Happy Late Thanksgiving! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving to be thankful for making it through a very chaotic year. I hope that you were able to spend the day celebrating the best way you could with the COVID-19 numbers rising again. It was just my husband and I this year. I made the traditional meal and then packed up care packages from my son, Sean and my mom. Sean was warned that some co-workers are sick and test results are waiting. My mom was a bit nervous, so it was safer for all to stay home this year. We had purchased a Thanksgiving dinner from Boston Maker and delivered to my husband's mom and sister on Wednesday so they could enjoy a dinner. It was a quiet day, which in a weird way was kinda nice...
I took the week off and spent the week crafting cards, gift bags, gift tags, and candy boxes. I have stocked my handmades online store Bonnie's Handmade Online Store with new cards, gift bags and gift tags. Plans for having a in home craft fair is all dashed due to the numbers rising. Good thing I got my online store up and running. Now just need to get my Facebook Business page up so I can get the word out. Please check out the new items in the store by sorting by "Date, New to Old" once you are in a collection: Cards or Gift Bags, Boxes, Tags. This will bring the newly posted items to the top. I didn't post any new Calendars this week as I focused on more Christmas Cards, Gift Bags and Gift Tags. I'll be posting more calendars next weekend. Note: be sure to select the photo as some items have different color options - like Gift Bags.
Great news! The top menu is back on my website to make it easier to navigate to certain topics like Videos, Shop with Me, Catalogs, etc. I added new dropdown items for my handmades. I was so excited to get this resolved!
It was a perfect time to try out many of the Stampin' Up!® products from the 2020 August - December catalog that I yet had a chance to play with. One of those is the Poinsettia Place Suite. I fell in love with this suite when I opened the Mini Catalog. Everything in this suite called out to me: the Poinsettia Place Designer Series Paper, the Poinsettia Petals Stamp set, the Poinsettia Die Set, the Plush Poinsettia Specialty Paper, the Real Red Sheer Ribbon and especially, the Beaded Pearls. I made cards, belly bands for Mini Gold Pizza boxes and gift tags. I still have more cards that I would like to make before the holiday is over!
This suite was made for the Gold and Silver Foil papers and the Red Velvet Paper. The Poinsettia Dies cut and emboss the paper. You can then fold along the embossed center line and the poinsettia petals come to life, especially with these two papers. I loved the swirly Plush Poinsettia Specialty Paper strip down the center of the first card I made. I had cut a variety of foliage from Silver Foil paper for the Garden Green card. For the Real Red card, I cased the idea of using the gold medallion from the Forever Gold Laser-cut Specialty Paper from Julianne Richards. What a brilliant idea to use this beautiful medallion to showcase a Red Velvet Poinsettia flower. The red berries were die cut from one of the Poinsettia Place DSP. Oh and those beautiful beaded pearls had to be used for the centers of these glorious flowers.
While crafting, I had time to catch up on You Tube inspiration and saw a fun fancy fold card that I cased from Sharon Armstrong. I used the Poinsettia Place DSP and Poinsettia Petals Bundle to make my version. From the die set, there is an outline poinsettia die that matches up with some of the poinsettias in the DSP. Once I cut those out, I couldn't stop and fussy cut the remaining Poinsettias left on the paper. I added some Wink of Stella to inner parts of the flower petals (research says that these are not actually petals but rather bracts (colored leaves)). I then added my favorite Champagne Rhinestone Basic Jewels to the center of the flower. I adhered the flower to a gold foil square that I embossed with Wrapped in Texture embossing folder. I adhered this onto a square of Garden Green for the center of the fancy fold. The cool part of this card is that when the receiver opens the card, the center square pivots! How brilliant is that!
I had a couple of leftover squares that I attached to a belly band of Garden Green and used this to decorate Gold Mini Pizza Boxes. These will make perfect gift card holders or candy boxes! How simple was that!
Using the Poinsettia Dies, I die cut a number of the smallest poinsettia flowers in Gold Foil and Red Velvet paper and some of the small red berry branch from the DSP. I used these to make gift tags of Red Velvet Paper Scalloped Circles. I used the second largest scalloped circle from the Layer Circles Die set. I used the Merry Christmas and the evergreen springs from the Tag Buffet stamp set. I embellished with Red Wonderful Gems and Red Rhinestone Basic Jewels. The Mossy Meadow Diagonal Striped Ribbon adds the finishing touch for the tags.
Reminder that the December 10 deadline is coming fast to order the Paper Pumpkin December kit. The kit includes enough supplies to create 12 cute and cuddly bear-themed cards. The kit also includes 12 coordinating envelopes. It offers a warm way to send a socially-distanced bear hug to friends and family, near or far. New subscribers will adore the easy opportunity to reach out to their loved ones in need of extra encouragement after a beary tough year! Paper pumpkin kits are a fun way to spend time with your friends crafting together. Split the kit between 3 friends and you each will have 4 cards. You can order from my online shopping page by selecting Kits > Subscriptions and then choose the 1 month subscription.
Please remember to use the December Host Code when ordering - 4JAJX3VE.
I won't be having any face to face workshops for the remainder of the year with the rising COVID-19 numbers. heavy sigh. Just more of a push now to get Facebook live and Zoom going....
Well, back to work tomorrow - the week off was just what I needed to make progress on Christmas projects. I hope you were able to get some R&R in before you head back this week - and most of all I hope you had time to spend in your craft room wherever that may be and let your creative juices flow!
Have a fabulous week and Keep on Crafting!
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