Birthday Gift and Card

My husband's sister and her husband have birthdays very close to each other in March, and I find both of them a bit difficult to buy for each year.  This year my hubby suggested that we get them the BBC series Sherlock on DVD, which I thought was a great idea.  Now, just giving a DVD is a bit boring, and as a paper crafter you know I just had to dress it up just a 'little'.

I decided to make a cover for the DVD, and include on the inside some microwave popcorn to add a 'movie' experience feel to the gift. I also wanted to design something that was neither masculine or feminine as it would be a joint present for both of them.  Here you can see the front cover on which I have used Gorgeous Grunge (gosh I hope this doesn't retire this year!) stamped in Rich Razzleberry, Island Indigo and Smokey Slate.  Take note of the Just Sayin' stamp on the cover, I cut this by hand and then layered it over Silver Glimmer Paper, adding some Silver Glimmer Paper punched with the Chevron Punch to the card front.

I used the Tag Topper Punch to make a clasp to hold the cover in place, adding a small magnet to both this and the DVD pocket.  The Razzleberry Candy Dot finishes off the clasp.

I made a cute little banner with the Banner Punch and the stamp set "ABC - 123 Sketch Alphabet & Numbers".  This is a great set that I overlooked for some time but it fits perfectly in not only the banner punch but a number of our other punches as well.   After adhering the banners to the front of the card I put a small rhinestone between each to give some bling.  I also added a cute little paper clip from the Essentials Hardware Clips.  The photo doesn't pick up the sparkle, but in person it really was quite blingy.

This is the inside of the 'card', you can see I made a couple of pockets on the back of the cover to hold the two mini popcorn packets, adding Chevrons in Glimmer Paper to these to tie in the theme from the front.  I just loved the expression on Benedict's face and decided to add a speech bubble with their age!  The panel is for writing the message.

I took some measurements and plan to write up a short tutorial for this, it is a bit bigger because the DVD set is of all three seasons, but the idea would work for normal sized DVDs or even a clear mount stamp set, you could add an ink pad and some embellishments to the pockets instead of popcorn.

The good news is they both loved the gift!

Happy Stamping

Mashed Up Sneak Peek

It's Friday Mashup time again - this time the challenge was to create a birthday card and/or use twine on your card.  I chose the mashed up option and used twine on a birthday card.  Being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator gives me the opportunity to pre-order new items, usually a month before they are available. It is currently an exciting time in the Stampin' Up! world - we are about to have Sale-A-Bration, where you can earn free products with purchases of $90, and this year at the same time the new Occasions Catalogue goes live!

Apart from cardstock this card has all new items on it - a mix of SAB and Occasions ones.  The Decorative Dots Embossing Folder was used on the So Saffron over layer, I love the gentle, random texture of this folder. 

Next is a combination of a cute stamp set called Just Sayin' a selection of speech bubbles that wonderfully come with a matching set of Word Bubbles Framelits. To get the layers just right I first used the framelit on the top layer getting the speech bubble where I wanted it.  Then I placed this over the base card (without sticking down) and used a pencil to trace the outline of the shape.  Once the top layer was lifted off I used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to get the stamp exactly where I wanted it, on this occasion I used Versamark and Gold embossing powder.  Erase the light pencil line and adhere the top layer with dimensionals.  I plan to complete the inside with another speech bubble with the person's age in it once I have a recipient!

Rather than try and describe how I made the flags, I thought I would take a picture. I grabbed a scrap of Whisper White cardstock and used the new Retro Fresh Washi Tape to cover it then used the SAB Banner Punch to punch out my little flags using different parts of the Washi Tape.  This is a great way to have flags that are different but also match a theme, and I didn't use much Washi Tape either. The Banner Punch also has a cute set of matching stamps that you can also earn for free.

The final new product is the very cute Gold Baker's Twine - this is so lovely in person, it has a thin thread of very shiny gold through it.  It also comes in Silver and both are just wonderful and I can see me using them a lot in the future.

Happy Stamping