Stocking Stuffer Treat Bags

Last year I saw some great stocking stuffer ideas and whipped up a few really quickly.  This year I wandered around Bulk Barn with a few ideas and looking out for new ones.  Here's what I came up with:

Returning from last year are the reindeer noses, front left.  Last year I used hard chocolates but I didn't like them that much, so this year I carefully picked through the peanut m&ms at the store (hence the benefits of buying bulk) to find all the brown ones.  The bag looked a bit empty with only 9 candies (8 brown and 1 red) so I added a few more brown ones.  I made a little reindeer to top that bag.

Next to the noses are dirty snowballs.  I used yogurt covered raisins.  I did this one mainly because I like yogurt covered raisins. :D  The tag sports a small pile of snowballs.

The back row starts with yule logs, chocolate covered biscuits.  For the tag I took a piece of brown paper, added some wood grain lines and then 2 leaves and 3 glitter glue berries.

Santa's beard is my favourite.  I was looking for something clever and stumbled on a clear plastic container with a big outline of Santa's face.  Inside, white cotton candy.  Yup, thin strands of spun sugar.  I filled those bags to the brim and still had some left over. :)  These tags took the longest.  I used a punch for Santa's face, hat topper, and beard (a cloud), and hand cut the hats.

Finally, I found these cute white chocolate mints that look like hershey's kisses with their bottoms dipped in coloured sparkles.  Elf hats.  I hand cut the hats for the tag and added a flower sequin for the pompom.

I can't wait to see how these are received.

Forest Scene Card

I don't normally keep aside Christmas cards for myself, but this year I've made an exception.  Today's card was a strange lesson in how doing everything wrong can sometimes be right.

Let's start with the stencil.  I made it out of green acetate on my Silhouette SD.  I'd intended the silhouette to allow me to make white birch trees on a dark background.  So, first mistake: I made a stencil of the birch trees rather than a stencil of the spaces between the trees.

I managed to mostly get the delicate stencil off the sticky backing it's cut on.  I believe there was only one minor tear.

Despite getting the stencil wrong I still wanted to try it out, so I went on to step two, spraying the stencil with a repositional adhesive, so I could lay it on my paper and not worry about it moving around while I inked around it.  I was a little too impatient with this step and didn't let it sit long enough to become tacky rather than sticky and just slapped it down onto the die cut oval of glossy paper I was using (taped to my scrap paper on my craft mat so it wouldn't move either).

I started the stencilling by running a black marker over the indents in the trunks, so it would have the birch bark look.  I then took black, blue and metallic blue gelatos and preceded to smear them into the spaces between the trees, forming a night scene.  It took a fair amount of time to get this dark enough and blended enough, but I was happy with how it looked.

Then I pulled up the stencil.  Because it was more gluey than tacky it stuck to the scrap paper, ripping  the paper and the stencil.  The panel didn't tear, but the glue came off the stencil, making the front of the panel sticky.  I also noticed that the black marker ran, making the indent bits less defined than I'd intended.

Here's a photo of the stencil after removing it from the panel.

I decided the panel was probably a waste, but thought it might be worth trying the old eraser trick on it.  I was hoping the eraser would pick up the glue, allowing me to still use the panel.  Well, the eraser had two effects, the first was to smear the gelatos onto the white trees, the second was to form a grey mess with the glue.  Now, had I continued erasing I would have gotten rid of the glue in time, but the trees would have been ruined due to the smearing colour.  But I realized that the darkness where the eraser hit the glue - and the texture that formed from it - looked surprisingly like actual tree bark.

So I stopped erasing and flicked some white paint pen flecks at the panel.  I also ran a marker around the edge, so it would have a black frame.

To finish the card I used some silhouette cut holly flourishes, deer and poinsettia (the larger poinsettia was done with a die and accented with a marker).  I also took some white plastic wire and glued beads to the ends to add to the flourish.  Finally I added some gold embossing liquid to the centers of the flowers and stamped the greeting.

Santa's Down the Chimney Card

A few days ago I mentioned how I'd bought light modelling paste.  Well, I also used my silhouette SD to cut a few stencils.  I did a sunburst, a brick pattern, a forest silhouette and a diagonal striped page.  I decided to use coloured acetate for the stencils, as they'd be easier to see than clear ones.

I wasn't sure how well acetate would work for stencils, being thinner than the stencils you buy at the store, nor did I know how well modelling paste would work.  So I mixed some red dye into the paste and tested out the brick stencil.

I'd meant to leave a border around all of the stencils so I'd be able to tape them down, but forgot to factor that in when I made the brick pattern, so I ended up with a stencil just barely larger than my paper.

I was able to secure it, then used a plastic palette knife ti smear the paste onto the stencil.  I mixed the paste and colour on a Spellbinders die package.  The lip around the packaging helped keep the paste from making a mess and it was easy to clean up.  You can see the panel in the photo below, with the stencils.

I let the panel dry over night, then cut a rectangle out of it for my card.  I'd tried to be smooth with the paste, but found the rougher areas have nicer texture and a more realistic old brick look.  The paste once dry is a little spongy but very flexible and light.

I cut a chimney top out of white cardstock, some red legs, cloud punched white boot toppers and black boots.  I assembled the vanishing Santa, then stamped my sentiment in black ink and added a piece of glitter ribbon as a roof before attaching the chimney to the white cardstock base.

I'm submitting this card to Simon Says Stamp's Christmas/Holidays challenge.

Noel Snowflake Card

This was a quick and fairly simple card to make.  I started out by embossing the snowflake swirl embossing pattern onto white cardstock.  I die cut two snowflakes, one from vellum and one from white paper.  I glued them on the card and added a pearl to the center.  Finally, I stamped Noel in black ink.

I'm submitting this card to Simon Says Stamp's anything goes challenge.

Winter Stampscape Scene Card

Today's card is similar to yesterday's in that I stamped Stampscapes onto glossy cardstock.  I used a piece of scrap paper to mask off the hill so I could ink in some light blue to make a snow bank.  I didn't think to add the snowman right away or I would have done that first and masked it.  Ah well.  I added a bit of liquid applique, let it dry and then used my heat gun on it to make puffy snow.  I also inked in some snowy clouds in the sky.

Once again I scored the cardstock base above and below the panel.  I lightly inked my die cut tag and then stamped the sentiment.

I wanted an accent and so made a metal wire tree, which I attached using hot glue.

Santa Flying Over the Mountains Card

I started this card by stamping the mountains and trees using Stampscapes stamps on glossy paper.  The santa stamp went next.  It's a wooden stamp with one reindeer, so I carefully lined up my stamp and only inked the deer to get the extras.  I inked the card using a mixture of greens and black blended in at the edges.

I originally had it mounted on a plain dark yellow base, but I didn't like the yellow, so I blended some gold and dark yellow gelatos into the paper.  I scored it above and below the green panel and die cut a label and stamped my sentiment on it.

Sweet Birthday Card

I've avoided using embossing paste due to the expense (both of the paste and for the stencils) and mess, but finally broke down and got something similar, light modelling paste.  I made some stencils of my own using my Silhouette and some acetate sheets, though I didn't use one for this card.  This card was patterned off of this card by Jennifer McGuire.

I started out by cutting my cone and wafer out of gold cardstock.  I then scored the diagonal lines using a score board.

For the ice cream scoops, I put some ink on a piece of plastic (I used a spellbinder's package, as it had edges to keep the modelling paste contained so I didn't make too much of a mess and could easily clean it off), then used it to colour some modelling paste.  The pink dye ink turned out to be too light, so I added some watercolour marker to it (scribbling on another part of the plastic and then mixing the colour in).  I used a palette knife to spread the paste onto the card in the lightly penciled area.  I used another marker for the blue ice cream, after cleaning off my palette.  I pressed the wafer into the paste.

I used the same markers to colour the stamps for the sentiment so they'd match.  A few hours later my card was dry with a very cool almost spongy texture to the ice cream.