PENNY TOKENS STAMPIN SPOT: Wacky Watercooler Blog Hop

Welcome to the Wacky Watercooler September 2016 blog hop highlighting the Design Team's favourites from Stampin' Up!s new 2016 Holiday Catalogue.

Whew, did your head spin like mine as August whirled past and September rushed in? I must say the launch of the Holiday Catalogue on the 1st was really helpful in transitioning that change.

When my copy of the new Holiday Catalogue arrived I spent hours pouring over it and ewing and awing over all the fun new products. Quite literally I wanted everything! Alas, reality and practicality set in and I settled for purchasing just a few things I knew I'd use and get a kick out of. During the blog hop, I'll be sharing my love for these new products.

Whether you've just joined in on the hop or arrived here from Fiona Whitehead's awesome blog, I'm super thrilled to have you visit my stamping spot! I hope you'll enjoy my projects, leave some comments, and ask questions if you have any. At the end of my post will be a next button so you can jump to Marie Green's blog and see her wonderful projects.

Project One - A Cookie Cutter Christmas

Who can resist a Gingerbread Man or a sweet little Reindeer? I couldn't! The Cookie Cutter Christmas Photopolymer Bundle was my first choice from the catalogue, and I haven't been able to wipe the smile off my face since it arrived.

Here's a look at some of the cute projects I've made with this stamp set and punch.

To begin with all of my customer's who regularly order from me all received their catalogues with two enclosures. The first is a personalized 4 x 4 card from me and the second is a Wish List form. Check these out and let me know if they're not the cutest:

This is a fun and very quick card to make. It measures 4 x 4 card and is layered with Real Red card stock and Candy Cane Lane DSP. I stamped the two reindeer on Watercolour Paper and punched them out with the Cookie Cutter Builder Punch. What Fun! The reindeer were painted with an Aqua Painter in Crumb Cake and Blushing Bride inks. I simply cut off the antlers to make the girl deer and attached a Red Glimmer paper bow and a basic rhinestone. Too cute!

It's hard to see from this picture, but for above version of the card I attached a couple of the silver mini jingle bells to the male deer's antlers. Tip: Previously when Stampin Up! had these jingle bells they sold out quickly so if you like them don't wait.

The greeting comes from the Cookie Cutter Christmas stamp set. I cut it out with the Bunch of Banners Framelits. Note: the card that went out with the catalogues was plain and didn't include the jingle bells for mailing purposes.

For the wish list I simply stamped a Crumb Cake Gingerbread man and attached a Red Glimmer Paper Bow.

I made my next project with the Cookie Cutter Christmas Bundle and it is called a Triple Gate Fold card. What a wonderful card with it's multiple levels to showcase the Candy Cane Lane designer paper and more of those yummy Gingerbread men. I love, love, love this card!

The card measures 11 x 5 1/2 and has score lines at 2", 5" and 7". The base is in Real Red card stock and has layers of Crumb Cake, Whisper White and Candy Cane Lane DSP.

In the above view you can see the inside of the card when it's completely open.

In this view you can see the front panel, back panel and the gate fold.

The Gingerbread Man and Woman were stamped in Crumb Cake ink on Whisper White card stock and then cut out with the Cookie Cutter Builder punch. So simple! They're mounted on a 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" piece of Crumb Cake card stock with dimensionals. This piece is called the "gate fold". The bows and buttons are cut from Red Glimmer paper. The banner which I really love, is from the "Time of Year" hostess set on page 201 of the Annual Catalogue (AC) and it's stamped in Real Red ink.

I added a piece of 3 1/4" x 2 1/4" Whisper White card stock on the inside of the Gate Fold and stamped the "Thinking of You At Christmas" sentiment
from the Embellished Ornaments stamp set on page 33 of the AC. The little mitten was cut from the DSP.

Embellished Ornaments 7 piece rubber/wood or clear mount stamp set comes in English and French. This set has matching framelits.

The last panel of the card is a 3 3/4" x 5" piece of Crumb Cake card stock and 3 1/2" x 4 3/4" piece of Whisper White card stock. I adhered a 1/4" x 4 3/4" strip of the DSP down the right edge and a tree, star and gingerbread man cutouts. Basic Rhinestones were added to the center of the mittens and the star on the back panel of the card.

Project Two - Detailed Santa Thinlets:
My second favourite from the Holiday Catalogue is the Detailed Santa Thinlets on page 11 of the Holiday Catalogue. This thinlet set includes an intricate die featuring Santa's flowing beard. It also includes two side-bar thinlets and a grouping of stars. These four dies work really well and can actually be used for far more than seasonal projects.

My project is a shaker card featuring the Santa and one of the side-bars.

This shaker card is a top fold card and the base is cut from an 8 1/2 x 5 1/2" piece of Whisper White. I cut the "side-bar" image from the left side of the card and adhered a 1/4" by 3 3/4" piece of Red Glimmer Paper with Mini Glue Dots to the back of the front panel so it lights up the side-bar with colour.

The shaker measures 4" x 4". The Santa image was cut from a piece of Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper. I added a Red Glimmer Paper pompom to Santa's hat for a pop of colour. This Santa square panel was mounted on a 4" x 4" piece of acetate Window Sheet. To create the well for the shaker pieces I wrapped Foam Adhesive strips around the edge of the window square.

At the end of the season last year I managed to buy some clearance rack embellishments which included some awesome silver sequins and snowflakes. I threw in some silver seed beads for "rattle" to the mix. Tip: To ensure the shaker pieces don't get static cling, wipe the inside of the window sheet with an embossing buddy before putting in the shaker pieces.

To seal of the back of the shaker I added a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of Whisper White card stock. Before attaching it I stamped the sentiment "With Loving Wishes for a Bright and Beautiful Season" in Real Red ink. This sentiment is also from the Embellished Ornaments stamp set.

For the inside of the card I added a layer of Real Red card stock that measures 4" x 5 1/4" and topped that with a 3 3/4" x 5" piece of Whisper White card stock. I stamped the "Thinking of You" sentiment from the Embellished Ornaments stamp set in Real Red. It looked far too plain so I stamped the Santa from the Cookie Cutter Christmas beneath the sentiment. Wouldn't you know it looked way too flat, so I stamped another Santa image and cut him out with the Cookie Cutter Christmas punch. Once coloured I mounted him to the original stamped Santa with dimensionals.

I hope you enjoyed this Shaker card and my use of the Santa Thinlets. Stampin Up has put together this video to demonstrate how to use this set and it's matching stamp set "Greetings from Santa".

Project Three - Merry Mice

For my final project I chose "Merry Mice" a 7 piece rubber or clear mount stamp set that's available in English and French. Each time I use this set I fall more and more in love with these little guys! What characters. I know you're going to love this project!

You may have run across some cards lately that feature an intricate pop up mechanism called a "Twisting Pop Up" or a "Pop Up Panel", and wondered how they're made. I was very intrigued by the ones I saw and decided this would be the perfect pairing for my Merry Mice card. Here it is:

Okay, I know, this card doesn't look so special right now - it's cute but not special. Just hang on while I give you a few details, then we'll get to special.
This is a top folding card and the Cherry Cobbler card stock base measures 8 1/2" x 5 1/2". The first layer is from the "This Christmas Specialty Designer Series Paper" in the Annual Catalogue and measures 4" x 5 1/4".

The next layer is a 3 3/4" x 3 3/4" piece of Garden Green card stock that's been dry embossed with the new Holly Embossing Folder. The next layer is a Cherry Cobbler 3 1/4" x 3 1/4" piece of Cherry Cobbler and a 3" x 3" piece of Very Vanilla card stock that's been stamped with the sweater mouse image.

I used a blender pen and an aqua painter to colour the image. This is the sweetest little mouse I think I've ever seen. To pop up his head I actually stamped his face twice coloured it, and fussy cut it out and attached it to the original with dimensionals.

I've used Glossy Accents (now retired) to add some dimension to his big ears and his darling little nose. I added basic rhinestones to the Christmas bauble.

Okay are you ready...................ta da!

When you open up this card this wonderful pop up panel happens. I'm not going to go into all the details and measurements for the panels or how it was assembled as I believe seeing it in real life makes more sense. And, I have to tell you I spent many hours researching the mechanics of this card before I stumbled across a video by Dawn Griffith in which she provides a wonderful example of this pop up panel card. I've used Dawn's measurements for the panels on the inside of my card, so the details are in the video. Dawn........you're the best!

I painted all these little mice panels with the same technique as above and what fun I had. I did splatter on some ink in Cherry Cobbler and Cherry Red and in some cases was a bit over zealous with the splatters. Oh well.

Well, what do you think? Isn't this just the greatest card? One of my bestie's saw this at last week's stamping get together and claimed it as her own Christmas card, so I know I'm going to be teaching this technique and making more of these down the road. Once I figured out how it worked it was a lot of fun and what a sense of accomplishment when it came together! Yeah!

So that's the end of my projects for this hop but I'll be continuing to post new projects every week. I hope you'll take the time to leave me a comment and let me know how you liked these cards.

To resume the hop and visit the rest of the Watercooler Designer Team just click on the watercoolers below for a direct link. If you press on NEXT you'll be taken to the very talented Marie Green's blog My Tanglewood Cottage.