Monthly Archives: October 2022

Let’s look at two Christmas cards we made at the Christmas Stamp Camp.

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You know how it is–we say “I don’t need that stamp set…”  and then we see a wonderful card and, oh my, we must have the stamp set.  That is what happened when I saw this card made by Mary Deatherage.  She used The Sweet Candy Canes Bundle, bundle meaning a stamp set and die set sold together for 10% off.  The stamp set is Sweet Candy Canes and the dies are Candy Cane Dies.  Just as important to the card is the Sweetest Christmas Designer Series Paper.  The paper has candy canes that you can cut out with the dies- and the candy cane dies have a die that faces right and one that faces left to create what you see above.   The set is in the holiday mini catalog- pages 8-11.  I used the label die for threading ribbon but check out how a real candy cane could be used:

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Don’t miss those little Flat Jingle Bell Trinkets!  What fun to add those to your candy cane – or your cards!

Why would I want ‘flat’ bells?

Ahh, good question, Sal.  I received several cards in years past with the jingle bells that are 3D and the post office machines completely smashed the bells.  You also pay extra if your card doesn’t fit through a 1/4″ slot.  They actually test it at the post office and if it doesn’t fit their slot the card becomes a package and you pay a lot more to mail it.

Recipe for Book Fold Candy Cane Christmas card:

• Base:  Garden Green, 4 1/4 X 11, scored at 5 1/2 and 6 3/4
  • Burnish the 5 1/2 score line in a valley fold and the 6 3/4 score line in a mountain fold
  • Adhere the front to back between the 5 1/2 and 6 3/4 score lines
• Mats: Real Red
  • 1 1/8 X 4 1/8, left side small mat
  • 4 1/8 X 4 1/8, main front mat
  • 4 1/8 X 4 1/8, inside mat
• Top Layers:  Note:  Build your front candy canes, labels and ribbon before adhering to red mat so you can adhere the ribbon under the DSP layer or the real red mat if you prefer the green ribbon matching up to the green base
  • Sweet Christmas DSP in candy canes, 1 X 4, left side small top layer
  • Sweet Christmas DSP in polka dots, 4 X 4, main front top layer
  • Basic White, 4 X 4, inside top layer
• Candy Canes:  Sweet Christmas DSP, die cut one going left, one going right
  • Adhere directly to the DSP layer with liquid glue
• Label: Basic White stamped with greeting from Sweet Candy Cane in Real Red Ink
  • Die cut with label die in Candy Canes Dies
• Mistletoe:  Stamp two mistletoe sprigs in garden green and die cut with Candy Cane Die, adhere to right side of label
• Ribbon:  Garden Green 3/8″
  • 5″ to wrap through the holes in the label adhering ends behind the DSP with glue dots
  • 8″ to tie a bow to attach to right side of label
• Embellishments:  one red heart (retired) and three small pearls for the mistletoe berries
• Inside is stamped in real red with a sentiment from the Sweet Candy Canes Stamp set and the mistletoe is stamped in garden green, once full strength and once stamped off

How many candy canes can you cut from the DSP?

Good question, Sal.  There are various colors of candy canes and two pieces of 12X12, so 32 from each sheet, 64 in total, if you don’t care which direction they are going or which color they are.  For my stamp camp I used the red and green candy canes but here is what the DSP looks like – minus the red and green I used for my class:

Oooh, I like the pastel colored one!

Yes, and the Christmas Whimsey paper with its beautiful pastels just got added to the Clearance Rack.

The second card we did is a case of Lavonne Schwendeman’s Santa train card design and Crystal Best’s Circle Tri Fold instructions adjusted by me to fit our standard A2 envelopes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ0hUkZX_v0

Recipe for Circle Tri Fold Card

• Base:  Evening Evergreen, 9 1/2 X 5 1/2
  • Score at  1 1/2, 3, 6 and 7 1/2, on the 9″ side, fold and burnish this side only
  • Score at 1 and 4 1/2, on the 5 1/2 side- do NOT fold and burnish
  • Partial Die cut with 3″ Layering Circle Die
    • Fold on 2nd score line
    • Center the circle die between the horizontal score lines with the edge hanging over so it won’t cut on the folded side
    • Place the cutting plate on the fold/die so the beveled edge is just barely beyond the score line and die cut
    • Repeat on the other side
  • Cut out the 1/8″ on the top and bottom of the circles from the circle to the horizontal score lines; look at the second picture and you will be able to see the 1/8  cut between the circle and the top score line
  • Cut the top horizontal score line from the 1/8″ cut out on the right side to the 1/8″ cut on the left side
  • Repeat on the bottom horizontal score line

I think I would tell them to ‘just watch the video’ for all that partial die cutting.  

It certainly helps.  From here I changed up a bit from what Lavonne did for decorating.  I did use the Santa Express DSP (that means designer series paper) for the train images but I just cut them out with the Layering Circle Dies even though the Santa Train Die set has dies that could cut out the images.

• Top:  Santa Express DSP
  • DSP with trees
    • 1 3/8 X 5 3/8 (X2), right and left sides,
    • 1 3/8 X 7/8 (X2), bottom pieces to right and left of middle piece
    • 2 7/8 X 7/8, bottom middle piece
  • DSP with HO HO HO, Note- I purposely cut the right top little piece with the largest ‘Ho’
    • 1 3/8 X 7/8 (X2), top pieces to right and left of middle piece
    • 2 7/8 X 7/8, top middle piece
• Circle Layers (X4):  Mint Macaron, die cut with Scalloped 3″ Layering Circle Die; 3 for front, 1 for back
• Santa Train:  Santa Express DSP
  • use the 2 3/4 Layering Circle Die and cut one santa, one car with gifts, one car with reindeer
  • cut one 2 3/4 circle of the HO HO HO for back
  • cut one 2 3/4 circle in Blushing Bride cardstock, lay the two together and cut less than half way down on DSP to make the two layer nicely for the back
• The greeting “Hoping the season….” comes from the Snowman Season retired stamp set.  To emphasize how it ties to the Ho, Ho, Ho, I wish I had used a red marker and colored the ‘h’ and the ‘o’ on the greeting.  Next time….
• Embellishments:  I embellished differently than Lavonne, though she used current products
  • by stamping ‘Christmas Cheer’ from the Itty Bitty Christmas retired set over the train car with the reindeer
  • by adding a red jewel to the reindeer’s nose
  • by adding a little tiny bakers twine bow on one of the packages
  • by adding a whisp of smoke made with a bit of cotton ball
  • by adding  a white pearl to santa’s hat
  • by adding clear jewels to the wheels which showed the green perfectly

For my party favor I used another sheet of the Santa Express DSP which has four 3″ strips of scenes on one 12 X 12 that worked perfectly with the Pretty Pillowbox Die set.  I printed the attendee’s names on a Basic White cardstock and then used the Pillowbox Label Die to partial die cut one end, then lay the die on the partial cut label and cut the other end.  With the stitched label, the partially die cut portion sits nicely in the stitches so you have perfect alignment as you run the label through a second time.  Check out this cool die set!

Julie Gilson, of Stampingala.com, designed this box last year using the Frosted Gingerbread DSP.

Scroll to the 39 minute point where the pillowbox starts:

Recipe for Pretty Pillowbox Party Favor

• Box for inside:  Granny Apple Green, 7 1/4 X 5 1/2
  • score 2″ on each side and burnish (that means rub real well) the scores
  • Cut the score lines on long side to the short side score lines, then cut out a diagonal piece from the end squares which makes a triangular tab on each corner
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    • Add liquid glue to the end triangles and adhere to long side to create a box; Julie used tombow glue and little clothespins to hold the tabs in place while the glue dried
    • Base of the outside:  Real Red cardstock (X2), 4 1/2 X 6
      • cut two pillowbox dies
      • cut off the tabs on the base of both
      • cut off the circular edge of the tab part of the die cut; here is what the original die cut looks like and what it looks like after you cut off the tabs and the circle edge.  I used the Stampin’ Trimmer originally so I got nice straight lines instead of just fussy cutting like I did on these.
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• Punch a 3/4″ hole in the tops of each base

• Overlap the square part of each piece and glue together to make a nice sturdy bottom base
• Glue the granny apple green box you made above to the base, centering on the bottom and glue, then glue both sides to the base

• Layers on the box
  • Santa Express DSP, 4 3/8 X 2 1/8 cut two pillowbox die portions (see picture) for the front and back
  • Santa Express DSP (X2), 1 1/2 X 2 for the sides of the box
  • One of your 3″ X 12″ strips of DSP will make the front, back and two sides
    • The die is upside down on the picture but I wanted to show you how it would lay on the 3″ strip of DSP where the top edge is right at the top of the scene.  You will cut on the score lines top and bottom of that section. 
• Embellish!  I added the name plates, snowflakes from our retired gems, and an Evening Evergreen bow -8″
• Red striped tissue paper and red striped mints make a perfect addition to the box

.  Why do you write out all the directions and have a youtube video?  Isn’t the youtube enough?

Good question, Sal!  First off, what if the youtube links don’t work in a year or a few years and one of my followers wants to make the box.  Secondly, it can be very time consuming to watch a youtube over and over, stopping and starting as you complete each step.  Thirdly, if you are hearing disabled, the written directions are important.

If any of you find corrections, please let me know in the comments.  I would appreciate being able to correct these directions so they are accurate for the reasons stated above.

Have a wonderful fall season!

SAL,  Sharing A Love of stamping

Karen

Click on little Sal in the computer to go to the Stampin’ Up! website.