Month: November 2020

Holiday House Luminaria

| ullycatdesigns

Colorful holiday lights fill up the long winter nights. This little holiday house luminaria would be perfect as a holiday table decoration or a child’s nightlight. (Note: Use battery powered candles only.)

Made with Karen Burniston’s recent release of her holiday house die set, this 3-inch tall by 2 ½ inch cube has slight modifications made to original two-dimensional design. I cut four of each of the die pieces, (except for the smaller house shape and door pieces, of which I cut two each.) I stenciled the roof pieces and brick pieces first and then assembled two houses exactly as shown on the package with one modification, I used a craft knife to cut out the windows on the red house piece.

To cut the windows I used two of the window frame pieces to decide on placement and then I traced with a pencil around them. Using a metal ruler and craft knife I cut an 1/16 inch inside the pencil marks, so that the window frames would still have an edge to glue onto the red house. For the sides of the house without a door, I made sure the tops of the windows lined up with the tops on the front and back of the house. (HINT: If you are going to make a lot of these houses, make templates from heavy cardstock to trace where the window cut-outs would be.) Glue strips of vellum to the back side of the house pieces to act as window glass.

I cut the snowy roof edging and string of lights from white shimmer paper. The lights were colored using markers before assembling the house. The snow on the ground around the house were scraps from the die cutting of the roof edging pieces.

To assemble, trim the roof sides to be the same as the house sides. Next, lay all the pieces side by side and tape them together on the back side.

The roof top is a 3-inch by 3-inch square that was stenciled moving the roof die across the square. Using a score board score ¼ inch from all four sides of the square. Snip on of one the scored sides of the tiny squares to form tabs. Fold on all four score lines to form a square tray shape. You can push this tray up inside the house cube. No glue needed.

The house and roof will fold to mail in an A2 envelope.

Thank you for reading about this little house. Please like and leave a comment. 😊

Links to other luminaria and houses:

Victorian Trim House Luminaria

House Luminary

Victorian Christmas Parlor

Also see the series of “A Week of Christmas Houses”

Day 1 – From Our House to Your House

Day 2 – Santa is Coming

Day 3 – A Baby is Coming

Day 4 –Keeping the Home Fires Burning

Day 5 – Red Four-Square

Day 6 – Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Day 7 – House Luminary

SUPPLIES

Dies/Punches

Ink

Paper

Miscellaneous

A Joy Shaker

| ullycatdesigns

Everyone needs some joy around the end of the year holiday season.  This contemporary slimline card wishes the recipient that the simple joys of the season are theirs.

I used two of Pink Fresh Studio’s Essential Slimline Cuts dies to make the trio of circles in two shades of green that form the main design element of this card. Pink and magenta halo glitter were sandwiched between two sheets of acetate using double sided tape. San serif letters cut from a bronze glitter sheet spell out “JOY” and are glued to the acetate windows.

Inside the card is stamped with a string of lights and the main sentiment. The same cherry red ink is used to stamp the string of lights and the word “Joy” on the back envelop flap hinting what’s to come.

Hoping you enjoyed seeing this card. Thank you for reading. Please like and leave a comment.

Materials Used:

Dies

Stamps

Inks

Papers

Miscellaneous

Santa Vintage Trifold

| ullycatdesigns

Sometimes we just need to believe that there once was a perfect Christmas Eve with Santa flying through the starry night.

This shimmering trifold Christmas card delivers on that idea. Based on the Spellbinders’ Christmas village vignette frame die set, the scene is set with Santa flying his sleigh through the air, over the tops of fir trees to the next house. Each screen frame holds another layer of the snowy scene.

To make this card, I cut three of the lacy frames from bright blue foil cardstock and three backing panels from shimmer cardstock. I waited to cut the center openings in each back panel knowing that they had to line up for the scene to work. To cut the front panel opening I place the blue frame over the back panel and lined-up the “Christmas Greetings” die based off the blue frame center. To cut the lower hill window from the center panel, I use the front panel to line up the lower hill die on to the shimmer side of the cardstock. Using the first two panels to position the back panel’s higher hill die, I used the same technique to cut the final window.

Assembling the card was easy, gluing the blue frames to the white shimmer side panels and using clear removable tape to join or hinge the panels together on the back side.

To decorate the scene, I die cut two large fir trees, five small fir trees, 12 holly springs, one house and one Santa’s sleigh from the scrap shimmer cardstock left from cutting the windows. (Hint: Always make sure you are cutting with the shimmer side of the cardstock up.) The shimmer card takes the water-soluble markers well giving the images a nice texture. Color can be layered-on allowing some shading. The trees on the center panel are glued with a tree on both front and backsides of the panel so that when folded shut they are visible. The back panel has a single layer of trees and house. I used a paper scrap from a Hunydory paper pad that had a starry night sky to be the backdrop for the final panel’s window.

Holly springs were colored and glued to the frame inside corners of all the panels, but only the top panel had red Nuvo drops added to the berries. Nuvo drops were also added to the circle parts of the blue frame on the top panel only.

Finished card when folded shut measures 5 x 4.5 inches (127 x 113 mm).

Thank you for reading about this card. Please like and leave a comment. 😊

If you enjoyed this tri-fold card, check out some of my other trifolds:

One In A Melon

Shabby Chic Trifold Card

Festive Foliage and Hearts – Trifold card

Sleepytime Dreams

SUPPLIES

Dies/Punches

Ink

Paper

Miscellaneous

You’re Absolutely Fabulous

| ullycatdesigns

Isn’t it nice to hear “You’re absolutely fabulous!” We all need to hear this statement every now and then.

A wonderful way to say this, is to use the Hero Arts Stamp and Cut Dress Up set which includes this sentiment. This set is also fun for the crafter because you get to dress the figures using the skirt dies and you can stamp the bodice top onto patterned paper and fussy cut it out.

These two cards show the two different hairstyles and tops as well as two of the three skirts. The set come with two sets of legs (walking and close together) and four different facial expressions.

I colored the hair and shoes with watercolor pencils.

The sentiments are heat embossed in a shiny black with a red stamped heart on one of the cards.

I stamped the back of one envelope and heat embossed the other envelope with a shooting star.

Thank you for reading this post and I hope you enjoyed seeing these cards. Please like or comment on this post at the bottom of this post.

SUPPLIES

Dies:

Stamps:

Inks:

Embossing:

Paper:

Miscellaneous:

© Sue Small-Kreider 2020

Nativity Card with a Surprise

| ullycatdesigns

The Miracle of Christmas papers by Hunkydory have some amazing collages of the advent story in them. My inspiration for this slimline card front came from the collage and blending of two images from the Bitesize Book.

This is the third in a series of blogs about Christmas cards made from the 2020 Hunkydory paper collection entitled The Miracle of Christmas.

The inside of the card has insert paper from the Miracle of Christmas collection glued in two sections so that the card base center fold is left uncovered.

When the card is opened, a fussy cut image of Mary and Joseph with the Christ child in a manger pop-up. The stable from the image has also been cut out and glued to the inside. To make the image pop-up, tabs were cut out at the feet of each of the adult figures and folded back. Next the couple was folded in half as close to their center as possible. With the card half opened I laid-out the position of the figures so that their heads were in the bottom corner of the card making sure they would not be visible when the card was closed. Next, I put glue on one tab and pressed in place and them glued the other tab to the other side of card.

A greeting will be handwritten below the figures inside the card.

The envelope is stamped with a coordinating stamp to hint at what is inside.

Thank you for reading about this simple pop-up card using the Hunkdory papers. Click the like button at the bottom of the page if you like the card or leave me a comment.

You can view more cards in The Miracle of Christmas Papers Series by clinking the links below.

Post 1 – The Miracle of Christmas Papers

Post 2 – A Small Triptych Card

Post 3 – Nativity Card with a Surprise

SUPPLIES

Paper

Stamps

Ink

Miscellaneous

© Sue Small-Kreider 2020

Shine Bright

| ullycatdesigns

Sometimes simple is best. This embroidery floss filled-tree card has a simple message and design – Shine!

This is a first try at the new Spellbinder’s Large -Die-of-the-Month for November 2020 which has three designs to cut the holes and then using needle and thread to fill-in the designs. I used the full six strands of embroidery floss but think next time I might try three or four strands for the light circles. I followed the assembly video for the die set taping off my loose ends of threads.

Once the tree was stitched, I cut down the blue scrap piece I had die-cut the tree onto 3 7/8 x 3 5/8 inches. Using foam adhesive strips, I adhered the tree onto a green piece of mirror car that was 4 3/8 x 4 1/8 inches. These layers were then placed on a 6 x 5 inches sheet of patterned paper by Craft Consortium that had been adhered to a 6 ½ x 5 inches white card base.

Using a foiled sentiment, I had in my sentiments stash, I set the theme of shing bright for the card. (I like to do my foiling of sentiments in large groups to save time later.)

The inside sentiment is one my favorites from an old Kaisercraft stamp set. I tried a new tinsel embossing powder with it.

For the envelope flap, I used a new embossing folder that has big round dots, much like the candle glow circles stitched on the card.

Hope this card makes you smile.

SUPPLIES

Dies/Foiling Plates/Embossing Folders

Stamps

  • Kaisercraft – Clear Stamps – Sentiments -Traditional – CS313

Ink/Embossing Powder

Paper

Miscellaneous

© Sue Small-Kreider 2020

Christmas Nativity Pageant Pop-up Cards

| ullycatdesigns

Children’s Christmas pageants that re-enact the birth of the Christ child are the theme of these quickly made decoupaged pop-up cards.

In less than two hours I was able to make these cute cards using Craft Consortium’s Nativity collection designed by Hetz Cuppleditch. Using the 10 sheets of the pre-cut decoupaged scenes which are labeled with the layer number for each piece it is super simple to glue up these scenes matching pieces to the layer below. (You could use foam pads, but if you plan to mail these cards in the USA, you will pay extra postage because of the thickness.)

The box-like stage is created by using the Hunkydory Final Shadow Box die set using the largest of the rectangular window dies to cut from the double-sided paper also from the Craft Consortium Nativity collection. The back of the stage is cut from scrap packaging with the “Joy to the World” die cut from a purple scrap envelope (or sentiments from old Christmas cards).

An old Kaisercraft sentiment stamp set was used to stamp the back flaps of the envelopes for these cards to foretell what is inside.

Thank you for reading about these cards. Please hit the like button or leave a comment.

See the more Christmas cards for 2020 including the series of “A Week of Christmas Houses”

Day 1 – From Our House to Your House

Day 2 – Santa is Coming

Day 3 – A Baby is Coming

Day 4 –Keeping the Home Fires Burning

Day 5 – Red Four-Square

Day 6 – Santa Delivers to the Tropics

Day 7 – House Luminary

2019 – 12 Days of Christmas Trees

SUPPLIES

Paper

Dies

Stamps

  • Kaisercraft – Clear Stamps – Sentiments -Traditional – CS313

Ink/Nuvo Drops

Miscellaneous

© Sue Small-Kreider 2020

A Small Triptych Card

| ullycatdesigns

Angels announced the coming of the newborn babe and in centuries old tradition of iconic triptychs this little card does similar with its gatefold doors opening to the simple stable under some palm trees on a starry night.

This is the second in a series of blogs about Christmas cards made from the 2020 Hunkydory paper collection entitled The Miracle of Christmas.

To create this card, I played with scrap paper cute to the size of the heavy colored card stock I was using. After deciding on a simple gate fold with the inside top and bottom folds cut and inverted, I fussy cut out all the printed paper elements. Knowing that the palm trees were going to be adhered with tiny foam squares cut to fit, I added the foam at one step in my preparations before assembly.

The measurements of the outer adorable scorable card is 5 ½ inches (140 mm) tall by 8 ¼ inches (252 mm) wide. It was scored at 2 1/8 inches (55 mm) and at 6 1/8 inches (158 mm).

The inside, light weight, navy blue cardstock is also 5 ½ inches (140 mm) tall by 8 ¼ inches (252 mm) wide. And scored at scored at a hair more than 2 1/8 inches (55 mm) and at a hair less than 6 1/8 inches (155 mm). The inside card needs to have a slightly smaller center than the outside card to fold properly at the two folds.  Using a T-topped ruler, I marked where the four cut lines should go (see downloadable template) and cut using a metal straight edge and craft knife. (You could use a sliding trimmer if you have one.)

triptych-templateDownload

To fold the inside piece, I first folded the card as a gatefold and then carefully aligning the inverted strips edges with card edges and made the inverted folds.

Decorating the inside of the card Involved cutting two strips of starry paper at 4 x 2 inches (100 x50 mm) and one 4 x 3 15/16 inches (100 x 98m) and gluing them so that the card fold were left exposed. The stable was glued down, and the foam padded palm trees adhered so as not to impede the card folds. Two stars were cut from the papers and the top on adhered with a foam square.

The outside decorations involved some reinforcement of the angels’ trumpets by gluing them onto scraps of the same paper. Once the paper decorations were added, Nuvo drops were added as stars by opening the card flat and allowing to dry flat.

The final sentiment was cut using an Impression Obsession die from an old cream envelope and glued to the back of the card.

I stamped the A2 envelope back with the Little Town of Bethlehem stamp using Crumb Cake Stampin’ Up ink which almost matches the gold Nuvo drops used on the card.

Thank you for reading about these cards.

The Miracle of Christmas Series

Post 1 – The Miracle of Christmas Papers

Post 2 – A Small Triptych Card

SUPPLIES

Paper

Dies

Stamps

Ink/Nuvo Drops

Miscellaneous

© Sue Small-Kreider 2020

The Miracle of Christmas Papers

| ullycatdesigns

Silent Night is humming in the background as the card recipient opens this gold stamp envelope and pulls out a card with a gold embossed “Silent Night” on it’s front.

This is the first in a series of blogs about Christmas cards made from the 2020 Hunkydory paper collection entitled The Miracle of Christmas.

These were my first two cards made from the collection and I was able to make two from each of the Adorable Scorable cardstock and insert papers. All have a gold heat embossed sentiment on vellum and adhered to the front with foam squares. I used double-sided tape to adhere all the papers to the card base. The red nativity also has a gold heat embossed inside sentiment from an older Kaisercraft stamp set while the Little Town of Bethlehem scene uses a sentiment cut from the paper pad.

I stamped all of the A2 envelope backs with the Little Town of Bethlehem stamp using Crumb Cake Stampin’ Up ink which almost matches the gold heat embossing powder used on the cards.

Thank you for reading about these cards.

The Miracle Of Christmas Series

Post 1 – The Miracle of Christmas Papers

Post 2 – A Small Triptych Card

SUPPLIES

Paper

Stamps

Ink

Miscellaneous

© Sue Small-Kreider 2020