4th July Bag

Happy 4th of July…almost. The 4th of July is definitely my favorite holiday of the year. It has been since I was a kid. The only expectation for the day is to have fun: BBQ, friends, family, and some fireworks if you are lucky.

This cute little pocket bag is perfect to hold poppers or crackers to give to the kids at your 4th of July gathering. It would also be great to hold a host of other treats.


Ingredients for this bag:

1 blue 12x12 for the bag
Red cardstock for stripes
White cardstock for stars
Adhesive
Scoring tool
Paper cutter

Directions:

1. Make 3 scores on a 12x12 at 6.5 inches, 6 inches, and then 5.5 inches.

2. Rotate the paper by a 90 degrees, and make 2 scores at 8.5 inches and 4 inches.

3. Crease both of these later scores and apply adhesive to the reverse side along one outside edge. Fold over and seal.



4. Fold the piece in half along the middle score with the sealed side facing out.

Now fold at the two remaining score lines in the opposite direction.

Put a small amount of adhesive in the middle of the inside short edge and adhere both edges together. You should now have your bag.


5. Punch two small holes on each side of the top of the bag.

Cut two 6 inch pieces of ribbon. Knot ribbon (I double knotted it to make it more substantial) on one end.



Thread ribbon through each set of holes and knot the opposite end to make the handles.



6. Cut ½ inch strips of red cardstock to use as stripes.

Place them on the bag and trim.

Adhere with adhesive.


7. Punch out stars from white cardstock

Adhere the stars to the bag.


Fill your bags with goodies!

Happy Crafting and Happy 4th of July

Sandra

Candy Bar Party Favor

Usually, when I think of a candy bar I imagine your typical Hershey bar or something along those lines. This weekend I had the opportunity to go to a wedding where they put a creative twist on the "candy bar" by having and actual bar full of candy. Each of us found our specific take out box that indicated our table. I happened to be at the Sour Patch Cherries table.





Upon arrival we discovered a huge bowl of Sour Patch Cherries candy at our table free for the taking. Not only was this a fun and different favor, but each table had their own type of candy so we could all wander from table to table and meet other people along the way and collect our goodies - it was a great ice breaker.



Of course there was another table of supplemental candies just to make sure there was something for everyone.



This was such a simple but really creative idea, especially for anyone with a sweet tooth! -Amanda

Ooh-la-la!

Every time we participate in Wedding Shows, people go absolutely nuts over this lingerie shower invitation. So many times, I've seen people walking down the crowded Convention Center aisles and watch their eyes zone in on this invite, and then bee-line it right to our booth. It's funny to watch, but I understand their reaction because it's super cute and a little risque at the same time - a perfectly playful and girly invitation.
And it's great for a bachelorette party or lingerie shower. While it looks like it might be complicated to create, it's actually pretty easy as long as you have our template, one piece of 8.5" x 11" lightly-colored cover weight paper, one black sheet of paper, and some ribbon and rhinestones for embellishments.

You will start by printing out the template on a piece of plain scrap paper, you will be cutting this out and tracing it on your nicer cardstock. I'll break the invite down step by step to make it easier for you.

Step 1: After printing the template, cut it out on the dotted lines and then trace it on your lightly colored paper; then cut out that shape that you just traced. This will be the base of your card (the "skin" part).












Step 2: Now, you want to take your cut out piece and fold that in half, since this part is the base of your card. I used a Scor-It Board to make sure I got a nice clean fold, as shown here:

Step 3: Take your template and now cut along the solid lines, this is going to create the template shapes for the underwear pieces.Next, line up your template on your black paper and trace those pieces.











Step 4: Cut out the traced out bra and panty piece and adhere the bra to the front of the card like so:










Step 5: Adhere the panty party to the back of the card and cut out little strips of paper and some ribbon to make the straps of the bra. Adhere the ribbon right on top of the black strip, and then adhere that to the card.











That's all there is to it! Easy, right? And once you have the templates cut out, you can make a bunch of these really quickly since it's just tracing and cutting. The best part of making this card is personalizing it and decorating it. I added some little cute ruffle ribbon to the back of mine to spruce it up.

I also LOVE the idea of blinging up the straps with rhinestones & glitter and switching up the color combos of the paper. Using some patterned paper for the bra and panty part would be super cute with some lacey ribbon. This is the kind of card that will make your phone start ringing with people asking you how you made it and wanting the template. Enjoy, and have fun with this one! --Lauren

Wood Veneer Paper is Here!

Move over pulp, there's a new paper in town and it's simply made out of wood! One of our newest products is wood veneer paper and the possibilities for new and exciting creations using them are endless! Below, Whitney (our wonderfully talented Tukwila Store Manager) shares some fun samples they created using this new product. I also love ideas found on Oslo Press, which has a whole range of invitation ideas using the wood paper combined with traditional letter press. I am so excited to see what all of our creative peeps make with this fun new product! --Kim

Last week we got in this fun new paper. It is real wood veneer backed with paper. You can do most of the same things with it that you can do with thick cardstock. It comes in 8 1/2x 11 sheets, 2 colors - Cherry and Birch, and 3 weights.

Here in Tukwila, we had to get out all of our favorite tools and try it out! First of all, we could trim it in our paper cutter just like regular paper - no power tools needed here!

Look at all the fun things we were able to do with this paper.

Stamping:

On this sample, we stamped on the wood with Colorbox Chalk Inks. It took no time to dry and you can still see the wood grain. We had to accent it with one of our other favorite product - Liquid Pearls.

Wood Burning:

Lisa who works at our store has all sorts of hobbies, including wood burning. She brought in her wood burning tool and we tried it out. Just look at the results! She freehanded this design, but we were also able to stamp a design and follow the lines with the wood burning tool.

Embossing and Glimmer Mist:

Finally, we got out the Letterpress machine and put it to work. On this example, we were able to emboss the paper with an embossing folder and make the fancy swirl design. Then we die cut the circle shape and spritzed the finished piece with Tiger Lily Glimmer Mist. It is so shimmery in person and again you can still see the wood grain.

I am sure there are hundreds of other things you can do with wood paper - would love to see what you come up with.

Whitney, Tukwila Paper Zone

Ladybug Party!

My daughter's 2nd birthday is coming up and we decided to do a ladybug theme. Pictured above is an invitation and a party favor box. These were really fun and easy to make and I think these could transfer over to all different kinds of kids parties. The possibilities are endless!

First, I will show you how to make the invitation.

For this you will need, a circle cutter, PZ Facets Scarlet cardstock and square envelopes, an ATG or double sided adhesive, small googly eyes, black cardstock and paper, vellum, mini glue dots (not pictured) and a small circle punch.

First, using your circle cutter, cut out two 4" circles from the red cardstock, one 4" circle from the vellum, and one 2" circle from your black cardstock.

Next, cut one red circle and the vellum circle in half. Stack the halves on top of each other and carefully cut an angled corner off only one end with scissors.

After that, using your mini glue dots, glue two googly eyes onto your 2" black circle.

Cut out about 8 small circles using your circle punch from the black paper and glue them on the top of your cut red circle in a random pattern. Above you can see what you will need to attach all the layers together; a 1/16" hole punch and small black brads.

The trick for this step is to use a small clamp to hold the pieces together while hole punching. Use your hole punch and make two small holes near the inside of the wings, just below the head.

Place the brads through the holes and flare out the backs to hold the layers together.

Lastly, I cut small strips of the black paper and glued them on the back with double sided adhesive to give the effect of antennae.

The brads allow for the wings to spread out. You can write the party information on the bottom red circle. When the wings are opened you can see the information. If you do not have enough room, you can always write on the backside. This invite fits perfectly inside the coordinating 5.75X5.75 square PZ Facets Scarlet envelope.

For the party favor box, you will use a lot of the same items and a couple new ones; black cardstock and paper, small circle punch, ATG/double sided adhesive, sharp scissors, small red take-out container, black pipe cleaner, large googly eyes, pop-up glue dots (not pictured) and black shredz.

Start by punching out several small circles from the black paper and glue them around the outside of the take-out container in a random pattern avoiding the flaps.

Next, using a large googly eye as a guide, trace around the eye and free-hand the shape of eyelashes. Carefully cut this out with your sharp scissors. Make sure to cut out two since you will need one for each eye.

Use your double sided adhesive to glue the googly eyes to the cut out eyelashes. Then, use your pop-up glue dots to glue them onto the top side of the take-out container.

Next, use one of the small black circles and cut off the top of it. Glue it below the eyes so the ladybug has a mouth. Then bend your black pipe cleaner in half and curl up the sides into a slight corkscrew shape. I used small red puffballs for the tips of my antennae, but you could put anything you like on there.

You can fill the inside of the box with shredz and either candy or toys or any other little goodies as the party favors. This is a great little gift for the kids to take home!
Happy Crafting!
-Malyse