gingerbread

COUNT DOWN TO SANTA – PART 2

| ullycatdesigns

Counting down to when Santa comes can be a fun for little ones and older ones with a tree of ornaments that are stored in their numbered drawers until their day to be opened and hung on their drawer knob. The drawers are big enough to hold a treat, note or gift card as well as their ornament. The large star is for December 25 and is a 2-inch box that opens from the top to reveal a larger gift.

The tree is made with Karen Burniston’s newly released Slider Box die set and decorated with her Winter and Holiday Charm sets. Her pivot train and gift pivot cards form the tree base. The star box is based on Karen Burniston’s crosshatch squares.

I used 16 sheets of 12×12 inch sheets of 80lb. textured cardstock to construct the slider boxes and the layer bases.

Construct the slider boxes as shown in assembly video, except use a metal brad instead of ribbon for the drawer pull. (I sprayed the brads green before assembling drawers.)

Once all 24 slider boxes and drawers are assembled, they will be assembled in to six layers of four boxes each, using the crosshatch rectangles in three sizes.

Cut four rectangles from each of the three largest crosshatch dies. I pinched the center points on each side of the rectangles to line them up as shown in the photograph. Glue together each pair.

Using a grid work surface, Line up the four boxes with drawers opening away from the crosshatch rectangles. Apply glue to the edge of the rectangle and the box bottom. Place a weight such as a stamping block or cell phone on top of boxes until the glue is set. (I cooked dinner and did a load of laundry while gluing the six layers together and letting them dry enough to move.)

Play with the positioning of the layers before you glue them. I used the crosshatch borders to help me know where to place glue. The bottom layer will have the boxes spaced the furthest out while the top layer will have the boxes almost butted up against each other.

For the tree base, make four pivot panel cards – two trains and two gifts. For the base fold an 11 x 4.25-inch piece of heavy cardstock in half and scored the long top edge at 3/8 inches. Snip the scored tab at the center fold. Assemble pivot cards and then glue to the tree bottom forming an “X”.

Make 24 ornaments from the winter and holiday charm sets. (I made four of six different designs and colors.)

Download the box and star tip patterns. Cut six of the 2-inch crosshatch squares, one of the box pattern and 12 of the star tip patterns.

Download pdf patterns

pointed-star-pattern-ssk-2021109Download

Glue two of the star tip pieces together to form a 4-sided pyramid. Repeat with the rest of the star tip pieces to create 6 pyramids. To assemble the box, glue crosshatch squares to sides of box while flat. Glue only “TAB X”s to adjacent square edges to form a box with a hinged lid. Attach star tips to box with glue or double-sided tape.

Die cut the 3-inch crosshatch square from green to cover the hole on the top layer. Mark the center and die cut using the smallest crosshatch square die, a square in the center of the large square. Glue large square over hole on top layer. Added glue to bottom tip of star and slide into hole in the top.

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Fun Stampers Journey – 8.5×11 Cardstock – Pumpkin Bread – CS-0098
  • American Crafts – 12×12 Heavy Weight Glitter Cardstock – Sunflower – 71429
  • American Crafts – 12×12 – 80lb. Weave Cardstock – Evergreen – 71056
  • Colored, Foiled and Print Cardstock Scraps

Pens

  • Farber Castell – Pitt Artist Pen – Black India Ink – 199
  • Sharpie Marker – Medium Tip – Black

Miscellaneous

Gingerbread Holidays

| ullycatdesigns

Gingerbread is a sweet treat and holiday cards that smell of sweet baked goods make these two variations on gingerbread house pop-up cards a treat for the senses.

Karen Burniston’s Tiny House Pop-up die set and add-ons feature strong in these two cards. Primarily the Gingerbread add-ons are used, but the rounded door is from the Mushroom add-ons set.

The main difference to these two cards is the position of the two tabs that attach the tiny house to the card base and therefore, where the extension bar is attached on the house – front or back. The tree is a Winter Charm.

White hearts cut from the crosshatch hearts die set are places to write a personal message.

To give the cards their sweet scents, Nuvo Aroma Drops were used – red Strawberry Tart as the red candies on the roof and Vanilla Cupcake as light brown icing on the window panes and door frame.

Card backs are just as important as fronts. These are decorated with left over strips to mimic ribbon on gift boxes.

The envelope back hints at what’s to come when the card is opened. The stamps are from the same Lisa Horton Crafts Premium Magazine kit as the inside cookies and candy canes paper and front foiled paper sentiment topper.

Like the Tiny House? See more tiny house sets by clicking here.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Echo Park Paper Co. – 12 x12 Double-Sided Cardstock – I Love Christmas by Lori Whitlock – Here Comes Santa
  • Stampin’ Up – Doubled-Sided Cardstock from my stash –
  • Colored Cardstock Scraps
  • Pink A2 Envelope

Pens, Inks & Embellishment Drops

Miscellaneous

A Candy Winter Card

| ullycatdesigns

Gingerbread, candy canes and snowmen make this accordion card a treat for the eyes and imagination. The papers are all by Heitz Cuppleditch for Craft Consortium. The accordion-fold card base dies, words and frame dies are all by Karen Burniston.

I followed the assembly video for the accordion fold card. (I found it useful to layout the card and its decorative pieces before gluing as sometimes a tab that connects the various panels needs to be hidden by a decorative piece so the order of gluing all the tabs together needs to be thought through before assembly.) The base is cut twice – once from solid pink cardstock and again from decorative papers and glued together.

Leftover striped pieces and decorative frames are the finishing touches along with narrow washi tape make the accordion frames standout. The one fancy frame was gilded using Distress Foundry Wax which requires a heat tool to set the gilding.

The card fits into a A7 envelope which has been stamped on the back with a stamp of the gingerbread train in pink ink. The stamp is also from the Candy Christmas Collection by Heitz Cuppleditch for Craft Consortium.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Here is a sneak peak of the August 2022 Release of Karen Burniston dies.

Materials Used:

Dies

Stamps

Inks

  • Simon Says Stamp – Pawsitively Saturated Ink – Sweets
  • Ranger – Tim Holtz – Distress- Foundry Wax – Gilded

Papers

Miscellaneous

  • Die cutting Machine
  • Neutral PH Adhesive by LINECO
  • Fine-tipped Bottle
  • Tim Holtz – Tonic Studios – Stamping Platform
  • LDRS Creative – Stampendable Stamping Tool
  • Stamp Cleaning Cloth
  • Poking Tool
  • Scissors
  • Small Paint Brush
  • Craft Mat
  • Heat Tool
  • Narrow pink and red washi tapes from my stash

My Better Half

| ullycatdesigns

Sometimes you just need to let your partner know that they are the better half of yourself.

I needed to do just that and chose some of my partner’s favorite colors and the cute Lawn Fawn “Let’s Toast” stamp set with its add-on pull tab die set. The double-sided plaid papers are Becky Moore’s Say it with Stamps for Photoplay on a green A2 card base.

First, I stamped the images with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored the toaster with a silver metallic marker. Next, I covered the main body of the toaster with Glossy Accents.  The toast, butter pat and butter dish I colored with blending markers and watercolor pencils.

Because I had never used this Lawn Fawn pull tab mechanism before, I found a video to watch for the assembly. It was easy to assemble, but since I had fussy cut my stamped images, I had to trim down the tabs of the mechanism for the toast to be attached to and not show the edges of the tab.

For the pull tab top, I used a scrap of the green plaid cardstock to cover the portion of the tab that shows when the tab is pulled up matching the vertical plaid line. After this cover was glued down, I added the brown oval with the arrow cut-out and folded it to fit the cut-out notch of the cart rather than using the scored fold mark.

The sentiments were stamped with Versamark Watermark ink and heat embossed with a black detail embossing powder onto white scrap cardstock. The front sentiment was cut out as a banner and adhered to the card front with foam squares and the interior sentiment was cut close and glued in place with its matching images.

To hint at the envelope’s contents, I stamped two pieces of smiling toast onto the back flap with brown ink.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Stamps

Inks & Embossing Powder

  • Memento – fade-resistant Dye Ink – Tuxedo Black
  • VersaMark – Watermark Stamp Pad
  • Recollections – Detail Embossing Powder – Ebony
  • My Favorite Things – Premium Dye Ink – Milk Chocolate

Papers

  • Photoplay – Fall Plaids 6×6 paper Pad – Say it with Stamps by Becky Moore
  • White card stock scraps
  • A2 green card base and white envelope

Miscellaneous

Figgy Pudding In A Jar

| ullycatdesigns

The warm fruity smell of spices and icing sugar as it cools means that Christmas is in the air.

These dimensional cards are made from a Queen & Co. Holiday Jar kit which include the patterned paper, sentiment stamps, dies, foam jar shakers and pre-cut acetate. Colored cardstock scraps and heavy white cardstock card bases and envelopes were the only things besides red ink, glue, baker’s twine and tiny candy canes that were not in the kit.

The tiny tag says “Mrs. Claus’ Gingerbread Bakery, Cookie, Pies, Figgy Pudding” and is one of the tag stamps in the set. both the outside sentiment “Sweet Christmas Wishes and the inside sentiment of “Have yourself A merry little Christmas” are also included in the kit.

For the jar lids I used Hunkydory mirri card from the oxidized metals collection. The jar handle is cut from shiny black cardstock and the white stitched jar frame white linen textured cardstock both from a DCWV “The Spooky Time Cardstock Matstack.”

The envelope flaps are stamped with the same Stampin’ Up Real Red ink as the cards and the sentiment “Thinking of you at Christmas” sets the tone for the card.

I also made one other design from this kit using a fir tree theme complete with a pine scent air freshener tucked inside the card.

PLEASE NOTE: Queen & Co. makes these kits in small batches and when they sell out they may not bring the items back. I usually purchase a kit and several of the refill foam sets when a new kit comes out.

Sweet Christmas Greetings

| ullycatdesigns

Can you smell the fresh baked gingerbread straight from the oven?  This card is made for a child’s Christmas and depicts a gingerbread house complete with white sugar icing, cinnamon drops, peppermint drops and candy canes.

This was my first attempt making Karen Burniston’s Tiny House Pop-Up and I made some mistakes that created a catch point on a roof corner. (I highly recommend watching the assembly video to avoid some of my mistakes such as making the front door of the house on the end with the bottom attachment flaps and gluing the roof unevenly on top of the house.)

Overall, the Gingerbread Tiny House Add-ons set is easy to use with the Tiny House set. The cane canes and peppermint drops are tiny and may require tweezers to assemble. (I added Glossy Accents to the tops of the candy canes and peppermint drops to give them a shiny coating.) There are other decorative die pieces for gum drops and tiny dots in the set, but I opted to use some Nellie’s Effect Snow media for dimensional icing and Nuvo Drops for red cinnamon drops. (The Effect Snow made the roof curl up some creating more of a catchpoint on the roof corner.)

The card base is an A2 size card (5 ½ x 4 ¼ inches) made of heavy white cardstock and covered with patterned papers for smooth surfaces for the house to slide over. The sweets decorations are placed so that they don’t hinder the house mechanism opening.

Merry Christmas has a shadow die cut background of patterned paper and all the sentiments are cut from red paper so there are less chances of creating catchpoints. (I used some fancy nested label dies to create areas for a personal message.)

As is my style, I stamped the back of the envelope with hints of what’s inside using two colors of ink and a gingerbread house stamp set from Hero Arts.

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

Other cards that use the Tiny House Pop-up die Set

Dies:

Stamps & Ink

  • Memento -Fade-resistant Dye Ink – Rich Cocoa
  • Stampin’ Up Classic Stampin’ Pad – Melon Mambo
  • Hero Arts – Clear Stamp Set – Color Layering Gingerbread House -CM462

Papers

  • Heavy white card stock
  • Brown cardstock
  • Patterned papers from Carnation Crafts – Merry & Bright
  • Colored papers from my stash
  • A2 green envelope

Additional Supplies Used:

An Old-Time Christmas

| ullycatdesigns

1 Parlor-Wide

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are credited with popularizing the idea that families need evergreen trees adorned with babbles and sweet treats at Christmas.  This fold-out parlor card is in that tradition.

1 Tree CU

Christmas Tree:  The tree frame and pop-up mechanism were made using Karen Burniston’s Christmas tree pop-up die set. I embossed thin copier paper with the saucer die from Karen Burniston’s Cup Pop Stand die set and then cut a circle of cardstock to back it. Using the tabs cutting die from the Christmas tree set, I cut tabs on the embossed saucer to make the tree skirt. Next, I assembled the tree (an assembly video is on the link to die set below) and decorated it using fir branches from the Gemini fireplace accessories pack, ornaments from the Gemini Yuletide treasures die set, and candy canes and gingerbread men from Sara Davis’ Frosty Christmas die set. (The ornaments have glitter glue, Nuvo Drops and Aqua Shimmer on them.) The two star pieces are cut twice from recycled foil from an envelope liner. Once the tree was decorated, it was attached to its brown tree stand and then glued to the tree skirt tabs. Placement on card was based off where the furniture and tree would be when the card was closed.  A portion of the tree skirt was trimmed to fit the card size.

1 Furniture wide

Furniture:  Using Karen Burniston’s Family Room Pop-up die set I altered the style of sofa and changed the chair into a table. I cut the base pop-up mechanism from clear acetate and made the chair arms lower by trimming some of the middle arm piece off and adhere the remaining sides together. Next, I embossed some blue cardstock with an embossing folder by Jennifer Ellory to create brocade fabric for the sofa. I used the sofa seat/back piece to cut the basic shape and then trimmed and added an additional sofa back piece cut from Olga Direktorenko’s Elegant Room sofa die. I made my own template for the brown base and legs of the sofa trying to mimic an empire style settee. A separate back sofa piece was also cut with the Elegant Room die. The Family Room die set has the cushions die and pop-out mechanism on the sofa seat. The tea table was created using the table die from the Elegant Room die set and a Spellbinder’s scalloped circle die for the tabletop. The plate was cut using Courtney Chilston’s Birthday Shadow box die set and the candy cane and gingerbread man were made as describe in the tree section above. Placement on card was based off where the furniture and tree would be when the card was closed.

Fireplace:  Using a recycled greeting card back in an off-white, cut the fireplace out using the Gemini Fireplace Concept die set. Because the die is designed to pop-up from a folded card, I had to cut the fireplace out with tabs at the back edge of mantle and the floor of the fireplace. I I also cut the trim pieces from the same card back and glued the pieces in place after scoring the tab folds. I also cut a rectangular piece of black cardstock to become the back of the fireplace. Taping the bottom of the black back to the floor tab. I cut two brick pattern pieces from the Gemini Yuletide Treasures die set and then I glued them to the black back piece and created smoke and soot on the brick by rubbing a Tim Holtz Distress Crayon over the bricks. The fire and logs were cut from the Gemini Fireplace Accessories Pack. The flames were cut from cardstock that I had blended two colors of Spectrum Noir Sparkle Glitter Ink on, let dry and then cut. The logs and flames were glued together and then placed in fireplace with foam squares.

1 fireplace decorated

Wallcovering:  The wallcovering was created using two embossing folders by Olga Direktorenko. The main piece with pillars and molding is the Elegant Room folder and the crown molding is from the Timeless Room folder. I masked the molding and rubbed Distress Ink over the wallpaper. The mirror (cut from recycle mirror card from a box) wreath, bows, holly and coal shuttle were also cut using the Fireplace Accessory Pack. The embossed “wings” on each side are from the Timeless Room embossing folder.

1 Front Door

Door: The Front of the folded-up card is an elegant Italianate styled door. I used Olga Direktorenko’s entire Elegant Door die and embossing folder set. The windows are wax paper over pale yellow card stock and red marker. The door hardware is cut from gold foil cardstock and gold gel pen. The wreaths were cut from recycled boxes using lawn Fawn’s mini wreath die set.

1 Greeting wngs folded

Greeting: The greeting is on the front of the second folded-side of this tri-fold card. Merry Christmas is cut from recycled red foil envelop liner using a Card Deco Essentials die. The gold lacy background was cut from foil card using Spellbinders Charming Christmas Boughs die set. The greeting is offset to left to allow room for a personal message.

1 Parlor close up

Supplies

Dies:

Embossing Folders:

Stamps & Inks:

Papers:

Miscellaneous:

12 Days of Christmas Trees – Day 6

| ullycatdesigns

Each day for 12 days, I will be showing card variations made with Karen Burniston’s Christmas Tree Pop-up die.  I recommend watching her assembly video before attempting to cut and assemble the pop-up tree.

For all of these cards I started with an A7 size card base (10 x 6 ½ inches), but because my die cutting machine can only accommodate 6-inch-wide pieces of paper, I had to trim the cards down to 10 x 6 inches.

Day 6 – Gingerbread Joy

Gingerbread Joy -CU Inside

This card was inspired by my grandmother who always made her grandchildren gingerbread men for the holidays.  Sara Davis’s Winter Wonderland-Frosty Christmas dies have the proportionally correct size ornament, candy cane and gingerbread man for the pop-up tree.

Gingerbread Joy -Front

Gingham checked paper became the cover base paper while scrap pieces from the inside decorations (green strips from the inside tree pieces and the circle tree skirt) came into play with decorating the cover. The Gingerbread man hints at what is to come when opening the card.

Gingerbread Joy - Inside

The tree ornaments were decorated using gel and metallic pens following the embossed features from the dies. Merry Christmas is die-cut as well. The “with love” tag is hand lettered.

Gingerbread Joy -CU with love

Follow the rest of the 12 Days of Christmas Trees with a new post tomorrow.

Day 1 – Give Joy -Plaid

Day 2 – Home for the Holidays-Village

Day 3 – Holly Joy

Day 4 – Snowy Day

Day 5 – Give Joy – Holly

Day 6 – Gingerbread Joy

Day 7 – Home for the Holidays-Joy to the World

Day 8 – Nutcracker Greetings

Day 9 – Plaid Joy

Day 10 – Home for the Holidays-Let It Snow

Day 11 – White Christmas

Day 12 – Home for the Holidays-Peace and Joy

Bonus Day – Tropical Christmas

Click Here for video of all 12 trees

SUPPLIES USED:

Dies

Stamps & Ink (on envelope)

Paper

Miscellaneous