Kat Stamp Fever: Handmade Holiday

Janice and I teamed up together this year to hold a Handmade Holiday workshop based upon the new Stampin’ Up Holiday Catalog. I focused my projects towards Halloween and Thanksgiving and Janice prepared Christmas. It was a fun filled, paper crafters delightful afternoon. Let me show you some of the projects we completed.

Starting with the Boo Banner:

My inspiration for this banner was from the Halloween Banner Kit (pg. 4-5 of the holiday catty). Although the Build a Banner Simply Created Kit includes 18 - 5” x 7” canvas pennants, my pennants were made of paper. Also included in the banner kit are 26 alphabet and 3 image stencils, 9’ of jute twine and 2 Stampin’ Spritzers.

We started out by stenciling the backgrounds; stripes, dots, and chevrons with Pumpkin Pie and Crushed Curry on the pennant pieces and then the b-o-o letters in black.

Additionally, items to embellish the pennants were; Toil & Trouble, Halloween Bash, Tags 4 You stamp sets, Witches’ Brew Designer Series Paper, the Label Bracket, Oval and Scallop Oval punches, and the Apothecary Framelits. (Oh, and the retired bat punch – sorry, I still like that guy for Halloween projects).

So far I have created three banners from the Build a Banner kit and have found this to be a fun and versatile kit from holidays to birthdays!

Bats about you card

After completing the banner, another Halloween inspired project was the Bats about you card. Staying with the Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, and Black color scheme, this card uses the Halloween Hello stamp set for its images.

I think the bat looks like it is flying off to look for ____ (fill in with your own idea – candy, blood, etc.) by stamping the image 3 times without re-inking.

Are you wondering what punch was used for the BATS ABOUT YOU image? Clever trick ~ I learned from my crafty friend Wanda. First, stamp your image. Then, punch out the image aligning it close to one side or the other for your first punch, (I used the new Artisan Label punch). Then, adhere a strip of scrap paper to your punched out image (making a handle). Insert that piece back into the punch and line up to the other side of the stamped image – punch. So, now you have a smaller version of the original punch. Note: you can do this with other punches to achieve a variety of custom ‘punches’.

Tag a Bag – eat IF YOU DARE!

For my final Halloween project, I changed up the color scheme to Black, Real Red, and Silver Glitter. Again using the Halloween Bash stamp set to achieve the 3 colors for the stamp image, we used the Stampin’ Markers and inked the words individually. This is an easy technique to do if you want a more customized image.

The image was then cut out by hand and adhered to a pre-cut (Label framelit) out of the Silver Glitter Stock. I like adding a bit of bling to Halloween (ha, ha that rhymes). The 2 strips behind the glitter stock are Witches’ Brew Washi Tape and black card stock cut to size. For the red Rhinestones I just colored them with a red Sharpie pen. Note: you can do this with other Sharpie colors, too.

After layering all the label pieces together, it was simply tying a bit of the Black and Silver taffeta ribbon around the Chevron Tag-a-bag and adhere the label over the knot. Janice prepared a special treat of Sugar Cookies that you could put inside your bag if you wanted to, but I saw a lot of empty bags – hehehe, they were tasty.

Thankful Candy-bar Wrapper

Moving on to Thanksgiving, we did a simple candy bar wrapper. Using the new Thinlet Expressions “thankful” die, it was just a matter of layering it on the new Cotton Ribbon, adding a die-cut acorn, a button, and a small “thankful for you” banner from the Hostess Banner Greeting stamp set.

I really like the new expressions thinlets. They come in three sayings; thankful, merry, and love. I will be using the “merry” words in November for a Christmas card – keep your eye out for that post.

Truly Grateful card

My last, but not least project was a Thanksgiving card. This card used another new SU product called the Label Thinlets Card Die. This card die comes in 2 versions label and circle. I like to call these “swing-cards” because the cut out label kind of swings back and forth when you open it up. The stamp set used for this card is Truly Grateful. The embellishments used were Washi tape, Jumbo Pearls, and the Birch Paper from the Thankful Tablescape Simply Created Kit. The picture of this paper in the catalog does not do it justice. It is something that you need to see and touch to truly appreciate it. I would think that SU would do wisely if they offered it as a stand-alone product as a specialty DSP.

Here are some of the crafty ladies who participated in the event: