Bash My Stash: 50th Birthday Layout

**This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

Here is one of the last layouts that I needed to do to finish my 2001 Album.

I've been using a lot of scraps on my layouts, so everything except for the floral strip had already been cut and stored in a bag with my CTMH Happy Times paper pack.

I cut a 12" strip of Gold Shimmer Trim in half then adhered the zip strip that went with the wood-grain print underneath it.

The title was stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with Ranger Princess Gold embossing powder.  I did all the stamping after I had adhered my patterned pieces to the background page.  The We R Memory Keepers Precision Press allowed me to line my stamps up right where I wanted them on the 12x12 page.

The flowers are from the CTMH Happy Times stamp set,  I stamped them with Blossom and Pomegranate ink and the leaves are stamped with Fern ink.  I used my Silhouette Portrait with the PixScan mat to cut all the stamped images out.  No more fussy cutting!   And no tendinitis flare up from overusing my hands.   I added some CTMH Gold Bling Gems to the centre of my flowers and added a chipboard piece from a Heidi Swap Project Life kit.

Santa Gift Card Holder by Jamie Lane Designs

My final gift card holder for this Holiday Season.   This gift card holder will be used to hold a card that is part of a larger gift and not just a stocking stuffer so I decided to make a small box and will tuck it into the branches of our Christmas Tree.

I found this design by Jamie Cripps in the Silhouette Design Store.  There is a tutorial on her blog that was helpful for putting it together.

I used Recollections cardstock and sponged the white cardstock with CTMH Whisper Exclusive Inks™to give it a bit of a shadow effect.  Then after threading the belt buckle onto the belly band I added some shine to it using my CTMH Clear Shimmer Brush.

My Scrap Chick has a gift card insert available as a freebie right now (Dec 23 & 24) that will fit in the bottom of the box to keep the card from sliding around.

Popcorn Gift Card Holder by Lori Whitlock

Here's another cute gift card holder using a file from the Silhouette store and designed by Lori Whitlock - perfect for movie passes.  I used Recollections cardstock and sponged the popcorn kernels with my CTMH Canary Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad.

These will go into my kid's Christmas Stockings, I like doing gift cards but they can be a bit boring so I wanted to dress them up and this file was perfect.

Christmas Kisses Gift Card Holder by Lori Whitlock

**This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.


Here's the first project I've made with my Silhouette Portrait using the Christmas Kisses Gift Card Holder by Lori Whitlock.

 

It fits a standard size gift card and five Kisses perfectly.

The sentiment is a print and cut and I had some Recollections cardstock with a holly print that I thought would be a great match. 

I folded all the tabs in then folded the card top-down and bottom-up and used double sided tape on the tabs. 

I adhered the gift card holder and sentiment pieces first.

Then folded the bottom box in towards the line created by the edge of the gift card holder. 

There is a solid piece at the back for writing on and a decorative strip to fill in the space below. 

The SVG file is available in Lori Whitlock's Store or in the Silhouette Design Store as a .studio file.

Cutting Stamped Images using Silhouette PixScan Mat

**This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

I'm always looking for ways to make crafting a little easier on my hands.   I haven't been doing much crafting for the past month or so but am hoping to do more now that I have the new We R Memories Keepers Precision Press and a Silhouette Portrait with PixScan Mat.

I love using my Cricut with the co-ordinating CTMH Stamp Sets and Cartridges but really struggle with the acrylic blocks and fussy cutting.

I'll be posting about the Precision Press soon but did post my FB Live Video on YouTube.  I tried to cover as much as possible about it (don't mind the flipping around at the beginning, I almost lost my wifi connection as I started recording) and tried out a few different types of stamps to see how it worked.

I used the Press to stamp out a bunch of images last weekend to test with the Silhouette Portrait and PixScan mat.  I decided to buy the smaller Portrait instead of a Cameo since I already had a larger machine.  I also upgraded the Silhouette Studio software to the Designer Edition since I have so many SVG files already.

I'd watched a bunch of YouTube videos while I was waiting for my machine to arrive so the software wasn't too difficult to figure out.  I'm used to the Cricut adjusting the settings for blade, speed and pressure so it will take some playing around with the Silhouette to get the best cuts.  But overall the cuts were pretty good once I adjusted my blade.

 After I uploaded my photo of the PixScan Mat and imported it into the software I selected Trace and highlighted the stamped images.

Then I turned off the high pass filter and bumped up the threshold until I had a nice solid line around the outside of each stamped image.

Here it shows the red outline which is the cut line after tracing.  

Then I created a border around them using the offset feature set at .04 so it would look similar to using metal dies with stamped images

Then I selected release compound path so I could see both the offset and original trace lines.

Then I removed the inner cut lines and deleted them so I was left with the stamped image with a border around it. 

Then I grouped the images so I wouldn't accidentally move any of the cut lines before sending to my Silhouette.

Here's a close up of my screen before cutting....

...and my stamped images after cutting. 

Love how it turned out and am looking forward to cutting more stamped images without scissors! 

I've bumped my blade up a notch since cutting these and didn't get any fuzzy edges on the other projects that I'm making for the holidays.   I think I may even end up using this little machine more than I first thought.  It is so convenient to have it sit under my desk in my office and then I can leave my Cricut in my craftroom with the bulk of my stamps and supplies.