COUNT DOWN TO SANTA – PART 2

December 17, 2022December 9, 2022 | 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-2021109 Download

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

Neutral PH Adhesive by LINECO
Fine-Tip Glue Bottle
Die Cutting Machine
Pokey Tool
Metal Brads – 1.5 inch (38mm) shank – .25 inch (9mm) head
Baker’s Twine
Krylon – Colormax Paint & Primer – Gloss Hunter Green

Shine Bright

November 10, 2020November 9, 2020 | 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

Christmas Nativity Pageant Pop-up Cards

November 8, 2020November 9, 2020 | 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

Craft Consortium – Hetz Cuppleditch – Nativity – 3D Decoupage -CCDPAK005
Craft Consortium – Hetz Cuppleditch – Nativity – 6”x6” Premium Quality Papers -CCDPPAD21B
White coated cardstock scrap from packaging
Purple envelope scrap from stash

Dies

Stamps

Kaisercraft – Clear Stamps – Sentiments -Traditional – CS313

Ink/Nuvo Drops

Stampin’ Up – Classic Stampin’ Pad – Real Red

Miscellaneous

Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue

A Small Triptych Card

November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 | 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-template Download

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.