More is More

Today we’re celebrating the birthday of the FABULOUS Jodi Collins!!!  If you’ve come here from Joanne Basile’s blog, you’re on the right track.  If you just happened by today, then you might want to hop back over to our hostess Karen Motz’s blog to start from the beginning.

Here’ the card I created for Jodi using SSSC97 (Karen Giron’s Sweet Sunday Sketch from last week.) Click on it to see it larger.

This card is 9.25″ x 4″ to fit in a standard business size envelope and I had tons of fun with it.  I even got out a full sized background stamp and used it…yes I said background stamp…remember those?  The cute little baker girl is from MFT as is the felt and the rolled rose die (pretty sure I didn’t use that die correctly, but I did end up with a flower of some sort – LOL!)  Most of the rest of the card elements (including designer paper and stamps) are SU.  To get the strip of punched paper ribbon behind the girl’s legs I just cut slits with a craft knife and slippped it in.  The awning is made with the Word Window Punch and 2 different sheets of patterned paper. Final touch is Bisque Liquid Pearls.  I just love the new LP formulation!  It’s even pearlier than before and I find I don’t have as much issue with it forming little points.

Jodi – I am so happy to call you friend and feel so lucky that I’ve actually had the chance to meet you in person!  I wish we weren’t on opposite coasts…and if you were close by I’d really bake something for you…today you’ll have to settle for papercrafted sweets!  Have a wonderful day my Long Island friend!

And now it’s time to hop to The Paper Landscaper – Denise Marzec.  Thanks for stopping by today!

c

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year! 

With Love,

Jami & Curt

Beaker, R.B., and Tessa

Hey there!  Trying to get a quick post in before it’s actually Christmas Eve.  Wanting to share a couple of quick and fun packaging ideas for gifts I purchased at Costco.

For our neighbors I purchased gift certificates for 1 pound of See’s Candy.  There’s just nothing like going in and getting to pick every single piece yourself!  I usually try to make something for our neighbor gifts, but I am more behind than ever this year and I just knew I needed to cross a few things off my list so I went with these yummy gifts.  Once I had them home though, it still bugged me that there was no handmade element so I decided to make my own little boxes just the right size for these certificates.  Super easy with the Scor-Pal.  Paper is from a beautiful My Mind’s Eye stack I picked up on sale at Michael’s.

The second Costco find was gift cards for my favorite local car wash.  I thought it would be an appreciated gift, but something so practical needs extra pretty packaging.

This is the same type of tin I used for my movie tickets in yesterday’s post.  This time I created a sleeve for the tin that simply slides on and off.  I filled the tin with basket shred before I put the gift card in so it’s held tight against the window.

I still have one more gift to buy tomorrow – it’s a piece of a bigger gift actually – and 2 more gifts to make…yikes!  At least all of our wrapping is done – except for those 3 gifts of course.  Ready or not…here comes Christmas!!!

Hey Y’all!  First let me say that I never intended to take a month long break from blogging, but somehow that’s what happened.  Things have just been crazy busy with the combination of Christmas coming and planning a big 90th birthday party (for 4 days after Christmas) for my uncle…plus of course all the regular *stuff* of life.  In fact, I should be in bed right now, but I just had to take some time to get back in touch here.

Earlier this month I held a stamp class that was all about packaaging gift cards for Christmas.  Two of the projects featured a set I concepted for Taylored Expressions called Enjoy.  It’s late so I won’t go into a lot of detail on these projects, but you can let me know if you have any questions.

Two of these projects are very similar to ones I shared previously – the movie tickets gift tin and the mini hinged tin (this time for iTunes).  Here are a few close ups. Remember that you can click on any of these photos to see them larger.

This is the tin that you may know as a “nugget tin” – perfect for the movie tickets you purchase at Costco.  I think I ended up making something like 6 or 7 of these for gifts.  Next is the mini hinged (or altoids style) tin.

I previosuly shared a very similar tin that was decorated for a Starbuck’s card.  This one holds an iTunes card.  Enjoy has a bunch of images for lots of different types of gift cards year-round.

My third project is something I’ve wanted to do since last year.  One of my customers e-mailed me some photos she had saved from blogs that showed this basic idea.  I’m sorry I don’t know who to credit for it, but it was a fun little project using a Sizzix scalloped circle die and the tab punch.

Images are retired SU and there is a cord at the top so this could actually hang on a tree branch if you like.  Here’s the inside holding a gift card.  Tag is from TE.

This was really a pretty simple project to make and there are so many possibilities for decorating these!  I think all 3 of these projects make gift-giving more fun.

So how about you?  Are you all ready for Christmas?  I’m pretty sure I’ll be shopping or wrapping or crafting gifts right up until the last minute this year.  And I haven’t even started working on the big birthday slide show I have planned for the party next week.  I’m not sure how I got so behind, but I’ve tried to stop and take a few minutes every so often to just breathe and enjoy.  I’ve missed you all and hope to be back to a more regular stamping and blogging schedule some time in January.  I do have a couple more things photographed and ready to share.  Just not sure if I’ll get them posted here before Christmas.

Thanks so much for stopping by and Merry Christmas (in case I don’t get back here before then.)  If you have a minute leave me a little hello.  I’d love to hear from you!