Holiday Mini Release Party Make and Takes

I had such a great time with the friends who stopped in at the Holiday Mini Release Party on Friday!  Aside from the excellent time with friends, my next favorite thing was seeing the variations everyone came up with for the different make and takes I had prepared!

We created two different make and takes.  The first was a Halloween pillow box to fill with treats.  We used the new Illuminate Glimmer Watermark Stampin' Pad on it, along with the Toxic Treats stamp set.  The image we used fits perfectly in an Apothecary Label Framelit.  

The Illuminate really creates a beautiful luminescent shimmer, which shows up perfectly on dark colors.  A little harder to see on the Old Olive of the box, but still pretty there, too.  And, don't you love the beautiful new 1/2" Striped Satin Ribbon?!  We used the Basic Gray for this box (it also comes in Basic Black).  

I'd been a bit hesitant to run the box through the Big Shot in an embossing folder, but several friends tried that with great results.  And, by changing out the stamped piece to an image from Ornament Keepsakes (stamped on Very Vanilla and die cut with the coordinating framelits), and using Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine instead of the Striped Satin Ribbon, another friend made a beautiful Christmas pillow box.  (Sorry, I should've taken a photo of that!)

Our second project was a holiday tag.  The main challenge for this one was figuring which of the images from Scensational Season or Ornament Keepsakes to choose for the focal image!  For my sample, I chose the mug, stamped in Gumball Green, but before stamping, I ran my Early Espresso marker across the inside of the cup to make it appear to be filled with hot chocolate.  The image is stamped on Very Vanilla and die cut with the Holiday Collection Framelits Dies.  (I'm enjoying having so many coordinating sets in this Holiday Mini!)  The steam is stamped in Crumb Cake on the tag itself.

The tag is Crumb Cake card stock, with the shape created by inserting each of the top corners into the Decorative Label Punch and trimming!  Here's a photo to show what I mean:

A neat alternative use for that punch, huh?!!

The tag also features the gorgeous, sparkly Champagne Glitter Paper and one of the beautiful patterns from the Festival of Prints Designer Series Paper Stack.  To finish it off, there's a bit of Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine at the top.

There were some great variations on this project, too.  One of my favorites was using the "steam" image as a flourish on four sides around the focal point -- again, I wish I'd taken a photo!  Next time I have a class, I'll have to be sure to have my camera handy, I guess.

Hope you liked these projects!

- Michelle