Perfectly Wrapped Project Kit Tip

I have been having fun today making up one of each of the boxes from the Perfectly Wrapped Project Kit. You can see the full kit made up in the picture above.

I was a little disappointed to learn that the frill on the smallest box was adhered directly onto the box and would be torn when the box was opened. I knew there had to be a way to keep the look of the box and frill without having to damage it when the box is opened.

I decided the simplest way would be to add the frill to a belly band in matching Mint Macaron that could be easily slipped on and off without damage.  I cut a strip of the long side of an A4 sheet that was just under 1.5cm (I actually think 1.3 would work a little better).  I added four strips of the ruffle by running a very fine strip of Tombow glue down the centre and adhering the first to the card stock, and then layering the others on top.  An additional tip to get the ruffle to work nicely is to slightly off-set each layer.

By adding the fine frill to the belly band it also gives it more strength and reduces the risk of it getting torn accidentally.

I hope this has been a helpful tip for this little box.

Happy Stamping
Monique

Tips n Tricks - Glimmer Trimmer

Have you ever tried to cut glimmer paper with your Stampin' Up! Trimmer?  I have and it completely ruined my blade in the process. I had resorted to using my big guillotine for cutting glimmer paper, but it is big and bulky and I really can't cut thin pieces precisely.  Not to mention it is really inconvenient to have to lug it out of storage to cut a small piece of glimmer paper - the consequence of which is that I stopped using glimmer paper so much on my projects. 

But not to disrepair I have a solution, which I stumbled upon last time I was changing out an old blunt blade from my trimmer. It occurred to me that with the trimmer arm design it would actually be able to hold three blades, with the two least used tucked away at each end, so I added my old blade to the arm and marked it with a G so I don't get them mixed up. You can see how I have them arranged in the picture:

Now I can quickly and easily cut accurate strips of glimmer paper of any width just by grabbing my Stampin' Up! Paper Trimmer.

Happy Stamping
Monique

Christmas Ornaments

I had some fun on the weekend making some Christmas Ornaments with some of my new products and I thought I might just share them with you.

 This first one is a fairly simple ornament that I had seen somewhere on Pinterest, and in hindsight I would have used a couple more of the flower and snowflakes and spritzed the Real Red cardstock.  But all that aside, as a simple ornament I was happy with the outcome.  I found it easiest with the large outer image to adhere the two Framelits together to ensure an even cut each time.  I added some Rhinestones to the Bakers Twine to add some bling.

The second ornament is a variation of the one on the front cover of the Holiday Catalogue, I used Midnight Muse instead of Gumball Green and a scalloped circle as the centre rather than a rosette.  I snipped in toward the centre at every second scallop so that it would sit nicely, then finished off with a Faceted Vintage Button.  Each of the petals of the ornament is made with 4 stamped and cut out shapes, three of them are scored and folded in half and adhered together.  I used the video tutorial from Angie at Chic N Scratch - thanks Angie for putting the effort in, it made it much easier to follow along.

Here is my little tip for scoring all 30 ornaments.  Use one of the negatives and find the middle of the top and bottom and then adhere the negative over a groove on the Simply Scored tool - I have drawn in a line down the 6" mark so I used this score mark.  Just slip your ornaments into the negative and score down the middle - this is much quicker than lining each ornament up, or not scoring them before folding which doesn't give as clean a look.

Happy Stamping