Valentine Bundle

Hello everyone!  This is my third week in the Designer Spotlight at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge for January 2017 and this week's theme is "Anything but a card" featuring We R Memory Keepers products.  You don't have to use them to play in the challenge, but if you have some, we would love to see them used.

For my Valentine Bundle, I used a We R Memory Keepers Next Level Embossing Folder in Gemstone for the large gold heart die cut and the We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board to make my goodie bag.  I also used the Simon Says Stamp "Kristina's Love" Die to add to my gift bag and the Simon Says Stamp Happy Valentine's Day Die for one of the hearts on the card. Both of these dies are from the Simon Says Stamp Hey Love Release. The large hearts are cut from scraps of cardstock using Little B Hearts Designer Cutting Dies. For the goodie bag, you can use scrapbook paper or gift wrap that you already have around which is what I did.

While my project does include a card, I created a Valentine's Day Bundle for my hubby.  My favorite color combination for a masculine Valentine's Day is red, grey, black and white with some touches of gold and silver in there as well. Metallics always seem to be a great choice for the men in my life. I wanted to make a little gift sack for some sweet treats that I can pop into his lunch box.  I made a few gift bags over Christmas and I wanted something similar although this one was a bit easier because I kept it flat. I used a piece of paper that had foiling on it and made a bag by scoring the paper with my Score Tool, then using the envelope punch board centered along the score lines.  Once that was done, I scored along the bottom 1 inch and folded toward the inside to create the "bag". You just need a bit of glue or double sided tape all along the side and bottom seams.
Because I didn't think I was doing a very good job of explaining what I did, I made another bag so I could take step by step pictures to show you how I did it.

I made my first score line at 10.5 inches on an 11 inch wide x 8.5 inch tall piece of patterned paper. I creased that fold well. Then I folded the remaining width in half up to the first score line and creased that well. Using the Envelope Punch Board, I cut the notches on each end and at the center fold/score line.

Next I put quarter inch Scor-Tape on the edges where the bag would be adhered.  I cut the small flap of excess paper away for a smoother fold and put the bottoms together removing the release paper. You could use any kind of double sided tape or adhesive.  I just happen to like Scor-Tape because it is strong and holds well. Next I tucked in the side flap and pulled away the release paper from the Scor-Tape to make my basic bag shape.

I used a scallop border die to cut across the top for the decorative edge.  This is another die that I have had for a number of years, but you can find these beautiful scallop border dies at Simon Says Stamp. Now we have a gift sack or bag that can be made from any paper you already have.  I chose to make this sample one in a bright/different color than the rest of my project so you could see how I did it (I hope).

On my Valentine Project, I used a 12 x 12 piece of patterned paper so I cut away the 2.5 inches of excess paper from the top of my gift sack before I cut the scalloped edge and used those pieces to make a paper medallion to go behind the embossed heart. The heart is an old die I have had for a number of years and has always been a favorite of mine.  It "lives" in a dish on my die cutting table. I cut it from Gold Foiled Cardstock and used some of the stretchy gold cord to make the hanger for my paper medallion. Hot Glue is the best adhesive for this particular thing because it is super sturdy and dries super fast. I used Silver & Black wired ribbon to tie around my food treat bags because it was the right color, not because it was wired. *Ü*  Those Pink, Red & White treats are Jumbo M&M's with Valentine sayings on them like "Hug Me", "Kiss Me" etc.  I'd never seen them before but I thought they were super cute! There's even a heart shaped lollipop in the gift bag.


Make sure to stop over at the Simon Says Stamp Blog to see all the projects from the design team and also to check out all the entries over at the Link-Up.  There will be so many interpretations for this theme and my favorite part is seeing how everyone else interpreted it.  I always get new ideas from this!

Papertrey Ink December 2016 Blog Hop

This month on the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop, Nichole gave us this beautiful image as inspiration for our projects. I love the bright punch of colors after working with mostly darker jewel tones in the last few months while I made all of my Christmas Cards. However, it was actually the medallions that inspired my project to begin with and then it snowballed from there.  *Ü*  I had my own little wrapping party for a few small gifts, making my own gift bags from Scrapbook Paper and Wrapping Paper.

I've actually been meaning to make these Paper Medallions for a while but the inspiration image was just what I needed to kick start my project. To make my medallions, I started with two strips of the gold foiled paper 11 x 1.5 inches wide and then scored them at the half inch marks all along the length and repeated that to get a nice sharp crease.

I used my stainless steel stylus/rub on tool for making these particular creases using this particular paper. The foiled paper is from the Hobby Lobby Be Bold, Be Bright Paper pack.  It's not cardstock, but it's heavier than most patterned paper.  I still have tons of this paper left from the initial pad of 84 sheets and most of the time I'm only using a quarter of a sheet for a card. The stylus came several years ago with a set of rub on's from American Crafts.  It makes the scoring lines really nice and folding the accordion strips easy to do.  It's probably the only time I prefer it over a teflon bone folder. Once you have your strips creased and folded you can glue the ends together making a loop.  If you aren't sure what I mean, you can see a video tutorial from Betsy Veldman here.  I don't think I could possibly explain it in a way that makes it understandable so just watch the video. It's only about 4 minutes long, so a short one for sure. My strips of paper are longer than the ones Betsy used, but the concept is the same. It just depends on how full you want your medallions to be and I don't have the Snowflake Medallion Die. You can also use border punches to make your edges lacy looking. Since I wanted the What The Doodle Snowflake to be the focus of my medallions, I didn't use a border punch. The inspiration image uses stars but the snowflake is symmetrical and works well for this.  The nice thing about this technique is that any paper works - even inexpensive copy paper works to make the pleated part of the medallions. I used a hot glue gun to assemble the medallions and even to put the gold cord on the back to hang them with.  They can be used for a decoration and/or they can be recycled as well for other packages or another year.  You could even put the hanger over the top of a bottle of wine or sparkling juice as a decoration.

I also assembled my own gift bags using Scrapbook Paper and Wrapping Paper, but you could even use the comics out of the Sunday Paper.  It's nice to be able to make custom sized gift bags or glassine bags using supplies I already have on hand.  There's a ton of videos on YouTube for how to do this as well although most stamp companies have glassines available for purchase. The glassine bag pictured here is made from some fancy vellum that I have but most people use plain old waxed paper from the dollar store.  Since I don't scrapbook anymore, it's nice that I can use some of my supplies in this way although I need to remember to use this vellum on cards too.

If you'd like to try making your own gift bags or glassine bags, I'd recommend that you experiment with a bit of scrap paper first to find out how it creases and folds when you have multiple layers of paper.  Scrapbook paper is pretty heavy to make most gift bags, but wrapping paper is typically too lightweight to work well.  I had a couple of rolls of heavy wrapping paper and that worked the best for Gift Bags.  I used a combination of ribbon and gold elastic cord to make the hangers for these and I preferred the elastic cord.  I picked it up at Hobby Lobby for a dollar or two and I used hot glue to hold it on the backside between a pleat. You could use these on any kind of gift bag, gift card or even a regular gift that has been wrapped.  They were super easy and fun to make.

Thank you so much for stopping by to see my project today.  Be sure to stop over at Papertrey Ink Blog to see all the entries that are being added to the link up. Much of the fun of this monthly event is seeing how each person interprets the inspiration image.