Gift Card

Coffeeology

| ullycatdesigns

Some of us love the smell of a dark roast coffee. Others love a pumpkin spice latte. All of us need sometimes to just stop and smell the coffee and appreciate life. This is one of two coffee cards this week. Look for another tomorrow.

Designed around the Funny Bones Coffeeology rubber stamp on the card front, the inside pops up with a take-out cup of coffee that doubles as a gift card holder. All the dies used to make this card are by Karen Burniston.

I recommend watching the assembly video for the coffee cup pop-up before starting this card. The inside of the card mimics the card Karen Burniston demonstrates in the video for an A2 top fold card.

For the card front, I stamped the sentiment on a 3×3-inch square and glued diagonally over a 4×4-inch piece of decorative paper. The three tiny vessels of coffee come from the coffee charms die set. (See charm assembly video.) White steam was added using a medium tipped opaque white marker with detailed swirls of a white gel pen. Throughout the card there are inked coffee beans that were cut out of brown cardstock and covered using a mini cube of Distress Ink in walnut stain.The beans are in the coffee cup pop-up die set.

The card back has another 4×4-inch piece of decorative paper and is a place to write a lengthy personal message.

As is my style, the envelope back has a die-cut coffee mug with a heart that hints at what is inside.

See more coffee themed card by clicking here.

Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope it provides inspiration and joy. Please like and leave comments. 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Stamps

Papers

  • Crafter’s Companion – 12×12 Double-Sided Paper Pad – Decadent Decor
  • Brown, White and Cream Cardstock
  • A2 ivory Envelope

Ink

Adhesives

Tools

  • Die Cutting Machine
  • Stamping Platform
  • LDRS – Stampendable Stamping Tool
  • Stamping Cloth
  • Sponge Dauber
  • Craft Mat
  • Scissors

Faux Leather Bag

| ullycatdesigns

A favorite leather bag has a certain smell and memories of all the fun times with friends and family. This little faux tooled leather bag can add to those memories.

Made with the tote die set by Divinity Designs, a crafting company based out of Ohio, the bag goes together relatively easily. I looked at the assembly video before making, but I assembled the bag mesh pockets a little differently.

Cut two each of the front/back, side, mesh pocket, handle, pocket pleat, front/back layer and handle layer from brown Kraft cardstock. Cut one each of front pocket flap, front pocket flap layer, pocket layer, and stitched belt buckle set from brown Kraft cardstock. Cut two front/back layers from brown paper. Cut one each of the buckle and pin from orange foil cardstock.

Using the tote embossing insert plate and your embossing sandwich for your die-cutting machine emboss the two front/back layers and pocket flap and pocket layers.

With an ink blending sponge, darken the edges of all pieces, especially the stitched areas with brown ink.  Rub the embossed layering pieces to highlight the “tooled” design.  Glue the layers onto their base pieces.

To assemble, I glued the mesh pocket tabs on to the side tabs first, bowing out the mesh pocket. Next, I adhered the bottom side tabs to the bottom rectangle of one of the front/back pieces. Glue the other bottom rectangle over the top of the first rectangle to hide the side tabs. Next adhere the side tabs to the front/back pieces. Take your time to hold the tabs in place until the glue sets.

Shape the handles by running them through your fingers to bend them into an arch shape. Glue rounded ends of on handle to the front of the bag. Repeat with handle for the back side of bag.

To assemble the front pocket, pleat the two pocket pleats and glue one tab to the inside of the front pocket tab. Repeat with the other pocket pleat. Fold the bottom tab of Front pocket over the ends of pleats and glue corners. Fold over the front pocket flap tab and glue its corners to the top pleat corners.  Glue assembled pocket to front of bag.  Thread large brown stitched belt piece through foil buckle and glue pin in place. Fold tiny stitched brown piece around larger piece as the loop that holds the belt tongue in place. Glue top of belt piece to pocket flap and loop tabs to pocket. This belt with hold the pocket flap securely closed.

I used some tiny star brads that I had in my stash to reinforce the handles to the bag. I punched the starter holds with an old ice pick or awl and a sanding block inside the bag. Once the brads were in place, I glued the front/back layer over the inside of the bag to hide the brads and side tabs.

All of the glued layers make for a study bag that measures 6 ¼ inches high x 5 inches wide and 2 inches deep.  I plan to gift a lovely scarf and earrings in this bag.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this blog post, please like it and follow the blog. 😊

Dies

Ink

  • Ranger – Tim Holtz’s Distress Ink – Vintage Photo

Papers

  • Heavy weight 8 ½ inches x 11 inches brown cardstock
  • Brown kraft paper
  • Orange foil cardstock scraps

Additional Supplies:

The Urge to Create

| ullycatdesigns

Finished inside Autumn pop-up

When does a cupcake become a bushel of apples with a gift card? When rain cancelled my afternoon plans and the idea, I had been tossing around for a few days with a new die beckoned.

cupcake package

I started with Karen Burniston’s Cupcake Pop-Up die and since the cupcake liner dies cut slits in the design, I cut a liner and some thin strips from brown paper and embossed the liner using Stampin’ Up’s Sizzix Big Shot Basket Weave Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder to give texture to the bushel basket. Next, I wove three strips alternating between liner slots with each strip.  For the smaller liners I texture embossed and wove two thinner strips to form the woven baskets.

Back cupcake pop-up

Next, I cut a sheet of glittered craft cardstock 6 inches x 10 inches scoring in half at 5 inches. I folded with the glitter side inside and opened it again centered the Pop-Up cupcake die following Karen Burniston’s directions on the package and assembly video. After measuring a gift card and the width of the frosting on the cupcake, I knew there was just enough space to cut a slot in the frosting for a gift card slider. I also had to cut small extension slots at the base of the cupcake liner. (The yellow pencil and silver scissors point to the two slots cut with an X-Acto knife.)  I traced the outline of the cupcake on the back of a piece of the glitter craft cardstock as well as the outline of the gift card overlapping it with the frosting and finally cut the card outline with some of the frosting on top. The gift card slider resembles a tag shape with straight sides and a decorative top.

Square added with basket

I found I needed to reinforce the cupcake shape by backing the shape with another cupcake cut from the craft cardstock. Next, I cut a square the width of the frosting and traced where the slot needed to be cut.  Once the slot was cut, I glued it to the front of the cupcake.  I tested the gift card slider moving it up and down with the gift card taped to it.  I found that I needed to clean-up the slot cuts to get a smooth slide. Once satisfied with the slider slots I glued the large basket to the square over the cupcake liner leaving the top edge unglued so I could tuck corn stalks and apples under it.

To decorate the Pop-Up, I used the large cherry die from the cupcake set and cut approximately 20 with short stems from thick red Hero Arts cardstock. A black Sharpie marker and a white gel pen were used to color the apple stems and shiny patches. I cut four corn stalks using the leaf dies from Karen Burniston’ Flowers and Bee die set. And I cut eight of the tiny flowers from the same set in a maroon cardstock and another eight in a bright yellow cardstock. I fringe cut around four each color flower and pushed the fringe up and glued them to the center of the remaining cut flowers.

flower die

Test arranging the four corn stocks to hide the slider slot and act as the backing to glue the pile of apples, I then glued the base stem and first two leaves to the square, tucking the stems under the edge of the basket. Starting from the top edge of the basket I put a dot of glue on the back of each apple and then placed them as one would when stacking real apples in a basket. The top few apples I rounded between my fingers to add dimension and glued the edges, but not the centers down.

CU Autumn Pop-up

The small baskets of chrysanthemums use the fringed flowers glued to a scrape of craft cardstock adhered to the basket. The leaves are scrape green cardstock from my stash. I used Stampin’ Up Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals to adhere the three loose apples which were rounded between my fingers.

Using red double-sided-sticky tape, I adhered on side of the glitter craft cardstock Pop-Up to an A7 size heavy craft card (5in x7in) and then the other side of the pop-up as recommended by Karen Burniston in her assembly videos.

To have good CRX (card recipient experience), I used the arrow tab from Karen Burniston’s Frame Pull Pop-Up Die and cut it from brown paper, adding a part of a yellow sticky note for the arrow color and folding it over the tip of the gift card slider tag and adhering with glue. I trimmed the excess of the brown tab off.

I found two stripes of red and white gingham-checked paper in my scrapes and pasted them onto the card. Because I didn’t have a specific person in mind to give this card to, I’ll leave it unfinished until autumn when I can finish it up for a wedding card or a birthday card.

Gift card pulled Autmn pop-up

SUPPLIES USED:

Dies

Embossing Folder:

Paper:

 

Miscellaneous: