Christmas/Winter Blog Hop

Hello!!!  Welcome to the Winter/Christmas Themed Blog Hop celebrating our favorite time of the year. This Blog Hop is hosted by Paulette, from Around the Bock with Scrapalette. If you are following along with the Hop you should have arrived from Blingdazzler’s blog.  If not, you can start at the beginning of the hop at http://scrapalette.blogspot.com

Paulette and I will be following along with the blog hop from the Cricut Circle event in Greenville SC!!  My projects for today are serving dual purpose!  For those of you in the Circle you may know that these events for the Circlets typically include a theme, a swap and a contest.  Luckily for me the theme of today’s blog hop is also the theme for the Circle event (love killing two birds with one stone– YIPEE!!).  For information about joining the Cricut Circle please visit www.Cricut.com.  Now that all that stuff is out of the way…let’s get to the real reason you are here J!!

My first project for the hop is a simple card that will fit not only Christmas but Winter too.  It is the card I am entering into the contest at the Circle event.  I love the way it turned out.  I think this is going to be my stock Christmas card this year.  It was soooooo easy to put together, but yet I think it is simply stunning (maybe I am biased heeheehee).  I may decide to change it up a bit too…maybe a nativity scene, or a silhouette of an ice skater???  Who knows!! 

Materials Used for this project:

Stampin’ Up Cardstock & Ink – Basic Gray

Georgia Pacific Cardstock (Walmart) – White

PK Glitz Glitter – Crystal

Zig Two Way Glue Pen

EK Success 3D-Dots - 1/16” thick

EK Success 3D-Dots – 1/8” thick

Stampin’ Up Stamp Sets – Heard from the Heart  and  God’s Blessings

ATG gun

Gypsy (DS or CCR will probably work)

Cricut Cartridges:

Campin’ Critters – Bare Trees (layer 2 – button 42)

Celebrate with Flourish –Rabbit (layer - button 12)

Christmas – Snowy hill (shift  – button 43)

Don Juan – (Christmas) Pine (shift – button 33)

George and Basic Shapes – (shift – button 14; resized to a horizontal rectangle to weld to the snowy hill to provide a flat edge for the bottom of the card)

Live Simply – Squirrel (base – button 9; flipped right to left)

Wildlife – Deer family (base – button 39)

I designed this with my Gypsy.  First I opened a template I had created for a 4.25” x 5.50” landscape card.  This gives me a base to work from in making sure I have everything sized the way I want it.  There are three layers to the scene to give it the depth.  I started with the snowy hill from the Christmas cartridge.  I then welded a base using the square (resized) from George and Basic Shapes.  Then I added the Pine from Don Juan as well as several sets of the bare trees from Campin’ Critters, using the hide contour feature to space/organize the trees the way I wanted.  Next I began to add the animals; I wanted the deer family from Wildlife to be the main focus, then I placed the rabbit from Celebrate with Flourish and the squirrel from Live Simply (again using hide contour on both to avoid cutting the extras).  After I had my scene the way I thought I wanted it I copied it two times and then began to delete the items I didn’t want for each specific layer.  I welded and grouped the items on each layer and would occasionally place the layers back on top of one another to make sure I was getting everything I wanted in the right place.  Once I was satisfied I made my cuts.  Oh, in efforts to avoid wasting so much paper I flipped one of the layers down and moved the layers around so they would cut on one 8 ½ x 11 piece of cardstock (save the paper from the mat to use later on in the project). 

I used my zig two way glue pen to strategically place glue in the tree bends and on the ground where snow would lay and sprinkled with PK Glitz glitter.  I scored my card base and began by adhering the base layer directly to the cardstock with my ATG gun. I then added 1/16” 3D-Dots and attached the next layer carefully lining everything up and repeated with the top layer.  Then I used the leftovers from the Cricut cuts, and cut a piece to 5.5” by whatever I had to stamp my sentiment using Stampin’ Up’s Heard from the Heart “welcome Christmas into your heart” in basic gray.  I then carefully tore the paper to add another layer element, added a line of glue and sprinkled with PK Glitz glitter.  I attached directly to the top layer with my ATG gun. 

On the inside (not shown-sorry!) I cut down a piece of white cardstock and stamped my sentiment using Stampin’ Up’s God’s Blessings “May the miracle of Christmas find you Safe in the Peace of God, warm in the Light of Christ.”  I find this sentiment just beautiful!  While I respect the beliefs of others, I am a Christian and believe that there is no Christmas without Christ.  That is it.  The hardest thing about this card is the design.  Now that I have that out of the way I am excited about getting these made so I can mail them out after Thanksgiving.

I will be happy to share the gypsy file with you (leave a comment including your email), all I ask is for creative courtesy in that you do not share without my consent and please give credit where credit is due J!  If you do not have the cartridges required to make the cuts, I am sure you can find substitutions with cartridges you do have.  Just have fun with it!  I may be posting some additional versions in the future.     

For my next project I am showing you the tags I made for the Circle event tag swap.  These were soooo simple to make!!  You tend to want simple when you are making 50+ of the same thing LOL!!

Materials Used for this Project:

Stampin’ Up Cardstock & Ink – Baja Breeze, Certainly Celery, and Cherry Cobbler

Staz-on Ink – Cotton White

(Unknown Brand) Cardstock - Vanilla

Caron Simply Soft Yarn (Walmart) – Off White #9702

Close To My Heart Stamp Set from the Art Philosophy Bundle – To: and From:

Studio G Clear Stamp Set ($1 Winter set) - Snowflake

Crop-a-dile

ATG gun

Gypsy

Cricut Cartridge:

Jolly Holidays – Mittens @ 2.75 (base & shift – button 29)

Again, designed with my Gypsy, I added as many sets of mittens I could to fit the paper I had; using 8 ½ x 11 paper I was able to cut 6 sets per sheet of cardstock.  On another layer I was able to add more of the shift layers, which was ok because I wanted all of the mitten “cuffs” to be vanilla for visibility on who the gift is to and from (I despise those sticker tags that are so dark sometimes you can’t find a pen that shows up or you can’t read when you are handing out presents!).  I cut the mittens in various colors, then cut the cuffs in vanilla.  I was careful to keep the cuffs for the left mittens together and the cuffs for the right mittens together…this way I knew which stamp should be used on them (to: stamped on the left cuff and from: stamped on the right cuff).  Using the ink color coordinating with the mittens, I stamped the to: and from: onto the cuffs and attached them to the mitten using the ATG gun.  I then stamped the snowflakes on the mittens; on the Cherry Cobbler mittens I used the Staz-on ink; on the Baja Breeze and Certainly Celery I used the coordinating ink.  Next I used my Crop-a-dile to punch holes for my yarn.  I used the smaller hole punch and placed the mitten set together by putting them face to face and lining up the thumb then punching the hole as close to the bottom and edge under the thumb as I could.  I simply inserted the yarn, tied a simple knot and cut the excess off!  That’s it!!  Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy!!

I love simple things.  Sometimes I want to get to elaborate and I realize that just isn’t my thing!  I have always liked clean lines, bright colors and cutesy images.  I do try to challenge myself every now and then to go  outside of my comfort zone, but when mass producing I just don’t have the patience…nope, not me hahaha!

Well I hope you have enjoyed my projects.  Please leave me a comment…all us bloggers just love comments.  If you like my projects please browse some of my other posts and become a follower.  You  never know, I may just randomly choose someone for a prize J….hmmmmmmmm…..???

Off to the next blog you shall go…that would be Sharon at  Designs by Sharon

Here are the other participants:
1. Paulette at http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/
2. Debbie at http://bugginattheseams.blogspot.com/
3. Carolyn at http://cccscraproom.blogspot.com/
4. Brenda at http://happyscrapper64.blogspot.com/
5. Maria at http://stampcutcreate.blogspot.com/
6. Chris at http://scrappin-nanapuddin.blogspot.com/
7. Cindy at http://www.inlovewithpaper.blogspot.com/
8. Michele at http://www.michelegreen.com/
9. Lisa at http://addictedtothecricut.blogspot.com/
10. Dana at http://papermemories4u.blogspot.com/
11. Nancy at http://lanancyworkshop.blogspot.com/
12. Madylyn at http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/
13. Wini at http://www.looneybugdesigns.com/
14. Renee at http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/
15. Tammy at http://www.scrapcavecreations.com/
16. Debbie at http://debbieduddles.blogspot.com/
17. Kim at http://blingdazzler.com/
18. Brandi at http://scubascrapperbrandi.blogspot.com/
19. Sharon at  http://designsbysharon.blogspot.com/
20. Liz at http://liz-lavendarandroses.blogspot.com/

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