Nov 21, 2009 | Big Shot, Christmas, Holiday Mini Catalog 2009 |
I was able to get the Stampin’ Up! Pop-Up Tree Bigz die for only $10! You can too with a $250 workshop (individual or group of orders). You will need to email it to me rather than order online because online orders aren’t eligible. This Hostess Promotion ends Nov. 30th – so gather some orders from your friends or gather an order for yourself (Christmas is right around the corner!). Anyway I have been playing with this die and once you see how to put the tree together it gets easier and faster each time – it is one of those things where the first time you do it you might need some time but once you “get it” then you “get it!”.
We made these as part of my Big Shot class – everyone made a Garden Green Pop-Up Tree and then we decorated them using the Tree Decorations Sizzlits Die. I created a cutting guide so you know how to cut the card stock to make your tree – one 12″ x 12″ piece of card stock is what you need to create one pop-up tree.
First cut a 12″ x 6″ piece and run it through the die – cutting the large slotted piece, the large notched piece, one medium, one small and the base piece. Then you need three 4″ x 4″ pieces of card stock to cut three more of the medium tree shapes. Then you need three 2″ x 3″ pieces to cut three more of the small notched shapes. There are several demos who have created videos and the creator of the die itself also has a video on how to assemble the tree – I’ll try to find some of those links and add them to this post later. There are instructions with the die also. And probably everyone does it a little bit differently too.
These are the trees we made for the class. Using the sizzlet die cut 2 of each star and those get sandwiched at the top. I put the star with the short notch on first – setting it down into the notched part of the tree. Then add the start with the long notch in the opposite direction. The tip of the tree pieces are sandwiched between each of the two stars. The other little ornaments, bulbs, and dots were cut in various colors and glued to the tree. I tried two different approaches with the tree. The one on the right I used gold cord and poked a hole in the top of each ornament with my paper piercer and strung them on the gold cord and then wound it around the tree. I went back and glued down some of those ornaments to help hold it in place. The tree on the left I tried something different – I just glued all the decorations on and the I took the gold cord and pulled it through all the slots around the tree. It is a little harder to see in this picture – I’ll try to take another one later. I think I liked this better in the end and it was easier.
And then I did one more thing – I used the Snowfall Printed Window Sheets to make a tree – this one looks so pretty – but I need to buy more window sheets so I can make more. The window sheets work great for this die because they are flexible so the tabs pop right back into place once you connect the pieces. I’m going to use some of these for my table decorations.
I’ve had fun playing with this die. Another thing you can do is save the piece that you cut out and use it as a stencil – this works great with the window sheet also because you can sponge your ink and then white the template clean and save it. Oh you know what would be pretty is to use the shimmer paint and the stencil to create a tree. Hmmm, something else I’ll have to try.
Have a great day!
Thanks for stoppping by my Stamping Place!
Nov 20, 2009 | Faux Torn Paper, Holiday Mini Catalog 2009, Techniques |
I don’t know what it is like where you live but where I live we are in full Autumn Splendor. The leaves have mostly turned and many have fallen. We have leaves everywhere and as soon as Greg blows them off the yard and the driveway there are more right behind. We are in the “foothills” of Georgia so we are just at the edge of the mountains so to speak – not in the mountains but you can see mountains from here and a short drive north and you are driving in the mountains. When we drive north to get to Virginia it should be a very pretty drive as we pass by the Blue Ridge Mtns on our way.
This card is from the STARZ meeting this past weekend. Wendy designed it to show us the Torn Paper technique. Or maybe it was called Faux Torn Paper. The only paper that is really torn is a piece of scratch paper – we used the Stampin’ Up! grid paper. You lay the torn paper on top of the piece you are stamping and then stamp the image – we used the Tres Chic stamp and the Autumn Splendor stamp set, then we also sponged along the edge of the torn paper.
The leaf accent is one of the leaves from the Autumn Splendor stamp set, cut out and crinkled up. There is linen thread also tied around the card stock on the front of the card. The colors are Really Rust and Chocolate Chip and also Naturals White card stock. Today the sun is so bright that my picture is a bit washed out.
I have been wanting to try this technique but haven’t yet. I’ll need to design a card for one of my classes that uses this.
Today is the day we hear from GA Tech if Kyle was accepted for early admission or deferred to the regular pool. Fingers crossed that he gets in. He is supposed to check his account at 5:00 pm and let us know. He is such a good student and I just can’t see why he wouldn’t get in.
Have a great rest of the day!
Nov 19, 2009 | Big Shot, Christmas, class, Designer Series Paper, Holiday Mini Catalog 2009 |
This is one of the cards that we made last week at my Holiday Big Shot class. The top panel of the card is embossed using the Stapmin’ Up! exclusive Petals-a-Plenty Embossing Folder from the Holiday Mini Catalog. In my class photo you couldn’t really see the embossing but on this close-up photo you can. The Designer Series paper is the Autumn Meadows paper from the Holiday mini – aren’t the blues and browns just gorgeous for a winter card!
I loved the end result of this with the softness of the Very Vanilla. I did notice though that I didn’t finish watercoloring the card – oops. I forgot to do her sweater and to add some color to his pants. I guess I got distracted and thought I was done. But you get the idea – the colors are Taken with Teal, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa and I used some Creamy Carmel too. I stamped the skaters with Black StazOn ink and used my Aqua-painter to watercolor with my classic inks.
The greeting is from the stamp set Many Merry Messages. It was one of the sets I selected for Free for winning the Stampin’ Up! Art Contest. The full stamp says “Warmest greetings of the season and every good wish for the coming year.” I stamped that on the inside of my card. To get only the “Warmest greetings” on the front I stamped on scratch paper and punched out with the Word Window punch – but in order to not get the next word ‘of’ in there you have to punch it so the right side lines up on “greetings”. But then it is off-center inside the word window which I didn’t like. To fix that take it and slide it back in the punch on the left side and punch again just to the side of “Warmest” – it gives you a shorter word window. I took that and layered it on the Modern Label.
I hope you like it!
I had a fun class this morning – the repeat of my Holiday Card Class – I’ll be posting those cards over the next week or so. I’m off to run some errands now.
Happy Stampin’!
Nov 18, 2009 | Build-a-Bear, Holiday Mini Catalog 2009 |
I made more 3×3 tags last night – quick and fun. You can cut one sheet of 12×12 card stock into 16 3×3 pieces and make 16 quick tags.
Stampin’ Up! supplies used:
- Ballet Blue card stock
- Confetti White card stock
- Beary Best Friends stamp set
- Beary Nice Wishes stamp set
- Jet Black StazOn ink
- Aqua-painter
- Classic Ink: Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Ballet Blue, So Saffron
- 1/8″ hole punch
Have a Beary Fun Day!!
Nov 17, 2009 | Big Shot, class, Designer Series Paper, Holiday Mini Catalog 2009, Scrapbook Pages |
Sorry I’m so late getting a project posted. It’s about 10:30 pm now and the whole afternoon/evening disappeared on me. Somewhere in the definition of a mom needs to be the word “chauffeur” – because that is what I felt like today or maybe “taxi service”. I left the house at about 2:30 – stopped at the jeweler to get a new battery in Greg’s watch, went to Walmart to get ink for the printer (I got the wrong one) and make a bank deposit (nice to have my bank in Walmart), went to the high school to pick up Tyler, took Tyler to get a haircut, went back to the high school (Tyler drove), dropped Tyler off so he could go home with Haley, I drove home. Got home phone rings – Tyler needs me to come back and take them to Haley’s. So back to the high school, stop at Kroger (not sure what he wanted but I stopped), then went to Haley’s, went back home. Ryan’s ready to go to tennis, drive to the tennis courts – it’s now raining – tennis is canceled, take Ryan to Taylor’s house to get a text book, then go home. Then dinner, laundry, homework, etc. and back to get Tyler, get everyone off toward bed. And now I’m on the computer….
So here is my peek at one of the layouts we will be making in my scrapbook class. I am moving it from Wed the 18th to Wed. Dec 1st – we are going to celebrate Kyle’s birthday Wed. night because he is leaving Thursday afternoon to go to Va Tech to visit his cousin for a few days before meeting up with the rest of us for Thanksgiving. Kyle will be 18 on Saturday! Oh my – I can’t believe I have an 18 year old! Sorry back to the scrapbook page.
I was so happy with how this turned out – I just need to add my pictures to it.
I have really fallen in love with this Autumn Meadows Designer Series paper. Stampin’ Up! really comes up with some great patterned paper. This one is actually very versatile. It is designed to be a fall paper, but on each sheet that has the leaves the other side does not so it could be a generic theme as well. And later this week I’ll show you a winter card that uses this paper too. The browns and blues work great for the winter too.
We will make this 2-page layout at my class on Dec. 1st so while you are with your family over Thanksgiving think about what you are thankful and take some pictures to use on this layout. I’ll be adding pictures of my family to mine – although I won’t get to see everyone at Thanksgiving. If you’d like to attend this class visit my website and check my events schedule for the details and please RSVP.
The other layout that I am working on (I’m almost done) is an advent calendar layout for Christmas – it is going to be cute too. I need to create a template to make it easy to figure out the cuts and scores for all the windows. It will be fun!
Ok – I’m off to change my events calendar on my website to reflect the change of my class date. I hope to see you there!
Happy Stampin’!
Nov 13, 2009 | Designer Series Paper, Holiday Mini Catalog 2009, Pocket Silhouettes, Punch Art, Stamper's Club |
This is one of the cards that we made at this months Stamper’s Club meeting. I’ve seen this idea on several other blogs – the Ornament Punch turned into a vase. I love when people think outside the box and come up with unusual ideas for something that seems to be so obviously suited for just one thing. There are many ideas floating round the blogs out there on different ways to use the ornament punch that is in the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog other than the obvious of using it as an ornament.
For this card the tip of the ornament was trimmed off to create the flat bottom on the vase. The edges are sponged in Basic Gray ink and then Champagne Shimmer Mist Paint is also dabbed on with a sponge. In real life it really looks like a shiny oriental vase – this photograph doesn’t show it very well.
The Designer Series Paper is Nouveau Chic with colors of Basic Black, Basic Gray, Sage Shadow and Apricot Appeal. I felt like I went outside of my color comfort zone on this one – the Sage and Apricot colors have not been used recently in anything that I’ve done. I was pleased with how the card turned out and it really was a quick card since the punch created the vase. I very lightly sponged the Basic Gray ink underneath and to the side of the vase to create shadows and it is actually popped up on a dimensional.
Today is a beautiful day in north Georgia. We are drying out again from lots of rain earlier this week (several creeks flooded again). It should be great for the high school football games tonight – it is the first night of playoffs and we did secure a spot. Go Etowah Eagles!
Thanks for stopping by!
These are the trees we made for the class. Using the sizzlet die cut 2 of each star and those get sandwiched at the top. I put the star with the short notch on first – setting it down into the notched part of the tree. Then add the start with the long notch in the opposite direction. The tip of the tree pieces are sandwiched between each of the two stars. The other little ornaments, bulbs, and dots were cut in various colors and glued to the tree. I tried two different approaches with the tree. The one on the right I used gold cord and poked a hole in the top of each ornament with my paper piercer and strung them on the gold cord and then wound it around the tree. I went back and glued down some of those ornaments to help hold it in place. The tree on the left I tried something different – I just glued all the decorations on and the I took the gold cord and pulled it through all the slots around the tree. It is a little harder to see in this picture – I’ll try to take another one later. I think I liked this better in the end and it was easier.
And then I did one more thing – I used the Snowfall Printed Window Sheets to make a tree – this one looks so pretty – but I need to buy more window sheets so I can make more. The window sheets work great for this die because they are flexible so the tabs pop right back into place once you connect the pieces. I’m going to use some of these for my table decorations.
