I can hardly believe it, but we recently celebrated my grand-daughter's first birthday! Because I'd learned through Stampin' Up!® that the metallics silver and gold will continue to be a trend into 2014, I picked out some adorable clothing pieces in cream and black….. and gold. Yep, that's right – not a blip of frilly pink anywhere in the batch, lol!
But then, gifts bought, it was time to think about packaging, of course. I'd known immediately that I wanted to use this cream and gold top (and black & gold pants) for my packaging inspiration, so I began looking for a vanilla gift sack that I could doll up with my stampin' stuff. But alas, no vanilla or cream sacks were to be found. But in my search I ran across this darling little number with its black velvet band and cream grograin bow, and couldn't take my eyes off it. I remember thinking how unusual for a one-year-old's birthday, but I figured I could make it would work. As long as I added some gold to the mix, that is….
But there were still a couple of points that required some creativity to address.
Challenge #1 was that even though I'd chosen the smallest size of this bag, several folded pieces of clothing for a one-year-old still only filled the bag half way up. And just as there had been no vanilla or cream bags available – likewise, there was no vanilla or creme tissue paper to fill up the empty space. So I grabbed my bone folder and curled up a bunch of strips of Very Vanilla and Basic Black cardstock, along with some gold foil paper (from the Holiday Catalog). First dilemma resolved!
Challenge #2 was to figure out how to get gold glittery stars for the card. Embossing wouldn't yield quite the glitz I had in mind, and although Stampin' Up! sells real pretty silver, champagne and red glimmer papers, I wanted true "gold"! So I smooshed ink directly from my Gold Encore ink pad (on sale through 12/23/2013!) generously all over a 1/4-sheet of Very Vanilla cardstock. Then while that was still wet I covered the entire surface with Heat & Stick powder….. then heated with my heat tool JUST until it melted and became sticky. Then I poured gold glitter (again, from the Holiday Catalog – and also on sale through 12/23/2013) all over that ….. then hit it again with a burst of heat to set it. Voila! Gold glimmer paper! 🙂
Next, I laid that face-down on the Stars #2 Bigz die we used to sell until it retired a while back…. and that gave me the stars I glued to the front of the card. That is, AFTER I stamped gold spatters from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set, that is.
Oh! And the sentiment elements are from one of my very favorite versatile stamp sets: Memorable Moments
Merry Christmas!
