Ho! Ho! Ho! Let’s Jingle Hop!

Welcome to my creative world and the Jingle Hop by Lettering Delights. I’m glad you’ve hopped on over to see a few of the holiday projects I have designed that can be made with the new Cut Flowers Holiday collection now available on Lettering Delights. In addition to some “how to” craft projects I will be sharing, I want to make sure you have the entry code for the LD drawing, and a few freebies from me as well. Here is the code you will need for LD Jingle Hop drawing: bVthW. The freebies are at the end of this post — You won’t want to miss them!

Today’s project will show you some creative techniques to get the most out of the Cut Flowers Holiday collection. I will be using these sets from the collection: Cut Flowers Holiday Wraps, Cut Flowers Christmas (flowers), Cut Flowers Evergreens, Cut Flowers Holly, and Cut Flowers Holiday Tags. You can see the chart below of each set within the collection and find the files at LD.

I will be showing you a few creative gift wrapping ideas you can do easily and beautifully with the sets mentioned above and the supplies listed below to make your holiday gift wrapping a gift in itself. 

These are the supplies you will need: 

• Colored Paper ~ I use 70 lb. text from Paper Source—see my previous blog posting (“Paper Chains ~ Simple Pleasures” for the specific paper colors from Paper Source).

• Tissue Paper or wrapping paper of your choice. I have used tissue (light pink, watermelon and teal) to wrap all of my boxes before embellishing them.

• Boxes that the gift will go in. I recommend that this project be done with smaller sized boxes, like a chocolates box, large jewelry box or stationery box.

• Ribbons, bakers twine, seam binding ribbon (my favorite) or any other creative ties you like to use.

• Brads of various colors and sizes for attaching 3D flowers together

• Spray Adhesive (such as 3M Spray Mount Adhesive)

• White Glue ~ this can be Elmer’s glue or Tacky glue, though I believe thinner glue is better to work with. 

• Scotch Magic Tape for wrapping the gift boxes.

• Bamboo Skewer or tool to curl paper with. This is to bend the petals on the 3D flowers and pinecones.

• Files from the Cut Flowers Holiday set (Wraps, Evergreens, Holly, Christmas (flowers) and Tags). See photo below showing supplies used in this project.

Start by wrapping the box with solid tissue or paper. Keep in mind that the background color needs to be visible through the stenciled words (example, a reddish tissue behind the light pink paper wrap with the word “Love” cut out will provide a nice contrast, see image below).

Choose the holiday wraps and paper colors you want to use and cut them out with your machine. (See the supplies photo above showing the stenciled papers of “Love” and “Ho Ho Ho”). Determine where you want to position the wrap on the covered box. Use spray adhesive on the back of the wrap (gently spraying, but cover the wrap entirely), then carefully position and adhere the wrap to the tissue covered box.

Now it is time to embellish each box. For the “Jingle” box I cut out small sizes of the Christmas flowers, evergreens, holly and berries (from the LD sets listed above). I also used the leftover pieces (cut outs) from my holiday cupcake wraps (example: bells). I then glued the tiny pieces together in a bending and flowing shape to wind across the front of the box. I used white glue to attach the parts together and spray mount to adhere it to the box once I had determined where I wanted the mini garland to be positioned. See the photo above, and the winding miniature garland on the tree, below.

For the smaller “Ho Ho Ho” box (see first photo, above) I simply used the left over letters from the stenciled wrap (on the larger “Ho Ho Ho” box) and carefully glued the letters down the box in a vertical arrangement using white glue and a toothpick to wipe the glue onto the backs of the delicate letters.

For the poinsettia 3D flower on the “Ho Ho Ho” box (above), I used petals from the Cut Flowers Christmas set. I chose three different reddish papers to add variety to the flower. These petals were also curled slightly with the bamboo skewer between my thumb and forefinger, then stacked, positioned and joined together with a brad. I also used a tag from the Cut Flowers Holiday Tags, to personalize the gift. Green ribbon was also used on this gift. See the detailed photo above.

Now it’s your turn to gift wrap with your own special style and Lettering Delights Cut Flowers Holiday collection.

To thank you for spending time with me and getting to know the Sheri McCulley Studio I have designed two money gift cards I would like you to have as freebies to coordinate with the Cut Flowers Holiday Set. I hope you will download and use these throughout your holiday season to share with those you love. Money is the gift that always fits, and this is just the thing to give it in. Both “Ho Ho Ho” and “Peace” versions of the card are available, complete with instructions, from the links below. There is also a photo (below) to show how the cards will look when they are completed.

The free “Ho Ho Ho” card can be downloaded here.

The free “Peace” card can be downloaded here.

I hope you will become a follower on my blog to see the many designs and projects I create daily (the link is at the right). I would also love to have you become a fan of my Facebook page, and I have an Etsy shop named Sheri’s Creations and would welcome a visit from you anytime.

Now that you have visited my blog I invite you to see the many talented artists who are blog hopping with Lettering Delights today through December 7. Remember, each blog will have a code to enter into the drawing, so you will want to hop on over to their blogs and enjoy the crafts and projects they are sharing and get their codes and freebies. Here are the blogs listed below and the order of hopping from one fun project to the next:

www.ldsolutions.blogspot.com

http://athriftymom.com

http://underacherrytree.blogspot.com/

http://joyslife.com/

http://zantaylordesigns.blogspot.com/

http://www.happycardfactory.com/

http://ilove2cutpaper.blogspot.com/

http://sherimcculley.blogspot.com/

http://snfontaholic.blogspot.com/

I will be sharing more project and gift ideas with the Cut Flowers Holiday set for the next few weeks. I invite you to return daily to see my creations and additional freebies I will be sharing with my blog and Facebook followers. I will have another freebie tomorrow, so you won’t want to miss that!

Thank you for visiting me on this festive Jingle Hop, now don’t forget to visit the source of the fun (Lettering Delights), to enter your code (bVthW) in the drawing for the zing machine. You will need to have an account with Lettering Delights to enter the drawing, but it’s free and easy, just click here to sigh up and maybe even win!

Paper Chains ~ Simple Pleasures

I have a lovely, white feather tree that stands about 15 inches tall. It is a delicate and soft addition to the holiday decor and I love to trim it each year with pieces that compliments its simple beauty. 

This year I chose to string a few chains of garland made from tiny bits of paper cuttings. These are from the Cut Flowers Holiday set I am working on with Lettering Delights  now available on Lettering Delights.

This project of simple beauty is truly simple to create as well and takes only a short time to complete. I simply cut the miniature icons from papers chosen from Paper Source (the colors are Blossom, Strawberry, Papaya, Curry, Chartreuse, Sage, Leaf and Moss all in text weight). I then glued the pieces end to end, twisting and turning, these delicate flowers and leaves to weave a few chains of paper throughout the tiny tree.

I think life’s simple pleasures don’t get much simpler than this. :)

Please check back often to see when you can buy these cut files on Lettering Delights and view my many other craft and decor projects I have been making with the Cut Flowers Holiday set.

A soft touch for the season

Call it a sneak peek or a spoiler, but this is a sweet peek at a new collection I am working on with Lettering Delights. I had such fun working on design and decor ideas for the Cut Flowers collection we did last spring. It just seems the natural next step to have a Cut Flowers Holiday collection for crafters to create with as the season approaches.

This collection will include the traditional floral and evergreen icons, all from nature brought to paper. 

The rich reds and pinks of poinsettias, the greenery of holly and mistletoe, the natural texture of pine cones, and the crispness of paper whites will come together this season as little works of art. 

I will be sharing ideas for gift giving, card designing and holiday decorating. I will also share tips and trick for papercrafting specific to this collection.

The collection won’t be ready for a few more weeks, but start thinking of your own creative uses for this new sequel to Cut Flowers, the holiday collection.

I will let you know when the collection has changed from a sweet peek to a Friday favorite on Lettering Delights. Prepared to be spoiled!

Roaming through Europe with my daughter

 As many of you know my daughter is spending the year in Spain. Well, let me rephrase that, she’s spending a few weeks at a time in Spain, then off to other European countries on trips, then back to Spain to learn a bit more, and then off again. Now, I’m not one to encourage sending the college kids off to play for the year. In fact, I’m not so much about that. But this is an opportunity for her to learn Spanish fluently, learn about many other cultures, history, geography and frankly to learn that this old world isn’t so big after all, but it is filled with variety and diversity. Oh, and a major lesson she is learning is how to be completely on her own and figuring in out as she goes. That life lesson is somehow better to learn in a foreign land.

We are able to follow her experiences, travels, tears and joys every few days as she blogs about her time there, and everywhere. :) She is an excellent writer and photographer and makes each experience seem as if we are right there with her as we read her blog. It makes this mom feel comforted to know how she is doing, be it good times or bad times (and she has already had some rough ones).

It’s not easy to communicate, even with today’s technology, so we still happily snail mail packages, letters, and cards across the deep blue in hopes of them reaching their destination before the year is up and she returns home.

As some of you also know, when she started college I would design and send her and her friends a post card each week. That was fun for me and it put a little something in the mailboxes of the kids each week. Well, I am attempting to do this again and with her many travels I have lots of visuals to work with.

I shared one post card on my blog of her and her cousin in Gibraltar a few weeks ago (he’s the guy on “The Rock” postcard). I thought it would be fun to show you the other places they have been in the last month (or at least a few of the places and palaces). She sends me postcards of the landmarks, then I send her my visual translation of those places. It’s fun. Hope you have fun translating these images into your own ideas of these European locations. Happy travels!

From teacup to tea towel

 The complete collection of In a Little Teacup embidery patterns are now available in the Sheri’s Creations Etsy shop. These patterns will be sent as downloadable PDF layered files. Included in each pattern is:
• Cover sheet with photo of finished project
• Color guide and instructions, as well as the DMC embroidery floss guide for each pattern
• Stitch guide and detailed tips and tricks for transferring the design
• Pattern of animal and teacup with letter (and reversed version for iron on transfer)
• Pattern of animal and teacup without letter (and reversed version for iron on transfer)

Above is an example of the seven pages you will receive in the PDF pattern.

When you get the pattern, you will also receive art for the teacup animal without the letter, as you see in this sample with the bear on the teacup and no “B” on the cup. This allows for variety in the collection, as many of you will have favorite animals to embroider, but may not want letters in the completed artwork.

These little teacup animals are perfect for so many baby and child projects, but I think they are equally useful and fitting for pillows, wall hangings, quilts and tea towel art. Who doesn’t love the teacup theme? Since these patterns allow you to embroider the teacup scenes without the alphabet letters, you might enjoy creating your own sets of pets, sea animals and safari animals, or just your favorite animals.

This is the pet collection: cat, dog, mouse, rabbit, frog and newt. Note, I am showing these patterns with the animals and teacups but without the letters, as an option for your needlework.

This is the sea creatures collection: whale, jellyfish, seal, otter, sea urchins and x-ray fish. I am showing these patterns with the animals and teacups but without the letters, as an option for your needlework.

This is the safari collection: alligator, elephant, giraffe, hippo, kangaroo, lion, tiger and zebra. I am showing these patterns with the animals and teacups but without the letters, as an option for your needlework.

Just think of this as 26 ways to create your own embroidery projects and give the gift of handcrafting to all your favorite creatures in your life. You can review each pattern in detail at my Etsy shop.