Author

Betsy

Tags & Toasts Peek #1

by Betsy November 9, 2021

written by Betsy

Good morning! I hope your week is off to a great start! I’m popping in today with a peek of some new things coming to the shop on Friday, November 12. We’ll be releasing a handful of new products for tag-making and toasting the new year!

Our first sneak peek includes some fun products for celebrating 2022, whether it be the new year or the new grad, this suite of products is perfect for celebrating 2022!

I’ll be back tomorrow with one more sneak peek before we have one big day of reveals and projects from the team!

November 9, 2021 19 comments

TGIF – Attic Ornaments with Dawn + Save the Date!

by Betsy November 5, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy Friday! Lots of fun updates for you today! Dawn’s here with a couple of amazing projects using our Curio product line-up, plus we have a fun announcement for next week.

Before we get to Dawn’s cute projects, I wanted to give you a heads up that we have a handful of new products coming to the shop next week, focused on tags and toasting the new year! We’ll be having a few days of sneak peeks, and then product reveals on Thursday before the new products hit the shop on Friday, November 12. I’d love for you to join us for the fun as we celebrate the last new product release for the year!

Stock update

Before we get to Dawn’s projects, I also wanted to give a quick stock update. I know many of you are waiting on some dies to be restocked. We were scheduled to have those this week, but our manufacturer is running a bit behind. Our goal is to have those back in stock towards the end of next week. Thank you for your patience!

Now let’s hear from Dawn and her cute TGIF projects!

If you’ve been following along with me at Christmas time for very long, then you may have seen my mini vintage ornament boxes that I love to pull out and decorate with every year! So I was so excited to play with the new Ornament Box goodies, and create some paper versions of my vintage treasures!

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I created two different cards, one a bit more basic and the other I stepped up a bit. For the first, I kept it simple inside the box and just used the same ornament dies and added several of them, as that’s how a lot of the vintage ones came in real life. I used silver card stock, to give them a bit of shine, but kept the ornament colors all the same. I finished it with some sparkly pine branches and gems to serve as berries.

I have to laugh at the stepped up version, because if I ever saw a box of vintage ornaments stuffed this full of beauties, I’d buy it in a heartbeat! LOL! I used sparkly card stock to add lots of shiny details to the ornaments, including the silver toppers which looks so darn cute in real life! I also added the Curio Divider die cut behind all the ornaments, to give a bit of added interest. Pine branches and some popped up details on the actual box front finished things off!

Thanks for joining me today for this week’s TGIF!

Supplies:

November 5, 2021 14 comments

All TGIF

TGIF – Vintage Winterberry Postcard with Wanda

by Betsy October 29, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy Fri-yay! It’s promising to be a gorgeous fall weekend here, but Wanda has me dreaming of Christmas with the beautiful project she’s created for today’s TGIF post! I’m so excited to share this with you…I hope you enjoy! 😊

Hi there, Greetery friends! I’m excited to be up on TGIF this week with you! Like most of you, I fell head over heels with the new Christmas release this month. Today I’m sharing another idea for using the Winterberry Stamps, Stencils and Dies. It is such a beautiful suite of products and it makes my retro loving heart happy. My card was inspired by old postcards and Christmas cards from the 50’s and 60’s so I used lots of glitter and classic Christmas colors.

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My finished card is a horizontal A2 sized card made from red cardstock. I layered woodgrain cardstock and then cream cardstock. I created the background by ink blending shades of yellow Distress Inks. I also stamped over the ink blending with these stamps: Pretty Postmarks and Christmas Time in the Country. I inked the edges of the Postal layer with Distress Ink also.

I used the Winterberry Stamp/Stencil Combo to ink up that pretty floral spray and die cut it out with the matching die. I added lots of glitter! The sentiment is from the Snowflake Soiree Dies set – and I die cut it from silver glitter cardstock. A few pearls were added for dimension and embellishment. I made postage stamps using the smallest ornament from the Curio: Ornaments die set. I thought I needed some vintage postage stamps for this project!

I hope you have a very happy weekend! Happy crafting until we meet again!

SUPPLIES:Winterberry Stamps, Stencils, Dies
Curio Attic Ornaments die
Postal Frames Dies
Pretty Postmarks Stamps and Dies
Christmas Time in the Country Stamps
Snowflake Soiree Dies
Blender Brushes
Unicorn Stickles
Rock Candy Glitter
Red, Cream, Woodgrain, Silver Cardstocks
Pearls
Distress Inks

October 29, 2021 18 comments

All TGIF

TGIF – Spooky Sweet Candy Pops with Angelica

by Betsy October 22, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy Friday! Angelica is here with the sweetest, spookiest project to kick off your weekend!

Fall is in full swing in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. We have been visiting pumpkin farms almost daily… in our rain boots of course. The neighborhood is decorated for Halloween, and I thought it would be fun to put together some really cute Halloween treats for my daughter’s gymnastics class. The first thing that came to mind was Candy Pops, and a lollipop idea Betsy shared a while back. So, my daughter and I took a trip to Micheals to pick out paper straws and twine, then I sat down and got to work.

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The Candy Pops Circle Die comes with 5 dies, which I used to cut all my card stock. Starting with black card stock, I die-cut the front Candy Pop, and used the included circle to die-cut the window. I picked a sentiment from Candy Pops Sentiments stamp set, and stamped and white heat-embossed it three times around the window. I also die-cut the backs of the Candy Pops, this time using Tear Away Circle Die in replace of the circle die. The Tear Away circle will make it easy for the little girls to get to their candy.

My next step was getting the Circle Bubbles ready. I added 1/8th inch Scor Tape around the front and back of the bubbles’ edges, and took the top adhesive backing off. I attached the front Candy Pop, then flipped the bubble over, and filled it with M&Ms. I took the rest of the adhesive backing off, and attached the back Candy Pop.

I picked coordinating glitter paper to match the M&Ms, and die-cut them with the accessory dies. I attached them to the Candy Pops, then trimmed one of the wrapper edges off. To attach the straws, I used mini glue dots, making sure I attached them to the straws in a straight line. I adhered the straws to the backs of the Candy Pops, and finished with black and white twine bows.

I know the girls are going to squeal when they see them. Vera sure did when she saw them. (And she was happy to get a handful of M&Ms! lol) The moms are going to love them, too. Who knows… maybe I can get our small group of moms into paper crafting~!

Such a cute project from Angelica! Before I sign off, I just wanted to share some special news from one of our Inspiration Team members! I know many of you are like me…fans of Dawn McVey’s beautiful, colorful work. Dawn is launching a new venture next week and we couldn’t be more excited for her! I have loved watching her artistic journey, and very soon you’ll be able to purchase some of Dawn’s artwork to brighten your space! You can find out more HERE, sign up for her newsletter, and be entered in a fun giveaway. 😊

October 22, 2021 9 comments

All TGIF

TGIF – Winterberry + Macrame Holiday Card & Tags with Dawn

by Betsy October 15, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy TGIF! It’s time for some gorgeous inspiration from Dawn. I’m always a fan of her gorgeous product and color combos and her projects today are classic Dawn!

Dawn created a gorgeous card and a mix of holiday tags using some of the items from our latest release (Abundant Joy, Opposites Attract Holiday, and Winterberry Bouquet), paired with some older items like our Speed Tagging die and Macrame builder dies.

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For her gorgeous card, she created the background using the Macrame Borders & Tassels die, along with the Macrame Openwork Base die. She topped it off with our new Abundant Joy die, and tucked in some Winterberry Bouquet sprigs and Pine Wisp diecuts. The script sentiment is from our Opposites Attract Holiday stamp set.

Her tags use the same fun mix of products. The bases were cut with the Speed Tagging die and the Crimped Circles die.

She added lots of Winterberry Bouquet, Pine Wisp, and Botanicuts Pine Bough sprigs. The “noel” and “joy” are from our Opposites Attract Holiday set. Such pretty Christmasy colors!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hoped Dawn’s pretty projects inspired you to get a head start on your holiday tag making!

October 15, 2021 3 comments

All TGIF

TGIF – Holiday Box Top Berries with Norine

by Betsy October 8, 2021

written by Betsy

Happy Friday, friends! It’s been a totally fun week, but I have to admit, I’m ready for the weekend! We’ll be working hard here today to get as many of the release orders out the door as we can! One thing to note…Monday is a postal holiday. We’ll work hard to get as many out as we can Friday and Saturday AM, and then *hopefully* we’ll be able to get the remainder out on Tuesday when the mail picks up again after the Monday holiday! We know waiting isn’t fun! 😊

Anyway! Norine is here today to round out our week with the most gorgeous project using some of the goodies from the new release. Bonus! 🙂

Hello Greetery friends! Welcome back to another TGIF post! I have one more project to share from the Christmas Time release that hit the store yesterday!

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I made this card, using the Ornament Box Top Vertical stamp and die along with the Winterberry stamps and dies and the Pine Wisp dies. Actually, there’s also a few sprigs of greenery from other Greetery sets that I had stashed in my leftovers bag from other projects. I had the card put together and finished (I thought) but it just didn’t seem full enough and the L.O. bag was within reach, so that’s what I turned to!

I started by stamping the vertical Ornament Box Top onto Neenah Solar White cardstock, and trimming the sides slightly smaller than A2. While the stamp was set up in the MISTI, I stamped a few more, for some other just-in-case situation, including one with red ink.

Next, I stamped the base layers of the large Winterberry clusters then added the detail layers with stamps. I also deepened some of the shaded areas with some Copic markers, then I die cut the whole berry cluster. I die cut the three smallest wisps in the Pine Wisp set from heavy weight white cardstock then colored them with Copic markers as I’m not as adept at ink blending color onto the wispy pine needles without bending and mashing them.

To give the pine wisps a frosty, freezey appearance, I smeared some embossing paste onto my craft mat, added liquid glue to it and smooshed them together until it was the consistency that would easily stick to the wisps when brushed on with a palette knife. Then I poured clear glass glitter over the paste and set them aside to dry and harden. The liquid glue added to the paste makes it softer and more malleable and helps it stick to paper, and then once the adhesive dries, it gives the paste a more translucent quality which which helps the glass glitter/snow remain the focus!

I adhered the Ornament Box Top panel to a folded card base, then using the coordinating dies for the Box Top stamp, I die cut the Merry and Bright banner at the top, and the 100% guarantee badge at the bottom from the red stamped panel. I die-cut extra layers for each of those shapes and stacked and adhered them together before gluing them to the card base, right on top of the original images. Then I assembled the Winterberry bouquet along the side, lining up the straight cut edge with the stamped design and adding in the Pine Wisps and a few small leftover stamped leaf die cuts in my stash. I used strong liquid adhesive to adhere the cluster to the card front, because that gave me a quick minute to tug and tuck until I was satisfied.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you got some inspiration for your own paper crafting projects!

October 8, 2021 22 comments

All Give & Make Release Day

Christmas Time Release Day + Winners and a few notes…

by Betsy October 7, 2021

written by Betsy

Good morning and happy holiday release day! Thank you so much for joining us for all the fun this week! All of the new products we’ve been showcasing on the blog will go up in the shop a bit later this morning – at 10am ET today, Thursday, October 7.

First off, a reminder that if you’d like to see the new products up close, Laurie will be hosting an Instagram Live presentation of all of the new products this morning. Join her on at 8:00am CDT if you’d like to check it out!

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We have lots of winners to announce! We have 6 winners…two from each blog hop day. Ladies – please send an email to customerservice@thegreetery.com and we’ll get your gift card codes to you ASAP. Prizes must be claimed by 10/14.

Day #1:

Winner #1 is Diane Bowen from here on The Greetery blog:

Winner #2 is Amy Reed from here on The Greetery blog:

Day #2

Winner #1 is Sue D from Laurie’s blog:

Winner #2 is Stephanie Clapper from Angelica’s blog:

Day #3

Winner #1 is Dawn Y from Norine’s blog:

Winner #2 is Anaelly Lopez from here on The Greetery blog:

October Lookbooks

Our October Lookbooks are ready for your viewing pleasure! All of the beautiful projects from the team can be found in one place! Click HERE to check them out!

International Shipping Update

For our International customers (with the exception of Canada), please visit our Shipping Policy page and take note of some changes to our international shipping policies. Due to the recent issues and delays (and also considering we’re approaching the holiday months which will further exacerbate the issue), we’ve made the difficult decision to stop using USPS for the time being. All international orders (except Canada) will ship via UPS. For our friends in the EU, also take note of the new order minimums due to the recent change in EU tax laws.

Domestic and Canadian shipping remain the same, although we should note that USPS has made some changes to First Class transit times, effective October 1. Your order may take an extra day or two to arrive, so please take that into consideration when calculating when your order will arrive.

Before I sign off on all of the events of the week, I want to share a special Give & Make announcement. Our hobby is inherently giving…we spend time creating cards and gifts that are meant to be given away. When establishing The Greetery, we wanted to incorporate giving into what we do, beyond the crafting aspect!

This is our 3rd Christmas here at The Greetery, and each year we have selected a product from our holiday release from which to donate a portion of the sales to Operation Christmas Child. Thanks to you, we have been able to grow our giving. Last year we were able to pack and fund the shipping for 60 shoeboxes, chock full of goodies!

This year, we’ve chosen both our Christmas Time in the City AND Country stamps and dies as our Operation Christmas Child sets. We want everyone, everywhere, all around the world to have Christmas, so what could be more fitting? ❤️ 10% of the sales of these sets will go towards packing and shipping shoeboxes.

The collection date for the shoeboxes is November 15-22. After this time, we will continue to donate the same 10% for the lifetime of the sets, putting it towards either shoeboxes in the coming years, or the broader Samaritan’s Purse charity, which is instrumental in providing emergency relief during hurricanes and other natural disasters (and is also the parent charity of Operation Christmas Child). I know this is a cause that is near and dear to many of your hearts as well – thank you for partnering with us on this project! ❤️

That’s a wrap! Thank you so much for joining us as we celebrate the start of my favorite crafting season! 😊 We’ll be back tomorrow…Norine has the most gorgeous TGIF project for you!

October 7, 2021 15 comments

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Christmas Time Collection Day 3

by Betsy October 6, 2021

written by Betsy

It’s our third and final day of product reveals and projects before our Christmas Time collection goes up in the shop tomorrow! We just have a handful of products to introduce today and a quick blog hop by a few of the Inspiration Team members to wrap up the fun!

Below is a quick look at today’s new product introductions. Click on the links below each product heading for more details and information, or click HERE to see all of the new products in the shop. (**Please Note: although the new products are available for you to peruse in the shop, they will not be available to purchase until 10am EDT on Thursday, October 7).

Bake Someone Happy die + stamp set

Sweet as can be, this little treat box oven is sure to get the creative juices cooking! The matching stamp set allows you to add even more details to the ovens, and also includes several baking-themed sentiments.

Click HERE for Bake Someone Happy die details ($40)
Click HERE for Bake Someone Happy stamp set details ($15)

Bake it Merry stamp set + die

Bake yourself a merry little Christmas! Our Bake it Merry set features some of the same elements as our Bake Someone Happy set, but on a much larger scale, perfect for cards, tags, and more. The cookie sheet is sized to accommodate a gift card!

Click HERE for Bake it Merry stamp set details ($15)
Click HERE for Bake it Merry die details ($26)

Baked Bits clay sprinkles

Tiny baked treats, sweet as can be, to cook up some paper crafted goodies! Our Baked Bits clay sprinkles include cookies, candy canes, donuts, and the tiniest gingerbread men! They look adorable paired with the tiny cookies from the Bake it Merry and Bake Someone Happy sets, and come packaged in a 1 oz tin. (please note these are not edible and should be used with care with small children)

Click HERE for Baked Bits details ($5.50)

Before we get into the projects, I have a video for you. This video shows how the Bake Someone Happy oven goes together, and I also do a side-by-side comparison of the two sets we’re showcasing today. These sets have similar elements, but in a much different scale, so I thought it might be helpful for you to be able to see them side-by-side.

Now for some sweet projects. 🙂 I cooked up a whole craft room full of these cute little ovens. I’d much prefer cooking up things in my craft room than the kitchen, so my ovens are filled with chocolates. 🙂

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The video linked above details how these go together. I just had fun embellishing them with all of the little details from the dies and stamps! Of course I had to make them in all the retro colors. I think these will be going on our Christmas eve table this year!

They definitely don’t need to be just for Christmas! They would be sweet for Valentine’s day, birthdays and more.

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Here I dressed up my pink oven with the bitty cookie sheet filled with diecut cookies and clay sprinkle donuts. I tucked some tiny pink-frosted cookies inside, and stamped the “hey sweets” sentiment from the Bake Someone Happy stamp set onto the cookie sheet.

Next up, I made some modifications to the Bake Someone Happy diecuts so I could create some cute tags to tie on cookie bundles.

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To do this, I trimmed down the Bake Someone Happy diecuts to use just parts of them – the oven front (the portion with the door cut-out) and the oven back (the part with the curved top). When diecutting, I used small pieces of cardstock, placed under just the areas of the die that I wanted to use so I didn’t have so much waste. I then just used my paper trimmer to trim these small pieces on the scored lines so I was left with two pieces like this:

I layered these two pieces together, but before assembling them, I backed the over door window with a scrap of white cardstock so I would have a place to stamp a sentiment. I also put a piece of white cardstock on the back (round-top) layer so I could stamp a to/from sentiment inside the oven door flap. You could omit that step and just stamp right on the colored cardstock if you’d like. I added details to my tags using the Bake Someone Happy stamp set and silver embossing powder. The oven door handle was diecut using the Bake Someone Happy die and metallic silver cardstock.

Next I have a few projects using the new Bake it Merry set. I LOVE this set – it’s simple and fun. I am a sucker for all kinds of miniature, fake foodie things! They’re just too cute and fun to embellish.

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For my card here I used the cookie sheet from Bake it Merry, cut from silver cardstock. There is an inner and outer cut for the cookie sheet so you can stack a few pieces cut with both the inner and outer over a solid cookie sheet to create some realistic depth. I filled it up with little cookies, also cut with the Bake it Merry die. The real kicker is that cute “bake” word! There is a solid backing, which I inked with Tea Dye Oxide ink to look like a cookie, then layered two sets of the letters over the top. For the bottom layer I didn’t punch out the detail diecuts, I left them intact so they would show through the top layer (which I did punch out the details). I inked them in alternating colors so I had white under red, and red under white. The little spatula? So cute when cut from silver cardstock. I added a black handle by diecutting it from black as well, and just snipping off the handle portion to layer over the top of the silver. It always seems like cookies are right at home with gingham, so I created a gingham background using our Square Dance die and stencils.

You might remember we also had some cookies as part of last year’s holiday release – the Hug in a Mug Sweet Treats die. These little cookies are still a favorite and I thought they would be really cute with this year’s items as well! I pulled them out to create a fun background for my next card.

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I diecut and assembled ten of the Hug in a Mug Sweet Treats cookies and covered the outer edges of my card front. I didn’t fill the center because I knew I was going to cover it with my cookie sheet. I layered the Bake it Merry cookie sheet over the top, once again cut from silver cardstock. I added my sentiment which was done with a combo of Bake it Merry stamp and dies. The little cookies, rolling pin, and spatula are also from that set. Lots of sugary glitter on this one and I just love how it turned out, and it was so fun to make. There’s something about cute cookies that just makes me smile.

Next I created some gift card/money holders using the Bake it Merry set. I’m always on the lookout for fun ways to give gift cards or cash at the holidays, so when I was designing the Bake it Merry cookie sheet, I knew I wanted to size it to be able to hold a gift card.

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I diecut two of the solid cookie sheet layers and adhered them together back-to-back with some narrow double-sided tape around three of the sides, leaving the top edge open so I could slip in my cash or gift card. The front of the cookie sheet was embellished with a sentiment from Bake it Merry using both the stamps and dies. I included this punny sentiment in the set just for this purpose!

One other fun detail to note is that I attached the oven mitt to the gift card so that it acts as a little tab you can use to pull out the gift card. 🙂

Goodness, so much fun! I hope you enjoyed my projects today!

Now that you’ve gotten to meet all of today’s new products and see them in action, you can “greet” them for a chance to win a prize! We’ll be giving away TWO $50 gift cards for today’s blog hop

Read on for details…

Comment here on the blog for one entry (one comment per person).
Comment on our Inspiration Team Members’ blogs for more entries (linked below – one comment per person, per blog)
Comments close Wednesday, October 6 at 11:59pm EDT
Winners will be posted (on release day) at 7am EDT on Thursday, October 7, here on the blog

A few of our inspiration team members are joining us today for a bonus blog hop! Hop along to see what they’ve created using today’s product introductions (click HERE if viewing via email)

LAURIE

WANDA

KELLY

NORINE

October 6, 2021 310 comments

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Christmas Time Collection Day 2

by Betsy October 5, 2021

written by Betsy

Welcome to Day 2 of this year’s holiday collection! Thank you so much for joining us. Your enthusiasm makes all our behind-the-scenes hard work worth it! We appreciate you sharing in the excitement with us! 😊

Before we get to today’s products and projects, just a reminder for later this week! Laurie will be hosting an Instagram Live presentation of all of the new products right before they go live in the shop. Join her on Thursday, October 7 at 8:00am CDT (note the change from our usual day/time), so tune in if you’d like to check it out!

Below is a quick look at all of the new products. Click on the links below each product heading for more details and information, or click HERE to see all of the new products in the shop. (**Please Note: although the new products are visible in the shop, they will not be available to purchase until 10am EDT on Thursday, October 7).

Curio: Attic Ornaments die + Curio: Divider & Details II die

If you’re a fan of our Curio line, you’ll love today’s additions! We have an adorable vintage-style ornament set that includes all sorts of Christmas treasures! We’re also releasing a new version of the Divider & Details die. This new version features openings in a slightly different orientation than the original, allowing you more design options. Today’s new ornament set works well with either, but when paired with the ornaments, the original version lends itself better to cards with a horizontal orientation, while this new version lends itself better to vertical card designs.

Click HERE for Curio: Attic Ornaments die details ($17)
Click HERE for Curio: Divider & Details II die details ($26)

Ornament Box Top Vertical rubber stamp + die

Reminiscent of vintage ornament boxes, this fun A2 sized rubber stamp works wonderfully with our line of Curio products! The matching open-center die can be used to cut a window, as well as some of the elements from the image, which can then be layered to create multi-colored image from a single stamp. This vertical version is designed to cover the front of a vertical A2 card.

Click HERE for Ornament Box Top Vertical rubber stamp details ($16)
Click HERE for Ornament Box Top Vertical die details ($17)

Ornament Box Top Horizontal rubber stamp + die

Reminiscent of vintage ornament boxes, this fun A2 sized rubber stamp works wonderfully with our line of Curio products! The matching open-center dies can be used to cut a window, as well as some of the elements from the image, which can then be layered to create multi-colored image from a single stamp. This horizontal version is designed to cover the front of a horizontal A2 card.

Click HERE for Ornament Box Top Horizontal rubber stamp details ($16)
Click HERE for Ornament Box Top Horizontal die details ($22)

If you’d like to see the Curio: Ornaments and Ornament Box tops in action, check out Angelica’s great video she has for us today! I love to see her process.

Hourglass Frame die + Hourglass Insert die

Use our Hourglass Frame and Hourglass Insert dies to create beautiful projects time and time again! The Hourglass Insert is designed with the inner and outer cut lines as separate dies, allowing you to create shaker elements and more. The Hourglass Frame acts as a “holder” for the hourglass insert, but it’s pretty on its own as well when used as a decorative frame. It includes the hourglass frame as well as a separate interior cut that can be used to create windows and frames.

Click HERE for Hourglass Frame die details ($24)
Click HERE for Hourglass Insert die details ($20)

Christmas Time in the Country stamp set + die

These fun scene-building dies and stamps are designed to allow you to create scenes inside our Hourglass dies! Whether you prefer to stamp or diecut, there are options for you! With the zero-border design, these dies can be paired with the stamp set, or used as stand-alone dies. The country set includes an adorable house or nativity scene, trees, snowdrifts, and more.

Click HERE for Christmas Time in the Country stamp set details ($15)
Click HERE for Christmas Time in the Country die details ($22)

Christmas Time in the City stamp set + die

These fun scene-building dies and stamps are designed to allow you to create scenes inside our Hourglass dies! Whether you prefer to stamp or diecut, there are options for you! With the zero-border design, these dies can be paired with the stamp set, or used as stand-alone dies. The city set includes a skyline, trees, and more for building a city scene.

Click HERE for Christmas Time in the City stamp set details ($15)
Click HERE for Christmas Time in the City die details ($17)

Christmas Time Sentiments stamp set + die

This 3×4″ stamp set includes several “time” themed sentiments, perfect for pairing with the other items in our Christmas Time product suite. The banner fits perfectly across the hourglass Frame die.

Click HERE for Christmas Time Sentiments stamp set details ($7)
Click HERE for Christmas Time Sentiments die details ($6)

Snowfall Sequin Mix

Click HERE for Snowfall Sequin Mix details ($4.50)

I’m so excited to share my projects today! First up is a whole bunch of shaped and shaker cards using the new Hourglass and Christmas Time stamps and dies. I had so much fun building these wintery scenes inside the hourglass.

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I put together a video for you, showcasing several of these products and showing you two ways to create shaker cards with the new Hourglass Frame and Insert dies…

You can use the stamps or the dies (or both!) to build the scenes. Whichever method you prefer to work with. The Christmas Time in the City and Christmas Time in the Country dies have zero border, so they can be used as stand-alone dies without the stamps. But there are lots of little extra details included in the stamp sets that are great for adding to your scenes!

This one uses the Christmas Time in the City dies. I show how to put together a shaped shaker like this in the video above.

Both of these use the Christmas Time in the Country sets – the card on the left uses the dies, and the one on the right is all stamped.

This one again uses the Christmas Time in the City dies and I went for a more muted color scheme with shades of blue and white. The two skyline dies from the set layer to create a neat shadow effect.

In the video above, I show an alternate way to create a shaker card that’s a bit simpler than the shaped version, which is what I used for this next card.

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I used the smaller die from the Hourglass Insert to cut a window in my card front so I could build a pretty nativity scene using the Christmas Time in the Country dies. Our BotaniCuts Palm die is a great addition to the scene! I filled my shaker with glitter and tiny diecut stars, which were cut using the confetti dies included in the Hourglass Insert die.

Besides making scenes inside the hourglasses, I thought it would be so pretty to pair with our new Winterberry Bouquet set. This card came together so easily thanks to the big berry bouquet! Turned at a bit of an angle, it curves around the hourglass just perfectly. I tucked in a few of the individual sprigs from the set as well, just to add a little more fullness and dimension.

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The shaker card is kind of a combo of the two versions I shared in the video. I created a shaker frame like I showed on the second card in the video, but put acetate on both the front and the back so it’s completely see-through. Then I cut a window from my card front using the smaller of the two Hourglass Insert dies (just like I showed in the first card in the video) and added my clear shaker over the top. The “Christmas time” sentiment is actually stamped on the inside of the card and it shows through the clear hourglass. I’ve been stuck on gold, but this time I cut the Hourglass frame from a cool metallic sliver cardstock, and I love how wintery it looks with the red berries!

How about a fun bonus project! When I was finished diecutting all of the hourglass frames for my shakers, I had a whole bunch of the inner hourglass diecuts left over. I couldn’t let them go to waste, and it occurred to me that they look like bows!

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I stacked up three of them and wrapped the center with the smaller banner from the Crimped Slimline set, and added the larger banner to the back as tails. I embellished the center with some BotaniCuts Pine and the new Pine Wisp, and it makes a super fun package topper!

Next I have some projects using the new Curio and Ornament Box Tops! I had so much fun with these. Putting these colorful ornaments together was so fun! Here you can see a side-by-side comparison of the new version of the Curio: Divider & Details die. The original version is on the right, and the new version II is on the left.

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I inked them up in all the colors, and cut lots of details from various metallic cardstocks for lots of shimmer and shine. The new Curio Divider II die also includes some small banner dies that work with the Curio: Labels stamp set so you can tuck small banner sentiments in your curio boxes.

I love all of the different ornaments and details in this die set, but my favorite might be that little deer! I love how quick and easy the Ornament Box tops are. I stamped a whole bunch of them in different colors. Some I used as the main box top, and some were used to cut the banners and details using the matching dies.

My next project uses the Ornament Box Top Vertical stamp, along with the new Curio: Attic Ornaments dies, but this time instead of arranging them in the Divider die, I wanted to hang them from the new Pine Wisp die. The needles on the pine die are small enough that you can slip the hole in the ornament tops onto the needles.

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I diecut the window from the Vertical Box Top and put a panel of watercolor paper behind it, which was watercolored with some shades of green. I added my Pine Wisp branches, which I glittered up for a frosty look. Then I just slipped several ornaments onto the needles and secured them with some foam tape. I added a few of the small snowflakes from our Snowfall Sequin Mix. This was such a fun one to put together!

For my final project for today, I combined our two product groupings! I used the Ornament Box Top Vertical stamp to create a frame for a city scene made with the Christmas Time in the City dies.

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This come together really quickly! For the snowdrifts, I used our Drifting die, which is one I always find myself reaching for this time of year. It’s so versatile and makes a pretty starting point for scene building. I tucked in several of the skyline dies, some trees, and strung some banners across the sky.

Read on for details…

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The inspiration team has been busy creating with these new stamps and dies! Hop along to see what they’ve been up to (click HERE if viewing via email)

KEEWAY