Merry Music rosette Christmas tree ornament

I spent Saturday really getting into the Christmas spirit, crafting with some of my stamping friends... all but one of whom I met through Stampin’ Up!®. Our brief was to bring a simple project for everyone to make so, to speed things up, I did a lot of prep for this Christmas tree ornament before I went. 

For instance, at home I used some rubbing alcohol with several drops of Crumb Cake reinker in it to spray the Merry Music Designer Series Paper and give it a softer, “aged look. I did the same to the silver glimmer paper, to tone it down a little. 

I also die-cut all the pieces, including the birds... well, I confess I opened my Best Birds stamp set and discovered a pile of stamped and die-cut birds in there. I knew they’d come in handy eventually!  

If you didn’t want to hang this on your Christmas tree, you could use it as a gift tag on a special present.

Link to diagram (in German) and instructions (in English)

Please note the instructions are in centimetres but they do not convert to inches.

If you need instructions in inches, I suggest you search “Stampin’ Up! rosette tutorial” and work from there. 

Today kicks off the Christmas Cheer Challenge, where UK demonstrators gather the troops (our loyal customers) to create as many Christmas cards as we can for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. The target is a whopping 10,000 cards in ONE weekend! Sounds impossible? Well, let’s see - the target was originally 10,000 cards over TWO events but, at our birthday challenge earlier this year, we managed well over 9,000 cards, so the target has been raised. Can we do it?

This morning we will be making these cards at my Crafty Friday event, and we'll be making more at a workshop this evening. Unfortunately it's a busy birthday weekend here chez Read, so that will be my only contribution to the challenge, but we're doing what we can!

Carols of Christmas gets the Lemon Lime Twist touch

I LOVE Lemon Lime Twist and think it looks great against the starkness of Whisper White and Basic Black. Here’s a project using the trees from the Card Front Builder dies set; all I did was die-cut the trees from a Whisper White panel and offset them to reveal the Lemon Lime Twist beneath. No waste and you get four trees from one roll of the die. 

On the same colour theme, I created a 3D package, designed to hold a roll of ribbon. This time I did die-cut two sets of trees; one in white, one in black. The cunning trick here is the border; if you look closely you can see the join where the two sections of the border die meet. This is a bit hit and miss and I have to confess this isn’t my best effort. If you’re particularly fussy, you could cover the join with some ribbon or other embellishment. 

The inside of the package was created with a pocket made from Merry Music Designer Series Paper; it may seem extravagant but it’s thinner than our usual paper so perfect for the job and also you get 24 sheets in a pack, so plenty to go round! And I like that it subtly adds interest to the project, like the fancy lining of an expensive jacket.

Hearts Come Home Crafty Friday projects

Crafty Friday was a packed one last week, so it was a challenge getting this card – more complex than our usual Crafty Friday projects – completed in time.

It’s inspired by the hugely talented Sandi MacIver, who created this beautiful project. For this CASEd version, I watercoloured the houses and trees but decided for Crafty Friday to switch to Whisper White cardstock and colouring with the new Stampin’ Blends for speed. I loved how everybody’s project turned out differently, so am kicking myself that I forgot to photograph them.

For the border, we mounted the Merry Music paper onto some cardstock and then cut out the centre to create a frame. But the middle bit wasn’t wasted, oh no...

We cut this into two 2" strips to create some cute matching tags. (I only managed one, hence the photo!)

Carols of Christmas projects

There are some gorgeous products in the Autumn/Winter catalogue this year, and these lovely cards showcase just a couple of them, including the Carols of Christmas bundle and the Merry Music Designer Series Paper. One of the great things about the paper is that you get 24 sheets in a pack, which means you’ll have plenty for ALL your Christmas projects!

This was one of the projects from my All-Day Autumn Craftathon recently – there are two designs so people can choose how to use the products themselves. Love the splash of copper!