumpkin I used the Sentiment Banner die set from Pink & Main. For the little pumpkin I used a 1/2" circle punch and punched out three circles. I sponged the edges of those and put them together with liquid glue. Cut a stem using scissors and glued that to the back of the pumpkins. Added some small gems from the stash to the front of the tickets. 

Fun embellishments to make for Fall and Thanksgiving projects and happy to use more dies from the stash and more of the scrap card stocks.