Constantly Stamping

Vintage-Inspired Gift Packaging

When I was a child my father used to drag me to every flea market and antique store he could find...thus the love of all things old and vintage comes naturally. Practically every Saturday we were off on a different adventure to see what old "new" things we might find. These are some of the most precious memories I have of my childhood. Just me and my dad hunting for unexpected "treasures" in a sea of what most people would call junk. I have always been "daddy's girl" and to this day my dad and I will run out to a flea market or antique store together whenever we have an opportunity. Now that we live in different states, those opportunities seem to come much less often.

The project I am sharing today was inspired by those fond memories of childhood. I started by wrapping my gifts with First Edition Speciality DSP. The edges were sponged with Early Espresso ink to give it a worn, vintage feel. Next I tied on some Crumb Cake Scalloped Tulle Ribbon. The snowflake was created with Silver Glitter Paper and die out with the Snow Flurry Bigz Die. I hot glued the layers together and added a little punched paper greenery between layers (non-SU). For even more sparkle, I added some Basic Rhinestones. Then I hot glued the snowflake to the ribbon so that the person receiving the gift could slide the entire thing off and reuse it. The final touch was a tag stamped with the Merry & Type stamp set in Early Espresso ink.

 

Most likely this will be my final creative post before Christmas. My "to do" list is much too long! I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you for your support. Your uplifting comments and sweet emails are what keeps me moving forward. Thank You and may you and your loved ones have a blessed and wonderful Merry Christmas. Remember, without Christ there is no Christmas!

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BLAH, Blah, blah...

Now that Thanksgiving is over I am totally BLAH! I cleaned and organized for two weeks in expectation of my husband's family coming to visit over the past week. Now that they have come and gone, I am totally exhausted. To make matters worse, my brother-in-law and his wife both came down with bad colds while they were here, so now my hubby is sick as well. The good news is that the house is clean and the Christmas decorations are up (inside and out). We had a wonderful visit, but we are definitely not used to having so many people in our house all at once. WHEW...as fun as it was, I am glad it is over.

I had to put away all of my stamping/crafting supplies, so I have to rely on sharing one of my few remaining projects that I made for convention displays this past summer. I held on to this one because I fully intended to do a video tutorial, but never got around to doing it. So I will try to just tell you what I did to make the flower and you can email me with any questions you may have.

Basically, I used the third largest flower from the Floral Frames Framelits to cut two Tangerine Tango flowers. I snipped between each petal approximately 1/2" deeper toward the center. I spritzed both with water and then used the end of a signo Uniball gel pen to shape the petals. After everthing was throughly dry, I sponged Tangerine Tango ink on each petal and then assembled the flower using Stampin' Dimensionals.

I made the bag with the Fancy Favor Bigz die and created a topper with the Labels Collection Framelits. I used International Bazaar designer series paper for the bag. The flower center is stamped with the greeting from the World Treasures stamp set and punched out with a 1 1/4" circle punch.

I hope you have a wonderful week and I will do my best to be back soon with more fun stamping projects.

 

Wonderfall Friend

I don't know what it is like where you live, but here in Tennessee it finally feels like Autumn. We even  had to kick on the furnace for the first time this week...well, we tried, but it didn't work. Truth is, we probably didn't really need it yet, but we had a new high efficiency Heat/AC unit installed a few months ago and I just wanted to see if it would work. Turns out they got a couple of wires crossed when they installed it and it wouldn't come on. I am really glad we caught it before it got cold. But there is definitely a chill in the air, especially at night...although I think our little cool spell is ending tonight. All this brisk weather and turning leaves put me in the mood to make an Autumn-themed card.

I built this card on a standard Early Espresso card base and layered on some More Mustard CS. The top layer is the Core'dinations Early Espresso CS from the holiday mini catalog. I embossed it with the Woodgrain folder and then sanded off the raised portions to bring out the pattern. I wrapped the hemp twine (non-SU) around the top two layers before I adhered them to the card base.

I die cut leaves using the new Autumn Accents Bigz Die out of some Very Vanilla CS. Then I stamped the leaves from the Wonderfall stamp set in Cajun Craze, More Mustard, Old Olive, and Early Espresso ink. I just love how they are made to compliement each other. To create the greeting, I cut two frames with the Apothecary Accents Framelits and layered them together. The sentifment is from the Blessings From Heaven set. The brads I used are retired, but I just love how they bring out the bronze accent on the Brushed Bronze button. I have a fun workshop planned for tomorrow, so I guess I had better go finish packing everything up. Have a great weekend!

Perfectly Preserved Neighbor Gifts

One of the reasons I love the Perfectly Preserved and Friendship Preserves stamp sets is that I do a decent amount of jam making each summer.  Every Christmas my neighbors have come to expect their Blackberry Jam with some different and clever packaging. This year I have a little surprise for them...not only did I make yummy blackberry jam, I also made a big batch of pear preserves. This is what some of them will receive this year.

This is one of the projects that I made with the gals at my last class. I did some simple sewing to make the burlap bags. I measured the circumference of the jar and added two inches. This gave me a 1/2" seam allowance and a little wiggle room for the jar. I also added about five inches to the height of the jar so that I would have just enough room to stitch the bottom piece closed and have some leftover at the top to tie shut. We stamped and paper-pieced the jam jars to create a fun tag. They really had fun making these and now they have one of their Christmas gifts all ready to go. 

Elegant Daydream Medallions Card

Today I am back with a traditional hand-stamped card. If it looks familiar to some of you it is because this is another one of my convention samples. Everything about this card reeks of traditional elegance...from the color palette to the embossing. I started with a VersaMark pad and clear embossing powder and heat embossed practically everything on this card. I know it is difficult to see in the photo, but even the Whisper White panel is heat embossed.

To create the flower I stamped the images from the Daydream Medallion set (#126465/126467) on Real Red card stock and die cut them with the Floral Frames Framelits (#127012). I embellished the flower center with a Vintage Faceted Designer Button (#127555) and some Rhinestone Basic Jewels (#119246).

Petal Cone Die Felt Carrot Easter Bags

The other day I told  you about the envelopes full of treats that I sent to my downline. Well, this is one of the items in the envelope. Aren't they just the cutest things? I adore working with felt. It is absolutely the easiest of all the fabrics to work with and you can make the most adorable projects.

Here is a quick tutorial on how I created this fun Easter project. You can click on the pictures if you need a closer look. First, I used the Petal Cone die and the Big Shot to cut a piece of orange felt. I trimmed off the flap and rounded off the end of the cone.

Next, I stitched on three buttons using white Bakers Twine and secured the ends on what will be the inside. Then I began a blanket stitch around the back side of the carrot top, making sure to hide the knot on what will be the inside of the carrot.

Once I reached the side, I folded the felt on the crease and began stitching down the fold. At this point the blanket stitch is just decorative. Once you reach the tip of the carrot, then you need to make sure you stitch both layers together to secure the side seam. Continue stitching around until you reach the top opening of bag. Now, continue stitching around the top front portion of the carrot, but make sure you leave the top open so you can add some treats later. Once you go all the way around the top, secure the twine with a knot inside the bag.

To create the carrot top, I used the Blossom Punch (#125603) to punch out one piece of Brights DSP and one piece of matching cardstock. Glue the two flowers together for stability. At this point punch two holes in the center of the flower and then two holes through both layers of the bag opening near the top with the larger hole of a Crop-a-dile. Thread the ribbon through from the back and add the tag. Then just tie a bow in the front. To be totally honest, this polka dot ribbon is a little tricky to work with, so you will have to fiddle with it to make the polka dots show.

OK, that is pretty much all there is to it. Of course I stamped "Happy Easter" from the stamp set "Delightful Dozen" to create a tag. I mixed up the different buttons, flowers, and ribbon so that I could use up a lot of different colors.There are lots of videos on YouTube that show you how to blanket stitch, so I decided not to do another one.  I hope you like my project. You can purchase most of the supplies for this project in my online store (except the felt, of course). Also, I would be happy to put together a kit for you based on your needs. If you are interested, then send me an email to connie@constantlystamping.com. Be sure to put "Carrot Bag" in the subject line so I won't miss it. Have a great day!

Elementary Elegant Butterfly

There are lots of things going on today, so here is a quick post of another SAB sample. It features the Elementry Elegance set along with some pretties made using the Beautiful Butterflies die and Beautiful Wings embosslit. It is difficult to see all the bling, but I covered the largest butterfly in Fine Galaxy Black Glitter. I also added some rhinestones for even more glitz. I used the Framed Tulips embossing folder to create the borders on the card. Gotta run! Have a wonderful day!

SAB Sprinkled Expressions Box Trio

Back to the Sale-a-bration samples today. For this projects I started with the Bitty Box & Envelop die (#115967) and cut three boxes out of card stock (Bashful Blue, Pretty in Pink, and Real Red). I stamped each box with the flower from Sprinkled Expressions and Versamark ink. Then I assembled the boxes and tied them together with some Pretty in Pink 1/2" Scallop Dots Ribbon (#124141).

For the flower, I cut a strip of Twittepated fabric (#125412) with the Tasteful Trim die. I used a needle and thread to hand-stitch along the straight edge. Then I gathered it and attached it to a card stock circle covered with sticky strip. I stamped the sentiment in Real Red ink and then punched it out using the Extra Large Tag Punch. A tiny butterfly for the tag and a button for the flower gives the project the perfect finishing touches.

Would you like to learn how to make this project? I am currently booking workshops in the Nashville area. Why not have some friends over and let me teach you step-by-step how to create these fun projects. Contact me today to schedule your workshop.