Category Archives: Holiday

Holiday Cards

Love to All Craft-along Kit

Love to All will be our Craft-along for January 29, 2022! These 3 cards are perfect to give to those on your Valentine’s list, or for other lovely occasions, too. Each has a different technique to explore.

The Live Video Craft-along will be at Stampin’ Stuff with My Inky Paws Facebook Page. The kit is available here at my Cats Paw Farm website.

Here’s what’s in your kit!

For the Live demo for this card stop by My Inky Paws Facebook page The Supplies list for this project is here. Thanks for hanging out with me! Happy Crafting to You and see you next time with a new project!!

Quarter Fold Peaceful Place Card

Because they are so much fun, here’s another Quarter Fold Card. This one has a Live demonstration to go with it on the My Inky Paws FB page, too. Link is at the bottom. These adorable cards open and close just like cardboard box flaps and open to reveal additional decoration and a large writing panel. Kids love to help make, these, too! Because they are kind of box as well as card, they would make amazing gift card holders as well as hold small flat gifts such as magnets, bookmarks, cash, etc.

You’ll have enough card stock for 2 cards, just double the cut instructions for coordinating cardstock and DSP to have 2 cards worth.

Cut List:
Cardstock
8-1/2 x 5-1/2 inches (cut a sheet in half shortwise)
Score at 2-1/8 and 6-3/8

11 x 4-1/4 inches (cut a sheet in half longwise)
Score at 2-3/4 and 8-1/4

Coordinating Cardstock
5-1/4 x 2-1/2 (need 4 of these per card)
4 x 1-7/8 (need 4 of these per card)

Cardstock you can write on
5-1/4 x 4

DSP
5 x 2-1/4 (4 total per card)
3-3/4 x 1-5/8 (4 total per card)

I’m working with both the Peaceful Deer stamp set, and the Peaceful Place premium Designer Series Paper for this card. Peaceful Place is gorgeous paper with silver foiling on one side of every sheet. It features snowy evergreens, rustic cabins, buffalo plaid, and snowflakes. Whether you’re creating holiday cards, winter birthday cards, or cards for your favorite outdoors lover this paper is perfect!

This card fits in an A2 sized envelope, and you’ll definitely want to add non-machinable postage if you’re mailing it because the center can easily attain 8 or more sheets of paper and card stock in thickness by the time you decorate the outside and inside, too.

Inside & Outside of Cards

For the Live demo for this card stop by My Inky Paws Facebook page The Supplies list for this card is here. Thanks for hanging out with me! Happy Crafting to You and see you next time with a new project!!

Quarter Fold Peaceful Deer Card

This card design has many names: Quarter Fold, Invitation Fold, Wedding Fold, Flap Fold. No matter what you call it, they are really fun to give and receive! These adorable cards open and close just like cardboard box flaps and open to reveal additional decoration and a large writing panel. Kids love to help make, these, too! Because they are kind of box as well as card, they would make amazing gift card holders as well as hold small flat gifts such as magnets, bookmarks, cash, etc.

Building the base for this card is as easy as cutting 2 sheets of 8-1/2 x 11 inch cardstock. Cut one sheet in half lengthwise, and the other in half shortwise. You’ll end up with 2 pieces each of 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 and 4-1/4 x 11. This is enough to make 2 cards.

Score your 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 pieces on the 8-1/2 inch side at 2-1/8 and 6-3/8.
Score your 4-1/4 x 11 pieces on the 11 inch side at 2-3/4 and 8-1/4.
Apply adhesive to the center rectangle of the 4-1/4 x 11 inch piece and then lay the 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 inch piece over it so that the center rectangles line up. You’ll end up with a plus-sign look. Fold the flaps in towards the center starting with the top flap, then left, bottom, and end with the right. Carefully tuck the top of the right flap under the left side of the top flap. That’s how your card will look once it’s finished. Keep that in mind as you unfold the flaps and begin designing your card.

I’ve seen these done in all sorts of décor configurations. They all look great! I chose to work with the Peaceful Deer Bundle for this card. The paper is the (retired) Fall 2021 Sale-a-Bration coordinating DSP pack. Any holiday paper you have is going to look amazing with this style of card though. I suggest mixing up the patterns as much as possible, too. This style of card really lends itself to being a wonderful mash up of different DSPs. The more the merrier I say. I love the look of many different papers under the holiday tree and that is what this card is reminiscent of.

This card fits in an A2 sized envelope, and you’ll definitely want to add non-machinable postage if you’re mailing it because the center can easily attain 8 or more sheets of paper and card stock in thickness by the time you decorate the outside and inside, too.

Inside of Card
Folded Card

For more cards and Live demos, stop by My Inky Paws Facebook page The Supplies list for this card is here. Thanks for hanging out with me! Happy Crafting to You and see you next time with a new project!!

Seasons Bring Wonder TS

Trifold Shutter Cards have been around for awhile now, and while they may look intimidating if you haven’t given them a try yet please consider adding them to your fun fold arsenal. They are also a great way to use up those little bits of a favorite DSP!

Below you’ll find a template for cutting and scoring the card, as well as a cut sheet for sizes of DSP and card stock. This is a wonderful card to use up those little bits of DSP that we all have in our scrap bins. If you don’t have a scrap bin I highly recommend a small tub that you can add your bits and bobs to because crafting from the scrap bin can be a joy in itself!

This card fits in an A2 sized envelope, and you’ll probably want to add non-machineable postage if you’re mailing it. Additional writing panels can be added to the back side as well if you’re adding a personal greeting you don’t want displayed. The display factor is one of the reasons I love this card. I enjoy cards that become pieces of décor, and this one really fits the bill!

Finished Card
Template for scoring and cut lines
Cut Sheet for DSP & Card Stock

The Live tutorial is up on My Inky Paws Facebook page and Supplies list is here. Thanks for hanging out with me! Happy Crafting to You and see you next time with a new project!!

Frightfully Cute Treat Boxes

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Have you used mini pizza boxes to create treat packaging with? While Stampin’ Up! recently discontinued theirs, I had a few packages left to play with and designed a cute windowed box for Halloween treats. These little boxes are very versatile, having both a glossy side and a matte side that let you customize your look, and at 3.5 inches square and 0.8 inches tall they are a great size for gifting to your special recipients. If you don’t have any on hand, you can find them easily with an online search.

The first thing I did was cut a scalloped circle window using the Circle Nesting Die set. Cut from the back (for me this was the glossy side) to avoid a little indentation from the edge of the die, unless you want that look as part of your design.

Next, grab your blending brushes, a Stampin’ Spritzer filled with water, the ink pads you want to use, and a little bit of a shimmery or metallic acrylic paint. With a toothpick, just pick up a bit of the shimmer paint and swirl it into the Spritzer and then shake. It might not look like much until you get it spritzed onto your project and then you’ll see lots of shimmery goodness!

Since we’re doing watercolor, we need to wet the matte side of the box (pre-wetting) to give our ink a buffer to slide across before depositing dye into the surface of the paper. Give your box a good spritz where you are going to begin, swirl some ink onto your blender brush, and add some color! Change colors (I use a different brush for different color families) and repeat, blending colors together as you wish. Even Memento black will work with watercolors so you can get some lovely depth of color that way, too. When you are done, place your box between some scrap paper and add a book or other weight to the top and let it dry.

While you’re waiting for the box to dry and flatten, cut a piece of window acetate to 3 inches square and set it aside. You can take this time to create any die cuts you wish to use for decoration and stamp your sentiment/name tags, too.

Once your box is ready, it’s time to flip it over and adhere the window pane to the back side of the scalloped hole. Then stamp your box as you wish, and add your die cuts, embellishments, sentiment bar as you wish! Once you are finished decorating then fold your box and fill it with a favorite candy. Treat boxes are always a hit when I gift them. I hope yours are too!!

The Live tutorial is up on My Inky Paws Facebook page and Supplies list is here. Thanks for hanging out with me! Happy Crafting to You and see you next week with a new project!!

Spooky & Festive

This week we started exploring some Halloween cards with the Festive & Bright Bundle and also brought in the spider web as a guest star from Frightful Tag dies.

This is a card that combines a lot of fun techniques, looks like you spent hours on it, and comes together super quick so you can make several in one sitting. I love it when that happens!

Crumb Cake is what I chose as the card base, with Very Vanilla writing panel and card front. You can see I used a Basic White Envelope as I need to place an order and restock my Very Vanilla envelopes. whoops! It’s ok though as the spider web is white so coordinates just fine.

The hats die from Festive & Bright Bundle is stamped along one side of the card front. Affix the card front to the card base and then die cut both layers with the right side of the hat die from the Festive Finishes Dies. I love how thoughtful Stampin’ Up! was with these dies. You can use the right and left sides together to create a stand-alone die cut, or use use one to create an edge!

While I was die cutting the card edge I also cut a matching piece out of scrap paper to use as a mask. The edge of the writing panel on the inside was masked with this scrap and blending brush used with Cinnamon Cider and Cajun Craze to give some depth and shading to the edge before it was adhered to the inside of the card.

The spiderweb was cut from Basic White and I gave it a shimmer with some Wink of Stella. Alternately you could cut this piece from some shimmer card stock. Spooky is one of the sentiments in the Festive & Bright bundle and it’s stamped with Versamark on a piece of Basic Black cardstock from my scrap bin. I chose gold embossing powder, but it would also look great with any of our metallics or white. Affix the sentiment to the spider web and then a couple of dimensionals on the back side of the spider web hold it up off the card to give some shadow behind it.

I gave the hats and brooms a bit of color with Crumb Cake light and dark Stampin’ Blends and then added a few touches of shimmer with Wink of Stella (because isn’t everything better with WoS?)

That’s it! The Live tutorial is up on My Inky Paws Facebook page, and start to finish with me chatting is only about 27 minutes. Told you it was a quick card! Supplies list is here.

Thanks for hanging out with me! Happy Crafting to You!!

Evergreen Elegance

I have so much fun with the Evergreen Elegance cling stamp set. A few simple evergreen trees, stars, some awesome sentiments, some beautiful DSP, and some trial & error coupled with a little imagination and you have some great cards for holiday, for the guy in your life, for nature-loving friends…you get the picture! Have fun friends!!

Evergreen Inspiration
Evergreen Inspiration. Stamped in Mossy Meadow over the DSP and then Window Sheet overlay stamped in Stazon (be careful, stamps have a tendency to slide on window acetate.) The stamped image was flipped so the inked side is towards the card to protect the image from scratching/rubbing off.
Supply List at https://s.tamp.in/fLku47

Evergreen Friends
Evergreen Friends. Another example of stamping on window acetate. Window Sheet overlay stamped in Stazon (be careful, stamps have a tendency to slide on window acetate.) The stamped image was flipped so the inked side is towards the card to protect the image from scratching/rubbing off. Use black Stampin’ Dimensionals to adhere the window sheet to the card surreptitiously. You can see the foam if you look, but it’s not super obvious and it elevates the window sheet for a fun 3D effect. This was my first holiday card of 2021 and it definitely put me in the mood to make more.
Supply List at: https://s.tamp.in/1CccJr
Evergreen Memories. This DSP is Beauty of the Earth (same with all cards in this post.) I wanted wild foliage, but also didn’t want it to be the focal point, so the vellum overlay really helped push it to the background. I stamped the trees generationally and then used markers to go back in and add ornaments. The beautiful sentiment is cut out using Tasteful Labels Dies (a set I absolutely adore for it’s stitched details.)
Supply List at https://s.tamp.in/2rEeJ6