Category Archives: Christmas

Merry Tags Framelits Dies

I know that the Merry Tags Framelits Dies are retiring but there are a must have and also are half price (and still available this morning). I wanted to make my team a little something for the holidays and then of course I needed packaging. My sister Caro raves about the Rocky Road recipe that she found and says that people just inhale it so I decided to give it a go. I made the additions that Caro suggested – so instead of just graham crackers (substituted for the British Rich Tea biscuits) and mini marshmallows coated in the chocolate mixture, I added macadamia nuts and craisins. Honestly I was concerned half way through the process, making something as a gift that I hadn’t tasted and especially making a double quantity. But pieces broke and my father, brother and myself were rather impressed with the results. In fact Martin thought that quadrupling the recipe might have been a better idea…

Packaging was fairly simple. After waiting 2 hours for the rocky road to set up, I cut it into squares and packaged them in food safe bags. And made some tags. These are quick and easy if you don’t count poking out the pieces of the tree with a paper piercing tool – my die brush broke and I need a replacement. I must call demo support one of these days! Some of the labels fronts feature emerald envy and some are silver foil with the plain label for the back cut out using gold foil or emerald envy. I found that glue dots or fuse were easiest for attaching the emerald envy onto the gold foil – using liquid glue, the papers slid around. I used the matching gold or silver satin ribbon (which is really luxurious) and a little emerald envy baker’s twine to attach the labels. Hopefully they are a hit. Here’s a closer look at all the chocolaty goodness:

Don’t forget the great close out sale currently going on and also the offer from me – a new, free stamp set. Just spend $40 with me and use the workshop code CBUJ4GTP, and you get to select one of Hey, Chick, Delicate Details or Designer Tee which I’ll send you for free once I close out this workshop on January 3rd. Check here for the details and also pictures of these stamp sets. If you spend $60, I’ll send you the pearl or rhinestone basic jewels as well. Email me at lizbaileycards@gmail.com to let me know which of the sets you’d like and whether you’d like pearls or rhinestones (if you’ve earned them), or I’ll just select one at random.

I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is CBUJ4GTP (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free gift from me). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Jolly Hat Builder Punch

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Need a few extra quick Christmas cards? Look no further than your jolly hat builder punch. In fact, whilst making this card, I cut out a few other pieces and so have the makings of another card. Or a tag.

I used the jolly hat builder punch on red, silver (and gold actually) glimmer paper before deciding on a red hat with silver trim. Whilst I used the liquid glue for the main part of the hat, I used fuse to attach the trim – liquid glue doesn’t stick well to glimmer paper and tends to slide around. Fuse holds everything VERY firmly!

For the simple sentiment, it’s real red ink and Oh, What Fun – a set full of greetings made for tags but perfectly at home on cards too. I cut down my layer a quarter inch to enable a thin mat of real red to echo the redness of the rest of the card, popped that onto a thick whisper white card base and I was done. These could be mass produced very easily – I may be doing that later on today since my brother needs cards for people at work. I can multi-task – make cards whilst cooking dinner. We’re eating late these days because he’s working late. It’s never a problem to make cards is it?! And glitter is so Christmassy – it’s currently over my grid paper and punch. In fact, I’m probably wearing it!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Peaceful Pines and other tags

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Continuing on from yesterday, I made more tags using up “leftovers” although my father objected to the term since he felt that some of the parts were too gorgeous to be deemed leftover! And I actually did some stamping this time (apart from on the back), using Peaceful Pines.

The first tag is on a base of cherry cobbler which I punched with the scalloped tag topper punch; oddly this was on my pile, I’d been planning on making tags last week but this one didn’t get beyond the base! The always artichoke pine boughs cut out using perfect pines thinlits dies were from an attempt to put a mass of pine boughs on a card – it got too fussy and I cut back on the number, so here were the perfect number for a tag. I first used heat embossing and copper powder to add the sentiment and then used the silicone mat and sponge dauber to attach the pine boughs. I actually had to cut something out to finish it – it needed a copper foil bow (from the same set of framelits) and I used some cherry cobbler baker’s twine to attach one of the mini pinecone embellishments. In order to let this swing free, I popped up the bow with teeny tiny pieces of dimensionals. A combo of cherry cobbler and gold baker’s twine was used for the string.

Next I found a beautiful silver foil star cut out using the Starlight thinlits dies which I attached to a circle of cherry cobbler with a circle of whisper white on the back to make it possible to write on it. Well, legibly anyway. I attached the cherry cobbler baker’s twine and it looked wrong because the twine hides some of the star and it looked as if there was too much star at the bottom. So, I turned it up the other way and it’s perfect. At least I think so – let me know what you think.

The third tag is my father’s favourite. The pieces have been languishing in my leftovers pile for a while as you can see since it’s using red foil which was in last year’s catalog! Both the red foil and the gold foil back were cut using the delicate ornament thinlits dies which were carried over from last year. I sandwiched the gold baker’s twine between the layers with fuse before using the liquid glue and a sponge dauber to attach the rest.

I hope that you’ll have some fun making tags. It’s so much fun because there are no rules of sizes or shapes, you can just use up whatever you have hanging around. Your leftover pile will thank you!

In case you missed the post, I’m offering a product share of new papers and ribbons from the catalog. Details are here.

I hope you enjoyed today’s projects. Please use the hostess code to get free product; the current one is CBUJ4GTP (if your order is over $150, don’t use the code, you get the rewards, but you still get the free gift from me). Click here to go to my online shop or here to join my team. To sign up for Paper Pumpkin, click here.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Flourish Thinlits Dies and other tags

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Today’s projects came about in an unusual way – I decided to make some tags and then I found myself looking through the pile of shapes and stamped images that I’d put to one side when they didn’t make it to a card. Sometimes I can’t decide whether gold or copper would look better – and sometimes, I just pick up the wrong paper and use whisper white when the rest of the card is very vanilla. So I pulled out my pile and started making tags.

First up is the cherry cobbler coloured flower from Flourish Thinlits Dies and I just happened to have the perfectly sized oval cut out of dazzling diamonds glimmer paper using the stitched shapes framelits dies. Yes, that’s an odd thing in a leftover pile, I was cutting a thin frame and this was cut out of the middle. I used the silicone mat technique for adding glue (just add a splodge of glue to the mat and using a sponge dauber, carefully dab glue on the back of your shape) and pushed it firmly onto the glimmer paper. I added another whisper white oval to the back to make the tag a little more sturdy. I probably wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t there on my pile, but it’s a definite improvement. I added a rhinestone to the centre and used the cherry cobbler twine from the baker’s twine trio pack. I’d forgotten about the Flourish Thinlits Dies – Christmas card making does that to a person, I need to go through my box of dies and pull out the underused ones soon.

I’d cut out a Christmas tree using the Merry Tags framelits dies and glued the cut out pieces onto a whisper white oval. With a real red scalloped oval behind it and an emerald envy tag base and string, that was a really simple tag to construct.

And lastly for today, the copper tag. I had the circle cut out with the stitched dies and also the Noel from Christmas Pines heat embossed in copper on very vanilla. They were made to go together. Just a few dimensionals and a (gold actually) string and there’s a beautiful and easy tag.

I hope that I’ve encouraged you to take a look at your pile of things set aside to use later. It’s a lot of fun making them into tags.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Fancy Frost Specialty DSP gift box

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I’m hoping that you’re a little more organised than I am and have already sent all your Christmas cards and now you’re onto packaging. I know that a lot of people give gift cards because then the recipient can get exactly what they want but just putting the gift card in a card gives away what it is instantly. Hence I’ve created a little box which holds a gift card with room for a few candies or hazelnuts (nuts being my personal favourite for disguising shapes, especially walnuts) so that your giftee doesn’t know that it’s a gift card the minute you give it to them. Of course you could use the box for anything small, but I designed it for a gift card.

I wanted to feature the fancy frost specialty DSP but also have the glorious contrast of emerald envy. The box measures 3 1/2″ by 2 1/2″ and is 3/4″ high. The base is a piece of card stock measuring 5″ by 4″ and you score around each edge at 3/4″. Fold and burnish the score lines well and then cut up on the red lines. You can cut out a teeny tiny wedge from both sides of the square to make the box neater if you like.

Then put glue on your four little square tabs and construct the box. The lid is constructed in the same way but you have to decide if you want to see some of the bottom of the box peeping through. I decided to have the lid overhanging by half an inch to reveal a quarter inch of emerald envy. After adding 1/16 inch (the smallest mark on the trimmer) to give enough ease to allow the lid to fit nicely, the size needed was 4 9/16″ by 3 9/16″. Since we want a half inch overhang, score each side at half an inch. Fold, burnish, cut and glue as before. Your lid should fit perfectly.

Fill your box and then wrap the ribbon around. I’m using the emerald envy from the 3/8″ silky ribbon taffeta combo pack, a set of 2 ribbons currently at half price at $4.50. To finish off my box, I used the Tin of Tags stamp set for the sentiment which I cut out with the Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies. I used a glue dot to stick the label to the underside of the ribbon so that it slides off along with the ribbon.

Here’s another view showing the fancy frost paper a little more

I’m really pleased with how this came out – it’s easy and quick to make and fun to disguise a gift card.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

My Elegant Cards

Liz Bailey – Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator

Category Archives: Christmas

Merry Tags Framelits Dies

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Jolly Hat Builder Punch

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Peaceful Pines and other tags

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Flourish Thinlits Dies and other tags

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Fancy Frost Specialty DSP gift box

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