by Jackie Bultje | Oct 10, 2019 | Christmas, fancy fold, Feels Like Frost, gift card holder |
Hello stampers! I was so excited to play with crystal and ice and Feels Like Frost designer series paper. This is all in preparation for my epic Feels Like Frost sweet suite class. For a year now I have been offering a monthly Sweet Suite Saturday class. This class is just a variation on that theme. Let me tell you a little more about that.
Sweet Suite Saturday
Sweet Saturdays was born from a desire of mine to give my customers not only the best “bang for their buck” or in fancier English, more value for their money. I also wanted to create a more relaxed atmosphere and a more intimate environment. Suites are also a very smart way to buy your products. Rather than dabble and get a little of this and that, buying the suite lets you make beautiful things with all the coordinating products. It results in limitless creativity. It can be compared to buying a complete outfit with coordinating accessories so you don’t have to go assembling an outfit one piece at a time. I think we can all relate to the endless infuriating search for just the right colour top to go with a beautiful skirt or vice versa. Save yourself time and frustration and get it all at once.
When my customers purchase the bundle they get to make four free cards. If they aren’t thrilled with the bundle they can also choose to simply pay a $25 fee for the class. Now that Stampin’Up! has introduced a comprehensive price for the entire suite which includes the 10% discount on the stamp set and die bundle I have created an “epic” option where you get eight amazing cards to make for free. It really is an incredible deal but I like to reward my customers for investing in products that will bring them lots of creative potential. The Feels Like Frost class is coming up quickly with two available dates, Thursday October 17 at 7pm and Saturday October 19 at 1pm. I might offer another date in November, but that depends on when my third grandchild decides to enter this world and meet oma.
Crystal and Ice
Shimmery crystal effects and ice stampin’ glitter are included in the Feels Like Frost suite. I finally got a chance to make a card using both of these on vellum! I was really excited to try that because it reminds me of hoar frost which is one of my most favourite things about winters in Canada. It was also born of necessity because I didn’t bring any glimmer or foil paper with me to Holland. Necessity is the mother of invention and I am loving the challenge. I adhered the vellum pieces with a little bit of tombow liquid adhesive because I also forgot to bring glue dots along! Let’s take a look at the card.
The Card
Do you see how lovely the ice stampin’ glitter looks on the vellum? There is shimmery crystal effects underneath to hold it all together. I almost felt guilty for covering up the shimmery crystal effects, but now you get double bling. The shimmery crystal effects would probably look really nice on its own as well. It is so nice to have separate dies that just cut out branches and snowflakes that mimic the foliage that is found in the stamp set Frosted Foliage.
I was inspired to make this card by Bronwyn Eastley. She used the polar bears from the Snow Globe Scenes dies but I didn’t bring that bundle with me to Holland so I opted to use the deer die cut stickers from Most Wonderful Time product medley instead. You can find Bronwyn’s card here.
The party gets carried to the back of this card where there is room to write a personal message as well as include a gift card or cash, both are always appreciated at Christmas time! I changed up the size of the patterned paper panels and I added the vellum accents and the crystal and ice.
On the last panel of the back of this card is a gift card holder. I didn’t have a circle punch to cut the usual half circle for the traditional “grip” for the gift card so I used the inside stitched framelit from the Frosted Frame dies, I just turned it on an angle. The result is quite acceptable and the opening is a little larger which will make it easier to extract the gift card.
What I like best about this last panel is the way the stamp and the die cut mimic each other for a cohesive look. Once again the shimmery crystal effects with the ice stampin’ glitter on vellum creates an ethereal look reminiscent of hoar frost. I think I’m in love!
The Story
As promised, I am going to share why there was no blog post yesterday. Our day started with a dramatic and frightening event. Gerard’s right hand man called him at 7:30 am in great pain. It turns out he was having a heart attack! Waiting for the ambulance to arrive was excruciating. I kept praying that God would spare his life and He did. Turns out that Ali had two blocked arteries. He underwent surgery right away and had two stents put in. The doctor told him he was lucky to be alive. Ali is 62. How quickly our lives can change.
After destressing from that I cleared up my stamp table and then Caroline van der Straaten picked me up and we had a lovely day together. We started with coffee and pastries at Bakkerij Vreugdenhil, then we went to the market in Wateringen and then we went home and had lunch. After another trip to a store called Action to buy some little lights we got to work punching and die cutting. The project? A beautiful framed Christmas wreath. It is still under construction but it was just so lovely to get together with a fellow demonstrator and friend just to create and have fun and catch up on each other’s lives. I am blessed!
Thanks!
Thanks again for stopping by to join me for the day’s creation and a story. I am thankful for your presence in my life and I am happy to share my creativity with you. That really is a big deal as it took a long time for me to see myself as a creative person. Happy stamping and don’t forget to sign up for classes if you are local. I still have it in my list of goal to create online classes but for now online orders are also lovely. You really are the lifeblood of my business, without you there would be no Pampered Stamper. Have a super day.
Product List
by Jackie Bultje | Dec 21, 2017 | Christmas, gift card holder, treat holders |
Hello stampers. It is that time of the year when we truly embrace gift giving. We would like to be able to give presents to everyone, but that can cost too much money or involve too much time. There is a solution. Even simple, inexpensive gifts can seem so much more extravagant when you put some thought into the packaging! This treat holder fits the bill.
Christmas time is also a great time to gather with the family and watch some classic movies. One of my favourites is The Sound of Music and the song My Favourite Things. Hence the title, “brown paper packages tied up with string”. At this time of the year I really love to remind the adults around me to take pleasure in the simple things. After all, we are still all children at heart, and these simple treat holders will make anyone happy.
My favourite go-to quick gift is the diaper-fold pouch. You simply take a six inch square and fold it into triangles to make a pouch. I will share a video at the end so you can see how it is done. Then I put a cookie inside and give it to lots of friends, to shopkeepers, waitresses, mailmen, anyone who crosses my path that day. Everyone is just so delighted to get something homemade and they whip up so quickly that it is easy to find the time to do this even in the midst of a busy Christmas season. A big bonus for any paper crafter is that this will also deplete your stack of excess paper!
The trick with these cute treat holders is the circle. Stamp a cute snowflake and a greeting and punch it out using a 1 1/2″ circle punch and then punch a coordinating colour with the scallop circle punch. This hides any imperfections that might arise from making a bunch of these in quick succession. If the cookies are not going to be consumed right away you might want to tuck them into a cellophane bag. We sell different sizes of these on page 195 of the catalog.
To make this treat holder I used retired paper from last year as well as retired stamp set that I just couldn’t part with. Snowflakes never go out of style! I did however think it fitting to make another one with current product as well. The saying on this next treat holder comes from the stamp set Christmas in the Making which retires on January 2. My advice is to get it before it sells for a ton of money on Ebay!! The paper is Merry Music Specialty paper, also something you don’t want to run out of for a long time. Do you see what a difference one little rhinestone can make? I put one on the treat holder using the retired paper, but I forgot to put one on the music themed one. I will have to fix that!
So, although this wasn’t a brown paper package tied up with string, it did bring a smile to many faces this morning and that made me happy too! Inside the pouches was a sea salt caramel chip chocolate cookie. These cookies are amazing. I adapted the recipe from the Hershey’s recipe on the package by adding a teaspoon of espresso powder. I am sure that this will be added to the Christmas repertoire of favourite, not to be missed cookie recipes. The trick is to not bake them too long so that they are crunchy on the outside but soft in the inside.
This recipe makes about 36 cookies and they do not last long! Let me know how they work out for you.
I tucked a business card in behind the cookie so that people could find out how and where to make things like this if they want to, but you could also easily use this as a gift card holder for teachers, mailmen or newspaper delivery people or really anyone you want to treat.
I thought it would be good to have a diagram as well for how to make this but didn’t have time to make one up myself, so I went to the best resource ever, the internet and found this great one from Dawn Olchefske. Thanks Dawn!!
Here’s the video so that you can see how easy this is to do. Happy Christmas everyone and have fun spreading cheer while simultaneously diminishing your excess supply of paper!
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uOBRktrm8U
by Jackie Bultje | Nov 22, 2017 | gift card holder |
Hello stampers! Christmas is coming up sooner than you think and gift card holders that are beautiful and hand made are a great way to showcase what could otherwise be a rather generic gift. When you put a gift card in this pretty card, the recipient will definitely feel the love. The best part of this card is that it is really easy to do, but it looks like you really slaved over it. At the end of this post there will be a video to walk you through it.
Merry Little Christmas paper and Merry Little Labels
I actually used the retired Chalk Talk thinlets for the front of this card because my Labels to Love stamp set has not yet arrived. I would have preferred to use the Merry Christmas stamp from that set. It coordinates with our everyday label punch so that would make it quick and easy (and current!!). To get the sparkle in behind, just cut your punched image in half and separate it slightly in the middle behind your stamped image. This is a little cheater trick that I like to use once in a while when there are no layering dies available.
Here is the inside of the gift card holder. When you open the card the insert slides up to show the gift card. The video will explain how that works.
The camera focused on the lovely trees from the Card Front Builder thinlets dies, but the lovely saying comes from the stamp set Just Add Text. I really love this saying “next time you think of wonderful things, don’t forget to count yourself”. The bottom part of the gift card holder is not adhered on the sides with adhesive. This would make the opening too small for the gift card holder insert to slide up and down. Instead, use silver metallic edge ribbon to tie it firmly closed. Looks pretty too!
The gift card covers up the beautiful inside, but as soon as the recipient takes it out they will have a lovely scene to look at. Here are the measurements you need for the base of this card:
The last thing you need to know in order to make this great card is the measurements and dynamics of the inside piece.
Now you need to watch the video to see how the insert gets put into the card, but basically you are adhering the small folded part (on the left hand side of the picture) just above the middle score line on the card. The wider part at the bottom gets sealed shut on the sides with tear and tape and then it slides in the bottom of the gift card. Thank goodness for videos right?
Don’t forget the online extravaganza sale that is happening right now, there is a selection of items anywhere from 10-40% off. If you use the current host code, you will also get a personal thank you card in the mail from me. Here is the link to the sale.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUt1Va-Sbc0
I would just like to end this post by saying thank you for your patience. I know it has been a while since I posted, but in the meantime I helped my parents out, they were both sick with very bad colds, and then my Pap celebrated his 91st birthday so I was there for a few days. Thankfully they are both feeling better. Here he is with the eclipse card that I made for him. He really loved it!
Happy stamping everyone, I hope you have a super day.
