Christmas Icons Holiday Card with Emily

I'm sharing a fun card using the Christmas Icons stamp set and coordinating dies. I loved colouring all of these cute images! They're great all together as a collage, as a complement to other Sunny Studio stamp sets, or on their own on tags.

I coloured more images than I was able to fit on my card without overcrowding it. I love having all of these depictions of Christmas on one card. I kept the sentiment simple by combining one of the straight fonts with a scripted one. To finish, I painted the edge of the card base with black gesso and adhered the front panel.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

   

Blissful Baking and Tag Topper Dies DIY Gift Bags with Eloise (Video)

Hello everyone! Eloise here and today I'm going to show you how to create your own goodie bags using the Tag Topper dies - specifically the Semi Circles set, but you can use the others if you prefer. I'm going to have a video included with this post, so it's easier to explain the process. I love little goodie bags like this especially for Christmas time and when these dies first came out, I had the idea to do this. It's so fun to be able to use your dies to create these goodie bags and to customise it to almost any size you like.

Along with the "Semi Circle" dies, for my goodie bag today I'm going to be using the "Blissful Baking" stamp set along with a couple other Sunny Studio stamp sets to embellish my bag today as well.

To begin my goodie bags today I'm first going to start off with two pieces of patterned paper cut to the exact same size. I always cut down my paper according to the width of the die I'm going to be using. For the goodie bag here I'm going to use the 2nd largest die in the "Semi Circles" die set, which is 3 1/2' wide, so I cut down my paper to 3 1/2" wide by 5 1/2" tall. Then from there I can decide how tall I want my goodie bag to be. I wouldn't recommend going taller than the 5 1/2", just because you're going to find it harder later on when you create the "base" of your goodie bag. Unless you have paper longer than 12" or you want to go down the route adhering paper together to make it longer - you can do this, but it just takes more time.

Once I've cut down my paper  - I'm just using some older patterned paper from October Afternoon here, I'm going to go ahead and use the dies to cut off the top, to give it a nice shape. I just lined up my die on top to my desired height and adhered it down directly in the centre of the panel. Once it's lined up on once piece, I flipped my second piece of paper over and put it behind the first piece, then I went ahead and adhered those together as well with some washi or low tack tape. This just ensures you have two pieces that are cut the exact same and with using patterned paper, it should have to problem going through your die cutting machine. Now that those pieces are cut, the "bag" pieces look like an arch. Now I'm going to cut the handle. I'm using the 4th largest die that comes in the set - depending on the size you use, you want the handle to be 2 sizes smaller than the die you used to cut the top of your bag, it just makes for a nice sized handle. I'm then going to line that up on the one piece of paper, adhere it down with tape and then repeat the same step as before - adhering the two pieces of paper together so they cut in the exact same spot on both pieces. Then I ran it through my big shot machine. Now, with these dies they don't cut the bottom, so I just went in with a craft knife and a ruler and cut a straight line across the bottom of the semi circle and now that has created the beginnings of my goodie bag.

Now I'm going to go ahead and create the base of the goodie bag. I'm going to use the same patterned paper I used for the front and back of my goodie bag. I first cut down this piece to 2" wide. You can can cut this piece to whatever width you want here, I want a 1" wide goodie bag, so I cut my piece to 2" wide - but if your making this and you want it to be 5" wide, then cut your paper at 6" - since you're going to need an extra 1" on it since you'll need 1/2" either side for adhering later on. Now that the width is cut, I need to figure out the length. I went ahead with my ruler and measured how high I need my sides to be. Mine worked out to be 3" on each side and 3 1/2" at the bottom - so I cut down the length of my cardstock to 9 1/2". But again, if you're making this, just measure with your ruler to figure it out and cut accordingly.  Once everything is cut I can go ahead and score it.

I pulled a large scoring tool out and then scored my piece at 3" and 6 1/2", so then you have a section of 3", 3 1/2" and 3" again. I then flipped my paper long ways and scored each end at 1/2". Now that my piece is all scored I'm going to cut little triangles. I cut a triangle at the 3" mark - just like you would a banner end and then also at the 6 1/2" mark - on both sides of the paper. This will just make it easier to adhere it together. Then at the ends of my piece I just did a small soft of half triangle cut compared to the triangle cut I did before - just to finish off the sides (This will be shown and explained better in the video). Now I can go ahead and place strips of adhesive along all the folded sides. I used tape adhesive here as liquid glue is too messy. I then went ahead and lined up the edges of the score lines with the sides of the bags and adhered my bag together. I also used a bone folder to push down on the sides so the adhesive sticks well.

To decorate up my bag I stamped, coloured and die cut some images from the "Blissful Baking" stamp set along with the angel and banner from "Little Angels" stamp set too. I used my Zig Clean Color pens to do all my colouring today. Once I had coloured all my images and die cut them out, I stamped the sentiment from "Blissful Baking" stamp set in the banner from "Little Angels", I just cut my stamp apart to stamp it next to each other, instead of on top like originally intended.  I then used a mask I'd previously cut and used the negative piece to place around the banner and ink blend with some green Distress Inks over top. Before adhering my scene together I wanted my little angel to be holding the piping bag, so I used a craft knife to cut around her hand and stuck the piping bag underneath - it just looked super cut this way.

Now I needed a holding ground for my images and sentiment so I die cut a circle from some kraft cardstock and adhered it onto my bag, then using foam adhesive I adhered the rest of my images on top. To finish up my bag, I used the "Tag Topper Traditional" die set to cut a little kraft tag and used the "Christmas Icons" stamp set to stamp the handmade with love sentiment on the bottom. I used the edge of a stitched die to give some stitching detail on the bottom of the banner as well. I also then used the bag image previously coloured to stick on top as well to finish it up. For the bag image, it doesn't come with the heart image inside, I just had stamped that in from the "Birthday Smiles" stamp set also - just to give it a little extra. I added some hemp cord and red twine to tie a bow at the top, tying the two sides of the handle together, threading the tag inside and that finished up my goodie bag for today.

Here is the video.

My channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ellaahrawr

I hope you enjoyed and are inspired to look at your tag dies a little differently. This is such a fun way to create your own goodie bags in personalised sizes. The possibilities are endless with this and just in time for the holidays if you don't already own goodie bag dies. Thanks for stopping by and stop by the rest of the week for more inspiration!

- Eloise 

Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

        

    

Guest Designer Spotlight: Christmas Ideas with Marion Vagg

Happy Saturday! It's Marion Vagg here and I am thrilled to be back on the Sunny Studio blog as a guest designer. Today I have two Christmas cards and a gift idea to share with you.

First up I have used the Merry Sentiments stamp set and matching die to create a colourful string of lights. I found that if I worked in reverse order (stamping the shadowing stamps first then finishing with the more solid stamp last) I lined them up better. I covered them in a layer of Glossy Accents to make them really shiny.

The tree branch is from the Holiday Style stamp set and I stamped it several times in two different shades of green. I also blended in some green ink with an ink dauber over the branch to make it look more full. I used the Merry Word die to create my sentiment, once again using a sponge dauber to create an ombre effect.

Next up is another Christmas card using the same sets as before. To add some dimension to the card, I created some ornament hangers with silver thread. To compliment this, I silver heat embossed the sentiment.

Lastly, I have used the Small Holly die (which is a free gift with every purchase from the Sunny Studio store while stocks last) to create a simple embellishment for a gift tin. I heat embossed the sentiment from the Merry Sentiments Stamp set onto some vinyl adhesive stickers. I wasn't sure if it would work, but it worked a treat! If you didn't have any vinyl stickers, black card stock would work just as well. I plan on making several more of these for my colleagues at work.

I hope you have found some inspiration here and are well on your way to making your Christmas cards and gifts. Christmas is definitely just around the corner.

Thanks for visiting today,

Marion

Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

       

A Big Hug In a Mug Card by Lexa

Hello everyone! Lexa here, today I'm going to share a sweet card starring Mug Hugs stamp and coordinating dies. Anyone will find this stamp set is super sweet, all the elements compliment each other, perfect not only for a Holiday card but also all year around.

I started with a piece of 4.25" x 5.5" white cardstock, heat embossing the snowflakes in white from the same set before blending the background. I used Worn Lipstick and Tattered Rose Distress Inks for the pink ombre background. I think I'm getting better with this. You know, practice makes perfect they say. And yes, I will continue to keep learning. :)

All the images are stamped with black Versafine ink and watercolored with Distress Markers. I added a holly & berries from the Christmas Icons set for the coffee cup. While I was arranging all the images together I started to imagine the smell that come from the card (call me crazy but I really did imagine that! Lol), I can smell chocolate, coffee and even a hint of vanilla from the fresh baked cookies. Haha. 

What's a Christmas card without glitters? So I add some clear Wink of Stella on the cookies and the snowflake, which is hard to capture in a picture. I even used my snow marker for the whipped cream to make it looks real and extra cute! 

Thank you so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful weekend!

Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

      

Please Join Us For The Caring Hearts Drive

The holidays are about family, kindness, and joy. However, during this time many of the elderly who live in nursing homes feel lonely. Wouldn’t it be great if we brought a smile to their face and brightened their holiday season simply by sharing our love of cardmaking? Please join crafters around the world for the 7th annual Caring Hearts Card Drive. Last year we collected over 22,000 cards and distributed them to over 100 nursing homes throughout the world. And we hope to collect even more this year! 

Please join us. Details for the card drive can be found at: Vera Yates Blog & Jennifer McGuire's Blog. Sunny Studios is proud to be a sponsor… offering a prize to a lucky contributor!