Punchy Party Planning

I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful summer weekend with the kids fresh out of school! Let the fun begin...

For us, we celebrated Canada Day (July 1st) with outdoor festivities, fireworks and of course outdoor food.  

I love outdoor parties and I enjoyed the last watermelon craft (treat holder) in the previous post soooo much....that I had to make more.  Lots more...

Card number one, in Melon Mambo and Garden Green.... 

The seeds are made from a scallop square punch, each scallop I cut at an angle like a teardrop and removed from the square.  You can also use a scallop circle (or any scalloped shape) to make tear drop shapes for seeds, eyes etc.

Next...CHOMP...nom nom....a watermelon card (or invitation) with a wee bite taken out (thanks to my circle punches)

A closer look at this one and you can see it is done with Riding Hood Red (a more masculine watermelon?)  and the seeds are arranged in a row across the melon. 

The seeds are highlighted with white gel pen.

The watermelon rinds are sponged with green ink to give it a more true to life effect.

Decorate your drinks!  Punch a little watermelon with your circle punches and sassy up those straws!  Bendy straws would have been better...but I have none...so we improvise.

Punch up those paper plates with some watermelon funfetti!  Okay so they are really only half circles of watermelon coloured circle punches...but they work very well! Cute!

Make a napkin ring/name card with your small circle punches and a ring of matching cardstock.  Leave out the seeds and you have room to write a name!

I hope you've enjoyed our little watermelon punch party!

xo.
D.

PS.  How did I get those round bottom cards to stand straight?  On the back of the card, the bottom edge is trimmed flat so that it doesn't tip and roll.  Have fun!

Watermelon Punch

School is out, summer is here and there's nothing else that screams "summertime" to me quite like a fresh piece of watermelon!

Watermelon reminds me of picnics, BBQ, fireworks, ball games in the park, kids in bathing suits....ahhhhh summertime...

Here's a little something you can whip up for your summer parties and festivities....a little watermelon treat box with a surprise inside! 

These would be cute at table settings, as birthday treats (really you can't go wrong with watermelon!)

This uses a few products from Stampin' Up! and assembles very quickly.  You'll need:

• Top Note die for the BigShot
• Scallop circle punch for the watermelon seeds (cut off each scallop)
• Punch an oval out of the top to make 'handles' for your treat box
• cardstock of your watermelon choice! (we have so many delicious cardstock colours to choose from)

For the middle you have options!  You can:

• Use a small cut off gift bag
• Use a mini lunch or food bag
• make a gift bag from an envelope
• use the box number 2 die for the BigShot
• or make your own small box....

 I like options.  Options are always good. 

Now, for you papercrafty teachers out there...wouldn't this be a GREAT hostess gift with a little stamp and an inkspot?  Indeed!

Giraffe!

This is one of those cards that can really be anything, for any occasion, and THOSE are the best kind of cards! I love the flexibility that stamping offers!

Let me tell you about this card.

First of all, I'm a technique junkie and I never get bored with stamping, I love learning new things...see the plaid background, that's not a fancy shmancy paper...OH NO...I did that. Me. It's my 'faux plaid' technique...well I'm sure there could be many names and I don't claim to be the inventor of this...it's really just playing with chalk pastels and scrap paper...but here on this card...it's all mine!! (PS. my contact info and class schedules will be on my Stampin' Up! website HERE)


Now, take a peek...look reallllly close at that Giraffe too....

The Giraffe is from the new Fox and Friends clear mount stamp set (which is ONLY $19.95) seriously, you need this stamp set (or I'm not talking to you).

You can stamp baby cards, fun cards, birthday cards, romantic cards...YES, EVEN romantic cards with this set. This giraffe could be saying "wanna neck" very flirtatiously with it's husband or wife. OK, if that's not to your liking it could be saying 'thank you for always sticking your neck out for me'. It is always good to thank people, it's the right thing to do! Why not do it with a giraffe?

See the spots on the giraffe's neck? Those are itty bitty teeny weenie hearts that were left over from punching with my "pinking hearts" border punch. I applied them all ever so lovingly with glue and tweezers.

The yellow card stock is dry embossed with the BigShot 'Perfect Polka Dots' embossing folder. I can't tell you how much I love that machine! Do you have a BigShot? Don't you just LOVE the embossing folders? Squee!

The ribbon was a cute little trick I learned from Mary Dawn's blog 'My Pink Mexico' (and my friend Kerri) thanks ladies! Now, last but not least...the four 'quilt squares' behind the giraffe are punched scallop squares.

Cutie patootie. I love this card. It makes me smile.

PS. Lori-Ann, does this qualify as a submission to my own colour challenge (wink)...it's pretty close? I think it does!!

Babyface! You've Got the Cutest Little Baby Face

So this is what's been keeping me busy for the last couple of weeks. Babies....

Babies, we knew they were hard work, but I'm here to tell you 75 babies keep you very, very busy indeed. Aren't they just the most adorable bundles of joy? I love them. I've been making these babies for a 25 member punched art swap meet at our team convention on Saturday. I hope the ladies love them as much as I do.

Each baby is constructed from a variety of shapes of punched card stock, in this case a wide oval punch, circle and flower are used. See end of post for a more detailed list.

If you haven't tried punched art or you haven't been bold enough to do it alone, please come to class or email me! My contact is on my website here. The possibilities are endless with punched art.





Last week I used the scallop circle punch pictured here to make the background sky for the baby bundle cards. If you follow my blog you'll remember this...

The sky backgrounds, got trimmed and mounted onto a layer of Bermuda Bay cardstock, and stamped in Basic Black Classic Ink with the "Rock-a-Bye-Baby" sentiment from the stamp set Nursery Necessities. Nursery Necessities is a gem of a baby set for cards as well as scrapbooking. Details on the stamp set are at the end of the blog post.

Baby Faces up close! I have a few tips to share with you. When doing punched art there are a few things you can do to make your creating go smoother, faster and easy to store...

Can you see the little 'dotted' bits behind the faces, on the paper? That's a temporary adhesive that Stampin' Up! sells called Dotto.

Dotto is a sanity saver.

Really it is. Read on...

Let me tell you more about Dotto. Dotto is helpful when you are creating detailed work, or when you are fiddling with a scrap page layout.

Here I've run strips of Dotto across a piece of printer paper, and stuck down ROWS of baby faces... They are all ready for me to sponge and ink and add detail.

NOT ONLY THAT, but when it was time for supper, I just picked up the page and put it in a protective craft keeper envelope. It stays stuck and waiting for me to pull it out next time! MY FRIENDS...how easy is that?

Think of all the times you've been interrupted by say the phone, come back and the kiddies have picked up your scrapbook page and your layout went everywhere?! No more! Dotto! See the end of the post for product info.

See, here I'm putting down some Dotto and adhering my baby bundles and shapes so that I can do my inking and shading with my sponge daubers. Handy!

Here's a shot of the assembled baby bundles. These were so simple to make.

Close up time! Little rosy cheeks, and white gel pen dimples, awww. Note: the faces are popped up on a foam dimensional before they are stuck down to the bundles.

The sentiment from Nursery Necessities, gel pen highlights, pretty punched border (say ooh...say ahh). LOL!

Again, the finished baby bundles! Thanks to Sophia Landry for her inspiration on baby bundle punchies. I really enjoyed making these little guys.

All supplies used are Stampin' Up! and can be purchased from my store.

**The Almighty DOTTO temporary adhesive** (insert sound of trumpets and fanfare)

Dotto: 103305 $17.95 (Dotto is refillable, don't throw away your cartridge!)

Punches:

• Wide Oval Punch 112082 $22.95
• 3/4" circle punch 107217 $15.95
• 5-Petal Flower 109041 $22.95

Border Punch: Eyelet Border 113692 $22.95

Cardstock:

• whisper white (40 sheets) 100730 $9.95
• Bermuda Bay (24 sheets) 115317 $7.25
• Kraft (40 sheets) 102125 $9.95
• Soft Subtles Assorted Pkg (pink/yellow/apricot/green) 36 sheets (3ea. of 12 colours) 105568 $10.50 *each colour is also available in single packs of 24 sheets for $7.25

Accessories:

• Black Journaler 105394 $4.50
• White Gel Pen 105021 $5.50
• Sponge Daubers (12) 102892 $15.95
• Stampin' Dimensionals 104430 $5.50
• Hemp twine 12yds 100982 $3.95
  

Stamp Set:

• Nursery Necessities 113506 (set of 12) $42.95

I Heart Paper Punch Art

I'm still working away on my swaps for our team convention in a couple of weeks. The swap is all about punched art and there are 25 punch lovers participating. I can't wait to see all of the designs!

Here's a gem that I did for a punched art class as well as for my downline. A punchy peacock! Isn't he adorable? Truly a labour of love. (sorry for the thumb print on my camera lens!)



Punches used are :

• scallop oval - body and wings #114889
  
• boho blossoms - feet and 'crown' #110711
  
• small star - beak #109045
  
• word window - feathers, neck, head #105090
  

Additional:

• mini glue dots #103683
  
• tombow mono multi liquid glue (ESSENTIAL FOR PUNCH ART!) #110755
  
• Fine Cosmo #108796

Sentiment on the inside: You did such a great job and I'm 'Proud as a Peacock'!

Of course, all supplies are available in my online store, HERE.

Stay tuned in October when My Digital Studio digi-scrapping becomes available!