Believers Inkers

Rudolph Gift Bag

Rudolph is so adorable this time of year-- especially when he can be filled with all kinds of treats.  We made this little gift bag or treat bag last month, but have had so much fun during the last few days giving him away, that I just had to make more of him.

 

This little gift bag is easily made from leftover scrapbook cardstock.  (You can find a great place to organize your scrapbook paper & pieces here.)  Don’t forget to put a finished sample and copy of the direction  in your technique album. 

 

Start with an ordinary lunch sack that’s 5” wide.  Measuring from the bottom, cut it down to 5 ¼” high.  This is the basis for your bag.  Save the top that you cut off, you can make raffia with it.  Put it aside.  Here are the cardstock pieces:

(All cardstock is Stampin' Up!)

 

%   1 piece of 5” x 11” Kraft colored cardstock

%   1 piece of 5” x 1” Real Red cardstock

%   1 piece of 2” x 4 ¼” Real Red cardstock

%   1 piece of 5” x 1” Whisper White cardstock

%   1 piece of 2 ½ x 1 ¼” Whisper White cardstock

%   1 piece of 1 ½ x ¾ “ Basic Black cardstock

You’ll also need:

%   Glitter (optional)

%   Moveable eyes or frosty chips or something like that (optional)

 

First, save all the scraps.  We use them to make the eyes, nose & eyelids.

 

1.  Score the 5 x 11 Kraft cardstock at 5 ½ inches.  Then make a mark 2 inches down from the score on the edges.  Turn your cardstock the long way and mark at 2 ½ inches on the edge.  This is not to scale.  

Fold on the center score line. The dotted line and cut off the 2 corner pieces but don’t throw away.  You’ll punch out a 1 inch circle and cut it half for the eye lids.

 

2.  Adhere the bag to the cardstock with bottom of the bag flush to the edge of the end of the cardstock.  You’ll need to put adhesive on all four edges of the bags.

 

%   Take the short (2 x 4 ¼”) red piece of cardstock and cut it on the diagonal.  This makes the pointed cap with enough leftovers for the nose.  Just cut out with a 1” punch.

 

4.  Use the ½” circle punch to punch out the black eyeballs and white tip of the cap.

 

5.  Decorate with fake eyeballs and glitter or however you choose.  This is a lot easier than described. 

 

Use that leftover paper bag top and cut it into tiny ¼ to 1/8” slices on your paper cutter.  Grab and small handful of the strips and rollup into a ball.  Gently unroll and you have some matching homemade raffia.

 

The bags are big enough to give home-baked treats, like cookies and brownies and fudge.  They’re also masculine enough that you can wrap up the dreaded Christmas tie and throw in a few of chocolate kisses.  The backside is large enough to say who it’s to and from.  It’s also a sweet little gift that young ones will also like to make. 

 

If you have any questions, please post and I’ll get them answered.   Sometimes I might accidently leave out a step.  Merry CHRISTmas!

 

The Weather Outside is Frightful . . .

 So this is beautiful sunny Florida and we don’t get inches of snow and bone chilling cold, but we do get rain.  Since today is one of those days, it’s great to be inside and to do some journaling and  making some Christmas  albums and gifts.

For starters, what do you do with all those used or scratched CDs or DVDs that you bought by the case load?  When Sam’s first offered the CDs in the 100 pack tower, I bought them thinking what a good deal I found.  I thought I would use them to back up my personal files and stuff or maybe save some pictures on them.   It was a good deal but 2 years later I still have about 65 of those shiny unused discs remaining in the tower.  It seems that I’m the only one that’s always on the tail end of technology.

  

Now days, instead of saving my pictures or short files on the CD, all I have to do is just save them to a tiny little flash drive.  This device is small enough that it can safely be tucked into my jeans pants pocket and conveniently be tossed in the laundry without notice.

  

However, I don’t recommend washing your thumb drives.  Most generally, the data isn’t saved and the jeans don’t remember a thing.  Remember what Mom said about checking your pockets.  You’ll never accidentally put a CD in your pocket and toss that into the wash.

With just a little imagination, the shiny discs do have a useful after-life.  They can easily be converted into Christmas ornaments.  Just cut out 2 pieces of cardstock slightly smaller than your CD.  Stamp your favorite image on each piece.  Adhere the finished image to each side of the CD.  Punch a hole in the top with a crop-a-dile (great scrapbooking tool) and tie a ribbon through it.  Now you have a cute ornament.  Let the kids make some for the Grandparents and you have another journaling idea for the holiday scrapbook.