The Gift of Christmas...

Hi everyone...

Hope you all had a lovely weekend and feeling the festive spirit! Can you honestly believe we're now only just 4 weeks away from the big day?!?! Well, if you're still looking for some gift ideas, then look no further because this week over on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog our theme is called GIFT IT and the DT have been busy creating projects to give you some inspiration and ideas of how to make some handmade gifts for loved ones!

This week I chose to make a little treat bag and a matching gift tag. I will be making a few more of these and then placing them on everyone's table settings on the festive table, it's just a fun way to create a little extra gift for my family to enjoy when we sit down to eat...

So, let's begin the brand new challenge and here's how I created my project...

 

To begin with I took the Tim Holtz Treat Bag die and used this to die cut kraft card before assembling the bag, which is super easy to do. Once I had my little bag, I then cut a second piece of card using the die but this time, I just wanted the front and back panels, so cut away the excess and then using my guillotine, I trimmed the panels down by approx 1-2mm on the three straight sides, leaving the torn, deckle edge showing at the top.

Using clear embossing ink, I then inked up the Music stamp from the Music and Advert Stampers Anonymous set and stamped the music background onto both panels of card, sprinkled white embossing powder over the top and then after tapping away the excess, heat embossed the music score.

After inking around the edges of each panel, I attached them onto the front and back of my treat bag and punched a hole through the top of the bag.

Moving on, I then started to create my floral arrangement that will be on the front of the bag and for this I used a combination of dies, which included the brand new Funky Festive, together with an older die ~ Mini Holiday Greens. I used foliage from each die and just cut myself a variety of pieces from Classic Kraft Card.

Once I had enough foliage, I then dry brushed the tips with Picket Fence Distress Ink before smearing some Matte Collage Medium over the top and dipping each piece into Rock Candy Dry Distress Glitter. Leaving the foliage to dry, I moved onto the poinsettias which are created using the dies from the Funky Festive set.

Firstly, I coloured some card with Candied Apple Distress Paint and then spritzed over the top with a Perfect Pearls Biscotti Spray that I have in my stash.

Once the painted card was dry, I then ran it through the die cutting machine to cut two sets of petals.

I lightly inked the edges of each petal with Gathered Twigs and then shape them around a pencil before layering them up to create dimension. In the centres, I added a small bauble which I coloured with Gold Mixative and Mushroom Alcohol Inks and just adhered into place with a dot of Matte Collage Medium. To complete the flowers, I used the splatter brush to splatter Picket Fence Distress Paint across them and after a light smear of Matte Collage Medium, dipped them into the pot of Rock Candy Glitter to create a sugar frosting.

When all the floral pieces were dry, I then just arranged them onto the front of my treat bag with some branches tucked into the arrangement that I bought from my local supermarket. For the little berries that you can see on the foliage, I used some Tonic Nuvo Crystal Drops and added them to the die cuts before giving them another dusting of glitter.

I then added a Tim Holtz Metallic Quotation sticker that I had left over from last year and some glitter dusted baubles that I tucked into the arrangement.

To complete the bag, I wanted to add a bow but keep a natural look to the project, so I thought I'd use some of the Mummy Cloth (but you can used hessian ribbon if you haven't got the cloth) and dyed it with Pine Needles Distress Spray Stain. I then threaded the ribbon through my punched hole...

...and used a loop pin to attach a Christmas Token and a little Tiny Bell.

So, here's the finished treat bag but I wanted to add a little gift tag...

...and for this I took a small kraft tag and stamped the music score directly onto the tag using a white ink pad. I then took one of the messages from the Festive Overlay stamp set and stamped this onto the centre using Jet Black Archival Ink. To complete the tag, I added a few splatters of Picket Fence Distress Paint and threaded some more of the dyed mummy cloth through the hole before attaching two small pinecone adornments, smeared with a little Matte Collage Medium and frosted with Rock Candy Dry Distress Glitter.

So, I really hope you've enjoyed this project and I hope it's given you some ideas of how you can create little gift bags of your own using this really cool die.

Don't forget, you can find more inspiration from my talented teamies over on the challenge blog and every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in and good luck....

See you very soon, love Emma xxx

Recipe for project:

Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Stamps: Festive Overlay, Music & Advert

Tim Holtz/Sizzix Dies: Treat Bag, Funky Festive, Mini Holiday Greens
Distress Paint: Picket Fence, Candied Apple
Distress Inks: Gathered Twigs
Distress Spray Stain: Pine Needles
Alcohol Inks: Gold Mixative, Mushroom

Idea-ology: Christmas Token, Tiny Bells, Pinecones Adornments, Baubles

Mediums: Matte Collage Medium, Rock Candy Dry Glitter, SSS White Embossing Powder, Jet Black Archival Ink, Versamark Embossing Ink, Tonic Nuvo Crystal Drops

Surfaces: Kraft Card, Classic Kraft Stash

Blending Tool
Splatter Brush

Tim Holtz Media Glass Mat

Tim Holtz Guillotine
Sizzix Big Shot Plus

Heat Gun

Tim Holtz Mummy cloth, Tim Holtz Quotations Stickers, Ranger Ink Perfect Pearls Spray and twigs from my own stash