Christmas in July

Hello friends – I know it has been months since my last post.  We’ve been busy!  We took a two week road trip across much of the USA (and saw so much of this great country!).  Before and after that trip we’ve been doing some home improvement projects that I can now say are done.   I am glad to get my house back in order!  We want to tackle the 2 bathrooms next but that will have to wait till next year at the earliest!  We’ve also had family visiting last month which was wonderful but all this has cut into my craft time!

I am getting back into the groove with a few, easy to do tags for Christmas…

Almost everything was done with dies, with the one exception being the stamped “North Pole” image, which is from I Brake For Stamps.  The tags were put together very quickly and I used scraps for almost everything.  I can easily make a bunch of these in no time at all.  Now to get a head start on the Christmas Cards!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope your summer is going well!

why not take a class?

Why is it that some people will spend money on a craft machine that has some awesome capabilities, but balk at spending a little more $$ on classes to get the best use out of it?  So – all  you Silhouette users out there that are struggling with this machine I am talking to you!!  This machine can do so much – provided you know how to use it.  The more I learn the more impressed I am.  Now I know there are about a million free YouTube videos out there so why spend the bucks on a class or two?   Because you don’t know what you don’t know!!  You can spend hours…days…weeks…struggling with YouTube videos and still be in the very beginner stage.  You will waste so much time and be so aggravated to the point where you won’t even want to use the machine.   Which would be very sad!!

There are many talented people out there offering classes and I will give my recommendation to Kerri Bradford’s. (www.kerribradford.com) .  She does an amazing job with her step by step videos and has several that build upon the other so you can progress easily.  I can’t tell you how many times I have read on some forum or facebook group questions that I would consider very basic – things I learned in Kerri’s first classes.  So for all of you who want to get the full use out of this machine take a chance on a paid class!

Today I am showing a gift card holder – and some of the cool things I learned in the latest class with Kerri.  The class, Santa’s Workshop, is not really a beginners class since it builds on things learned previously.

 christmas gift card envelope

Now, the gift card envelope is a shape that is familiar to many papercrafters – and easy to cut with the silhouette…

 gift card envelope

But let’s take a look at the details….

 gift card details

See the pinked edge?  Or is it pinking?  Well – you know what I mean – the shape you get from pinking shears! In class I learned a cool way to get that edge around the overall shape.  The tag with the text was easily created in silhouette – a rectangle with the middle points adjusted.  The font is Roboto and was added at an angle – the text are the words to jingle bells –  a very nice design touch.  Now the snowflake…no that is not a die cut or file purchased elsewhere.  I created it from scratch – learned how to do it in the class.  So – I know what you are thinking…isn’t it easier to just buy an image from the Silhouette store (or elsewhere)?  Yes it is.  But if you learn to make one from scratch you learn so much more about the design elements and what this great machine can do.  And you begin to realize how much more you can make on your own and not rely on third party images.     Ok – that’s my lesson for today!!  Thanks for stopping by!

 

punches and dies and stamps, oh my!

A little bit of everything went in to the making of this card and/or gift card holder.  One Sizzix die cut and one embossing folder, one spellbinders label die, two martha stewart punches, stamps,  digital paper, ribbon and pearls!  And I still consider this clean and simple – go figure!

The base is a tri-fold card using the Sizzix “Ornate Tri Fold Card” die.  This die is so versatile because it can be used as a card, a gift card holder, or for an invitation.  It was cut using DCWV green textured paper of which the top “ornate” piece was embossed with a Sizzix embossing folder.  I took a piece of blue cardstock and used the same die cut – but just the top portion – to have a mat – here is a close up of the embossed section and blue mat.

The patterned paper is a digital freebie I received from Design House digital.  I  usually have bad luck with digital papers because the colors never look right, but this one printed out perfect!  The snowflakes are Martha Stewart punches – embellished with a pearl.  The turquoise grosgrain ribbon is SU and the ribbon just slides off to open the card.

The sentiment is from Flourishes, stamped in Memento Bahama Blue and cut using a Spellbinders label die.

Here is a look at how the card opens up.  See that extra blue piece at the end of the patterned paper?  That was a leftover piece from when I cut out the blue mat and decided to use it to finish off this section.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!