Christmas gift ideas and highlighting Scrapiniec

Hello

Julie here, I'm back for a final time this year with a couple of last minute gift wrapping ideas and highlighting the wonderful new range of chipboard by a company called Scrapiniec.  This wonderful range will, no doubt, fly off the shelves in January when it hits the shop.

I am always stuck for how to make gift cards, vouchers or money look "pretty" as a present.  I decided to come up with a few ideas using the gorgeous, vibrant new papers from the American Crafts "All Wrapped Up" line.

Firstly, I used a plain envelope from my stash (Papermaze stock some here) and simply stuck some double sided tape on it and laid several pieces of scrapbook paper on the front and back of the envelope to cover it.  You can go to town doing this adding as much or as little paper as you require.  This is a great way to use up scraps and also a great way to jazz up a plain envelope without having to make the envelope yourself.  For the label I use a label die and added several of the beautiful Scrapiniec holly leaves around the edge for decoration.  I used Mercury Glass Stickles to add a little bit of glitter to the holly leaves.

If you happen to have the brilliant We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board you can also use your favourite scrapbook papers or scraps to make your own envelopes in four easy turns.  I created this envelope in the matter of minutes following the easy guide provided on the board.  A gift card or money can fit inside this envelope beautifully.  As a label for the front I used a 3x4 Project Life card. I love finding more uses for my scrapbook stash.

To go inside the envelope I used a large label die and cut out two pieces, one of cardstock and one of scrapbook paper and tied them together with ribbon.  I then added some more Stickle covered Scrapiniec holly leaves to the front label.  I cut out two little stamp pieces from a piece of the All Wrapped Paper and stuck half the stamp down to create a sort of tab to hold a gift card inside.  Alternatively this method could be used to hold money or a gift voucher.  The Scrapiniec chipboard is so slim that it doesn't add too much thickness to the card and fits inside the envelope beautifully.

I love finding excuses to use my We R Memory Keepers Fuse Tool and made a super easy gift token.  I put a piece of All Wrapped Up Paper inside a 4x6 page protector, added some glitter to the front and a Project Life card to the back to write what the gift token was for and then sealed the pocket up with my Fuse tool.  A very quick, easy idea that looks fabulous on your tree!

Finally, I made a scrapbook layout using almost solely Scrapiniec chipboard to highlight how wonderfully versatile it is.  I used a Memorybox Snowflake stencil and a stencil brush to lay a background on some red Bazzill cardstock.  I found the colour was a bit bright so went over the background with Picket Fence Distress Ink that gave it all a lovely faded look.  I then spritzed the background with white spray stain and a gold spray stain.  Now comes the gorgeous Scrapiniec chipboard!  This chipboard is a lovely pale cream so doesn't need colouring if you don't want to colour it.  I left some chipboard "nude" and decided to test out some techniques on it.  I put some distress ink on it using a blending tool and as it was already cream it went on as a true colour and blended beautifully.  I also used stickles which looked beautiful against the cream.  I then tried embossing powder, the chipboard is so detailed and fine that I feel that the powder clogged some of the finer patterns but it still looks beautiful.  This chipboard is just beautiful, the detail is fine and delicate and it is so thin that it won't weigh your layouts down.  I can't wait to use more!

I hope you enjoyed these last minute ideas and I hope they have helped.  Thank you for reading my blog posts this year.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!