Scrapping by Design

It’s a drag posting these after Christmas, but nevertheless here they are — a couple more Christmas cards that I made this year.

The top card features scrapbook paper, silver glitter card stock and a dancing man cut with a Memory Box die cut. I cut three shapes — beige, gold and red — and assembled them to make three different dancing men.

In the second card farther down, I used the same scrapbook paper and the same silver glitter card stock and a dancing woman or ballerina, also cut with a Memory Box die.

As above, I cut three dies using red, gold and green card stock, then assembled them to make three different ballerinas.

Both cards use a fancy fold discovered on splitcoaststampers.com.

Amazon sells Memory Box dies.

I made several of these fleur de lis snowflake ornaments last year. This year I made only two.  One was a gift in a Secret Santa swap and the other is a gift for my aquafit instructor.

The snowflake is made using the Spellbinders Shapeabilities Pendants – Fleur De Lis and cut on the Big Shot.  The ornament is mounted on an empty ribbon spool and decorated with ribbon and beads.

I made a video last year snowing how I made the ornament.

The video is here for your convenience.

I created these tags to send to a number of women on my Christmas list.  I made about 16 of them, and that required a fair amount of work.

The Santa-girl holding the champagne is a stamped image, colored with Copic markers and trimmed with a little glitter glue and a jewel on her wrist.

I designed the large tag and the small tag by hand and cut them out of red card stock.

The green background is Faux Silk. It’s made with tissue paper and Mod Podge.

The text, “Dear  Santa” and  “Define Good” are stamped images.

I added some white ribbon with silver threat running through it at the top of the tag.  The poinsettia is purchased clip art.

These tags would be cute additions to a gift of a bottle of wine or other spirits.

This tag is entered in the Playing in Paradise Challenge #81.

This Christmas banner is for a swap at Art for the Creative Mind.

The brown background is my coffee table. It looks like its part of the project but it is not.
The letters J-O-L-L-Y are purchased die cuts. The white squares are Spellbinders dies and paper is glittery card stock. These are the dies I used: Spellbinders Nestabilities Decorative Elements Dies, Lacey Squares

The two drummer boys on each end of the pennant are stamped, layered and heat embossed. The stamp is Drummer Boy by Hollyberry House.

The decorative squares are tied together with white ribbon. The same white ribbon decorates the outside edge of the drummer boy.

I made these Christmas tree ornaments using a stamp and a Spellbinders Die.

The angels are stamped using the Country Angel trio from Rubber Stampede.  The stamp has three angels in a row. I stamped them individually to make this set of three. The ornaments have angels on front and back.

I stamped using black die ink and colored the angels with Copic markers.  I also added some glitter to the wings.

The angels are attached to a “snowflake” that I cut using a die from this set: Spellbinders Shapeabilities Pendants Dies, Fleur De Lis

The snowflake is cut from glittery card stock that I bought at Michaels.

I have made a number of Christmas cards using the angels. I will post a picture of that soon.

Today’s mail brought this adorable stamped Christmas card from another member of the Canada Stamp Talk email group.

The stamped image is colored with Copic markers. At least, that would be my best guess. The stamping is done on a white circle which in turn  is layered over a green circle, which in turn is layered over a red scalloped circle.

These circles are centered in the middle of green and red striped scrapbook paper, and the paper is double matted on a layer of white and red.

The red Merry Christmas sentiment is 3-D’d on the card and decorated with two red rhinestones.

I find this to be a most unusual and appealing card. What a bright and cheerful item to brighten my day.

Thanks to the sender, whose name i will include if she permits.

I made these Wreath Christmas cards using a combination of techniques: rubber stamping, heat embossing, paper layering, eyelets, Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Circles Die Template and ribbon.

They look considerably better in real life than in the scanned images.

I cut the wreath shapes with the Nestabilities dies, then stamped them using the Peruvian Lily Set by Rubber Stamp Tapestry. The set contains a dragon fly image, which I omitted. I substituted a candy cane stamp that I had in my collection since I was going for a Christmassy look and feel.

I stamped with Ancient Page die inks, then heat embossed the entire wreath with Versamark Ink and clear embossing powder. After having made several cards, I remembered a product in my supply shelf called Simple Shine by Simply Stamped Papers and Rubber Stamps. The Simple Shine was faster and did a nicer job than the heat embossing.

The sentiment is a stamp from Hero Arts.

I used various colors for the backgrounds — some red, some green, some brown and some bronze. All have four white eyelets at the corners and all have a small green, flower-shaped rhinestone in the middle. Ribbon varies depending on the background color.

These wreath Christmas cards went out to various friends this year.

This cute little stand-up Santa Claus Christmas card is made with a pattern from the Nov.-Dec. 2009 edition of Paper Crafts Magazine. You can download the pattern — and a number of others as well — from their web site.

The card stands about 4 1/4 inches high and 3 1/4 inches wide.

The directions say to cut all the pattern pieces from card stock. I modified that somewhat. I cut the card base, the face, the nose and the black shoes from card stock, but I used red and white felt for the body, beard and trims.

By felt, I refer to the low priced pieces of felt you can buy at Michaels for a dollar or less.  I like the felt because the card is going to a young child and kiddies of that age are very tactile. I think the little guy will like the feel of the felt.

I decorated both the front and back of the card and they are the same.  I wasn’t sure what the back of Santa’s head would look like.

I think these Santas would make awesome place cards at a Christmas dinner table, but it would be quite an undertaking to make several.  They’d also be a good craft project for a classroom or for a school.

Since the online files are available as a .jpg, you could resize Santa to make a centerpiece or any other decoration you wanted. Perhaps even hang them from the tree.

Can you tell I really like this stand-up Santa Christmas card?

I made these pop-up photo cubes and the holiday ornament ball using the Sizzix BIGZ Dies 3D Ball PopUp.

Its cut on the Sizzix 655268 Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine, and you need a Sizzix extended cutting pad to handle the Bigz die.

If you haven’t used the Big Shot, I have to tell you it has quickly become my favorite crafting tool, right after my Fiskars Paper Trimmer. There is a video demo of the Big Shot at this link.

These photo cubes will be Christmas gifts for two little boys, and the blue ball makes a neat Holiday ornament. Although the shape lends itself well to Christmas and the holidays, these balls would work well at any time of the year.  Using black and white images makes a truly elegant photo cube, based on some pictures I have seen.

I like these little pop-up balls quite a bit. You can flatten them in an envelope or between folded card stock and mail them. When the envelope is opened, the balls pop up. The high tech items that make them work are good old-fashioned elastic bands.

The balls are easy to make, once you know how. I am not particularly skilled at figuring things out, so I confess that I struggled with the instructions for quite some time.

I have made video demonstrating how to make these 3D pop-up balls.

As for the photo cube, I have to say that sizing the digital photographs and printing them out to the right size and shape was a time consuming project, at least the first time I did it. It was much easier the second time around when I made the second photo cube.

Don’t know how to resize or shape your digital images to use them in this photo cube? I have a post describing how to resize and shape your images using Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements.

In the meantime, how about these other great Bigz Dies at eBay? I need to win the lottery.

This Holiday craft project is a candy holder made with card stock, acrylic and a ribbon. It couldn’t be simpler, but of course, you could decorate it any way you choose.

The inspiration came from a make and take at Clipper Street Scrapbook Company, a craft store in Langley, BC. It was one of the make and takes at their annual Christmas open house.

In the video demonstration below, I used a Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Circles Die Template to cut the shape in the middle. At Clipper Street, we used the Spellbinders S4-220 Nested Pine Trees Die Template. That’s the one shown in the picture above.

One tip: if you’re going to do this using a die cut machine (I used the Sizzix 655268 Big Shot Cutting-and-Embossing Roller-Style Machine
), its a good idea to tape your die in place before cutting. Otherwise, it can slip a bit during the cutting and that destroys the symmetry of the candy holder.

Here is the video demonstration:

Although this little 3-D candy holder is made as a holiday or Christmas craft project, you could adapt it easily to make wedding favors, or to make a holder for Valentines Day, birthday parties, Easter, Halloween or any other holiday or special occasion.