Stampin' Up! Christmas Cards 2010

I wanted to share the handmade Christmas cards I received this year.  I loved them all so much.  A handmade card is such a special treat. I love to examine them and figure out how they made them.  It's fun to tell them what a beautiful job they did. I love the joy they bring.

 This one was from another Stampin' Up! demonstrator here in my town, Julie J.

 This one was from my mother-in-law who is also part of one of my clubs.

 This one is from my husbands aunt, Roxi E.  The tree sparkles, but you can't see it in this photo.

 This one is from my mom!  Didn't she do a terrific job?

 This one is from my aunt, Shelly H.  I love the color combo.

 This one is from my upline, Natalie T.  She is such an inspiration!  Her card has a cool fold displaying two photos and a Christmas letter.  I just love it!

 This flap on Natalie's card opens up as well.

This is one from my downline, Dana M.  After she colored the image, she dabbed versamark with a sponge dauber over the image and embossed with iridescent ice embossing powder.  It's really quite lovely in person.
I hope you enjoyed taking a look.  I certainly enjoyed receiving them!
Happy Stamping!
Kelly
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Make your own Hot Cocoa Mix

This stuff is the bomb!  I was REALLY surprised at how good it is.  It's MUCH better than any of the packaged hot cocoa you can find.  Here's the link to the original recipe I found: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/1061/Homemade-Hot-Cocoa-Mix76102.shtml
I made up a batch and created 11 serving sizes to give as gifts. I put the mix in Stampin' Up! small cello bags with a 1/4 cup of small marshmallows. The 12th serving was for me to sample.  I wanted to make sure that I didn't need to add anything. I added 3 small pinches of salt which is different from the original recipe and I also used a rounded 1/4 cup of powder, not level.  It doesn't need to be heaping, but I thought it was better with a couple of teaspoons more than a 1/4 of a cup.  I tell you all this, because my recipe is slightly different from the one I found online.  So here's MY version of the recipe...

Ingredients:

2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
1 rounded cup of powdered sugar
1/2 rounded cup Hershey's cocoa
1/2 rounded cup powdered non-dairy creamer
3 small pinches of kosher salt

Directions:
In large mixing bowl combine all ingredients; stir carefully to blend well. Store in tightly covered container. Makes 12 servings.

Single serving: Combine a rounded 1/4 cup mix and 3/4 cup boiling water in cup or mug; stir to blend. Add marshmallows to hot cocoa, if desired.

Let me know if you like it!
Kelly


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Stampin' Up! Delightful Decorations Christmas Card

I was scoping out another rubber stamp company and I saw a card that I could case!  I think I might do more of that, it was really inspiring.  I felt like I was experiencing all new stamping styles.  Occasionally, I start to feel like I can't create anything new...but this feels new to me.  I hope you like it!

 

Colors used are Crumb Cake, Wild Wasabi, Very Vanilla, Early Espresso, Real Red and Whisper White Craft ink.  Stamp Sets used were Delightful Decorations and Four the Holidays.  Accessories used were Stampin' Sponges, Basic Rhinestones, ornament punch and 3/4 circle punch.

Here are the measurements for the card.
In the next photo you'll see I've stamped my images on a scratch piece of very vanilla.  I will used the punches to punch them out.  I also randomly stamped the dotted circles design from the Delightful Decorations Stamp set on my center piece of Crumb Cake.  I don't know if you can see that in the photos of the card.  I used Whisper White Craft ink only because I don't have any Very Vanilla Craft ink.

Just in case no one ever told you to use your punch upside down to see what you're punching...now someone has.  :-)

To create those ink marks along the edges of the cardstock, I swiped the ink pad directly on the edge.  Move your ink pad up and down the edge as you're swiping, because you really only get those "longer" marks from the corners of your ink pad.  Keep the ink pad perpendicular to the paper so the marks also come out looking perpendicular as you can see in my sample.

I inked the edges of all my pieces with Early Espresso ink.  I just cut out the Happy Holidays by hand with paper snips.

Piece it all together add some rhinestones and voila you're done with another Christmas card!
Thanks for stopping by to take a look!
I hope you get to spend some time with friends making cards soon!  If you're in Sidney, call me, let's do a workshop soon!
Kelly
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Punch Pieced Bear

Have you seen tear bears? I think they are so adorable, but way more work than I'm willing to put into them. So here's my version of the paper pieced bear using Stampin' Up! (R) punches.


Here's a photo of the pieces and punches used for the bear parts. All were punched from Creamy Carmel cardstock and sponged around the edges with Close to Cocoa Ink with a Sponge Dauber.

To make the cheeks just take 2, 1" circles and holding them together, snip off a little of the circles as shown.

Then when you put them together you'll have those two snips sides up against each other, as shown below.

To finish the bear, glue his cheeks onto the head and use a white gel pen to color in some eyes. Use Real Red ink and a sponge dauber to add color to his cheeks and ears. Use the fine black pen to add some stitching dots down his tummy, and some stitch marks for his fingers and toes, eyebrows and pupils. Color in a nose and give him a few whisker dots. Use a fine line Real red marker for a little smile.

The measurements of the cardstock pieces are as follows:

1. Whisper White, 2 1/4 x 2 ", and a scrap.
2. Soft Suede, 5 1/2 x 1 1/2" for card base, and 2 3/8 x 2 1/8"
3. Real Red, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 " for card base, and 2 5/8 x 2 3/8'
4. Striped pattern from Christmas Cocoa Specialty paper, 5 1/2 x 1 3/4"

Stamps are from the Hostess sets, Christmas Punch and Patterned Pines. Use a Stamp-a-ma-jig to center the greeting on the Whisper white piece. Stamp in Soft Suede. Stamp the same image on a piece of scrap paper in Real red. Cut out from the Real Red image the word Christmas, then adhere on top of the Soft Suede image.

Ink up the poinsettia image with Soft Suede, then using a blender pen, remove the ink from the flower. Use a Real Red Stampin Write marker to fill in the flower image. (Or just use two markers, but I don't have the In-Color Markers and the blender pen removal trick is a great trick to know) Stamp this image in 2 of the corners. ( I REALLY like the Soft Suede and Real Red together on this image!!)

Use a piece of Real Red Ribbon on the edge of the designer striped paper. I was going for a floor, chair rail and wall paper effect with my background (just in case that's not too evident).

Thanks for taking a look, and please leave me a comment if you enjoyed this little bear.

The Christmas Cocoa Specialty paper (#116770, $11.95) is only available until January 4th.

Have a great weekend!

Kelly

Snowman Cocoa card! Too Cute!!

Are these too cute, or what?? This tutorial was sent to me from Tami White, Independent Stampin' Up! demonstrator. She sent out a Holiday Helper e-mail last week with this project and I think they are so adorable. I'm sending one to each of my niece and nephew for Christmas. Hope they enjoy. Tami's instructions said to use the scallop circle die cut for the Big Shot and I don't have that die, so I manipulated my digital cutting program to create this scalloped circle. It's about 2 1/2 inches wide. I was able to then punch the appropriate 1 3/4 inch SU circle punch for the window for the Sweet Treat Cups to fit through and again used the digital cutting machine to cut out 2 1/4 inch circles for the back so my marshmallows didn't fall out.

To create these, you just seal a Stampin Up Whisper White Medium envelope and then cut off 1 1/2 inches of one of the side ends. You use the part you cut off to apply your hat parts to and this will then slide over the large part of the envelope to act as the lid. When you crimp the envelope, it makes it smaller, so the part you cut off will have no problem sliding over the whole thing. The dimensions of the hat pieces are 2 x 3 3/4 inches and 1 1/2 x 4 3/8 inches. The eyes were made with Stampin Up 3/4" circle punch and 1/2" circle punches. Paper used was basic black, pumpkin pie, bashful blue, real red and glorious green. I also used a white gel pen, a Stampin Write black journal pen and Stampin Pastels (Real Red) and a Stampin Sponge to create the rosy cheeks.

The flower is the Stampin Up 5-petal flower punch, the leaves are Stampin Up Little Leaves Sizzlits die and the snow flake is from the Stampin Up Sizzlits 4 pack dies, Snowflakes set #2. The Stampin Up ribbon is the 3/4" Polka-dot grosgrain ribbon and the 1/4" Real Red grosgrain ribbon.

The stamped Merry Christmas image is from the Four the Holidays stamp set found in the Holiday Mini Catalog (good only until January 4th, 2010)

Please let me know if you have any questions about this project. I'm happy to provide more detail.

Thanks for looking!

Kelly

Silent Night Inspired Christmas Card

I got another challenge done today...must be because I don't have any events I'm frantically working on. :( That's OK. I love this business and the flexibility it allows me.
Todays Splitcoaststampers Thursday challenge was to use a Christmas song to inspire your project. I decided just to add the song right to my card. I was inspired to do this by Tim Holtz. One of his 12 Tags of Christmas has some music on it. So here's my version...

I started by inking the edges of all my papers, my base card was Chocolate Chip, 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches folded in half and creased with a bone folder. Night Quite Navy, 5 1/8 x 3 7/8 inches, and Mellow Moss, 5 1/4 x 4 inches.

Then I stamped the tree row image from the Lovely as a Tree stamp set in Not Quite Navy ink along the bottom edge of the Not Quite Navy paper and the snowflake trio image from the Snow Swirled Stamp set (Holiday Mini Catalog). I found a copy of Silent Night in an old song book and printed it out on ink jet vellum paper, tor around the edges and then inked the whole thing, paying special attention to the edges with Creamy Caramel ink, using a Stampin Sponge. I also sponged Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint (LOVE this stuff) around the edges of both the music and the Mellow Moss cardstock layer. THEN...this is really fun, I spritzed the music and ALL my cardstock with some shimmer paint that I put in a little mister bottle with some rubbing alcohol. The ratio was about 20 to 1 alcohol to paint. It only takes a few drops of paint in this tiny little mister. Shake it up and spritz. I used my heat tool to dry the vellum music because my ink started to run, but you don't have to do that with the cardstock because the alcohol dries very quickly.
Isn't that pretty? I used a pencil to roll the vellum around to create the roll on the bottom edge.

Then I stamped the Peace On Earth image from the Four the Holidays (Holiday Mini) stamp set with Encore Gold ink on Very Vanilla cardstock and free hand cut out the banner shape. I inked the edges of the banner with gold ink. I used gold chord to wrap the Mellow Moss and Not Quite Navy layers and attached the music with gold brads. I stamped the snow flake trio again on Very Vanilla, cut out 2 of the images, and inked them with Not Quite Navy ink around the edges, layered and added a gold brad. I placed the snowflake cutout on top of the gold knot with a stampin dimensional. I used Mono Glue for a nice strong hold to glue the Peace On Earth banner to the vellum.
Thanks for taking a look! If you have any questions, please let me know!

Kelly