Happy Thanksgiving with a FABULOUS Gift Tag Box Tutorial

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!


For those of you who are still drooling over Sharon Johnson's Accordian Tags...you absolutely must hop on over to Sharon's Blog and see the GORGEOUS box she designed to put the accordian tags she shared with us last friday. Her post comes complete with a box tutorial. Here is a sneak peek:




JustRite stampers would like to send Sharon a huge CONGRATULATIONS for her counter just surpassing 1 million hits!!! She has planned a huge Stamp Simply celebration with a group of her blogging firiends with over 22 blog candy giveaways that you will not want to miss. Plus tons of Holiday projects and challenges. The party begins on December 1st. To read more about the celebrations visit here.

Buy one get one free Sale Reminder - Sale ends Sunday November 30th. Click here for all the details of what is on sale. Click here to begin shopping.




Keep us in mind....."When it needs to be JustRite".

Day Five with Sharon Johnson - JustRite Accordion Tags

All we can say here at JustRite is WOW!!! WOW!!! WOW!! It has been the most amazing week with the VERY TALENTED Sharon Johnson. Are you addicted to Sharon's work yet?? If so please be sure to visit her at her regular home No Time to Stamp. Sharon we can't Thank you enough for all the Holiday Inspiration !! Girl you REALLY ROCK!!

In Celebration of Sharon's Unbelievable week here on the Just Blog we are having a huge
Thanksgiving Sale. Buy one of our favorite products and get the second one free.( 5 different items are included in this sale) For more details on the items that are on sale see Thursday evenings post by clicking here. To start your shopping spree click here

My final project for this fun week at the JustRite Blog wishes you all a Merry Christmas!!! Oh, what a fun little project. This is an accordion card measuring 3.5” high x 30” long. It’s so much fun to decorate up all of these little 2 x 3.5” canvases!!! Now this wasn’t the easiest project to photograph, so these pictures are pretty much only parts at time, but I think you’ll be able to see it well this way. I tried to get a full shot of the entire project for you here.

My 15 panel accordion card spells out MERRY CHRISTMAS – how fun. To spell out the MERRY CHRISTMAS I used JustRite’s Clear Letters. I love the size of them and the fact that you can actually SEE where you are stamping. It was so easy to stamp the letters onto the 1 ¼ “ squares I made for them. I’ll include full instructions at the end of this post, but I’ll show you the entire project first.

Here we have the MERRY. As you can see, I used all SU product, except for the Clear Letters by JustRite and the small words spelling out the message, which are from the Christmas Ensemble by JustRite. I decorated each panel with Ski Slope DP, edged in gold paint pen, added my letter panels and decorated. Aren’t the jingle bells cute! They are run through an SU Jumbo Eyelet set on top.

One panel separating the 2 words holds a Christmas tree from Christmas Classics – how fun. It is white embossed. I made the snow by tearing a piece of white, covering it with Liquid Applique, sprinkling on Dazzling Diamonds and then heat setting. LOVE that look!!! My tree also has a star on it, again sparkling with Dazzling Diamonds.


All the little words in white that run across the panels give a message – it is *Special Friends and Hugs and Kisses and Holiday Wishes*. I merely stamped those 2 stamps from the Christmas Ensemble onto white and cut out the words in a haphazard style, ran them through my Xyron X and stuck them on. I think it makes it fun!!!


And here’s the end of the line!!! The stars are from Christmas Classics, white embossed, and punched with the large Star Punch – quick and easy on a project like this. The snowflake from Scandinavian Season is also white embossed onto red paper, then punched with the 1 ¼” punch and matted with the 1 3/8” punch.

Here’s a look at the accordion tag all bundled up and tied with a ribbon, ready to give to someone! I would have made a box for this accordion tag to be presented in, but just ran out of time. If anyone would like a template for a box for this tag, just indicate so in the comments below and I’ll get one made up and posted on my Blog next week.
Just showing you a side view of the bundled up tag – fun!!!


Ok, now on to a bit of instruction in case anyone would like to try this. We’ll start with cutting and scoring our paper. Cut 2 strips 3.5 x 11 and 1 strip 3.5 x 10.

Starting with an 11” sheet, we need to score every 2 inches, flipping the paper each time as we are creating mountain and valley folds. I used my Scor-It Mini. Score the first time at 2”. Flip your paper over, place your score at the 2” marking and score again. Flip your paper again, move your LAST score to the 2” marking, and score again. Continue until you only have 1” of paper left – this is your tab to join the pieces together. Repeat for 2nd 11” sheet. When you score the last 10” sheet, it’ll work out perfectly with no left over paper.

To get the tag shape on top I made templates. Using a gridded surface with a diagonal line (I used my Scor-Mat) you can draw the diagonal, cut your template, then lay your template on top of your red base and cut easily with scissors. To make the DP panels for the base, cut the pieces 1 ¾ x 3 ¼. You’ll have to make another template for them as they are smaller. Do it in the same way as above. Once the DP pieces are cut and corners clipped, line all the edges with a Gold Paint Pen. If you’ve never done this before, check out this little tutorial written by Debbie Olson – it’s exactly how I do it and it words fabulously!!!



Put a strong double sided tape on the tabs and connect all the pieces, as shown in photo. Pay attention to your mountains and valleys so you get them connected properly.

Once your DP pieces are set to go, adhere them to the red card base you made. Now make up your letter panels with the Clear Letters. I cut my letter squares to 1 ¼” square, stamped my letters in Real Red, then cut my mats to 1.5” square. As you can see, I matted them in all random ways, just for fun, and used a colored brad on each for decoration. My letters are adhered to the base with 4 SU Dimensionals on each. My stars on top are mounted with 1 Dimensional. The snowflakes are taped on the front, then another white circle was taped on the back, just to give a cleaner appearance. The jingle bell ribbon is run through a jumbo eyelet and tied in to a bow.
And that should about do it!!! Hope you give this a try. You could choose a shorter word --- like JOY – LOL!!! Sure would have made the photography a lot easier – LOL!!! Whatever you choose have fun, and I’d sure love to see what you come up with!!!

I’d just like to give JustRite a HUGE THANK YOU for having me this week – it’s been fun and pushed me to get some projects done that would probably be still only floating in my head, and for that I’m grateful!!! I’ve been having so much fun with all my JustRite products this past year – if you don’t have any yet, I strongly recommend you give them a try – a simple Monogram Starter Kit would be a good first choice to get your feet wet, and after that you can dive right in!!!! (And I just noticed they are having a HUGE sale – WOW!!!) Thanks everyone - -it’s been fun!!! See you on my home turf soon!!!

JustRite Stamps: Clear Letters and Christmas Ensemble used with Harmony Classic Circle Stamper III
SU Stamps: Christmas Classics and Scandinavian Season
Paper: SU Real Red, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze, Ski Slope DP, and PTI White.
Ink: SU Real Red, Versa Mark, Versa Fine Onyx Black, Sanford Gold Coat Pen.
Accessories: Scor-It, White Embossing Powder, Glue Pen, Dazzling Diamonds, Liquid Applique, Brads, Jumbo Brass Eyelet, Gingham Ribbon, Jingle Bells, Dimensionals, Two Sided Tape, Cropadile, and Punches: 1 ¼”, 1 3/8”, Small Star, Large Star.

Keep us in mind....."When it needs to be JustRite".

Day Four with Sharon Johnson - A Simple Gift

We can't thank Sharon enough for all the outstanding projects she has designed for JustRite this week. Today's post will show you how to transform paper into a beautiful personalized monogram stationery gift set. Sharon will be showing you how to recreate every detail including designing your own box.

I could not possibly let my week at JustRite pass without doing a set of monogrammed cards. After all, the ability to so easily produce beautiful monograms is what drew my eye to JustRite in the first place, so today I have prepared a simple gift of monogrammed note cards – appropriate at any time. Also, they are simple to make during this busy time of year and would be a well-received gift. I intentionally stayed with basic layouts and minimal embellishments to make this a very do-able project this Christmas season. I also included a simple box, tied with ribbon, to make the gift of cards seem even more special. Here’s the entire set.

I have instructions on how to make the box at the end of this post, but I’ll start by showing you everything first.

There are six cards in this set. These three are made with brown mats on a white base. Each is slightly different. I really wanted to use Bella Rose paper by SU, but as it’s been my favorite paper there isn’t much left, so I was drawing on small pieces to come up with enough for this project, and I just made it!!! For most of these cards I used a 2” strip of the brown dotted DP and just positioned it differently on each card. And on all the cards my brown and pink papers are separated by a thin strip of pink cardstock. Love that look and I do it often.


Here are the other three cards. These cards have no mats. The paper is just adhered to the white base. I am really loving this style of card lately. In addition to being appealing to the eye, they require less paper and less work, and that’s a good thing!!! My embellishments were kept simple. My monograms were cut, matted and framed using my Petite Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinders. I added two tiny pearls to each monogram and a little taffeta bow on top of each monogram. I did, however, pop my monogram up on SU Dimensionals. Just wanted a bit of elevation. Even though they are simple, I think they are pretty and I hope the recipient likes them!

And here’s a look at this simple box for my set of 6 cards. My box is 1 ¼” high and perfectly holds 6 envelopes and these cards with their one layer of SU Dimensionals. It would easily hold 8 cards, or probably even more, if the cards were totally flat. This box is designed that you must open the ribbon to open the box. The tag is adhered to the box, with the ribbon in between, so even when the box is opened, the ribbon stays attached. Take a look at the box when opened.

See what a perfect fit? I think in this photo you can also see the tiny pearls on the monograms and you can also get a good view of the tag on the box. The tag actually opens like a card, and we’ll get to that in a bit.

I used several different JustRite products to make this simple gift set. The monograms were made using the Damask Border Starter Kit. But rather than using the Times New Roman font that comes in the kit, I chose to use Trompe Font for my monogram. And I now see I forgot to include the Trompe Font box in my photo – sorry! To make my tag I used the Harmony Classic Circle II Stamp Ensemble (With Love), and for my To and From which is stamped on the inside of the tag I used Brayton Font with the Harmony Rectangle Stamper Set. It’s really great how well all of these products work together and build upon each other.

I'd like to show you how easy it is to make this little tag. First of all I stamped my sentiment and made the tag front, the decorative part. Once that was done, I took the same die that I used for the largest layer on the tag front, and used that to make my little card/tag base. The base of the tag, which opens like a card, is done with that die. I folded my paper, just like you’d fold a card, then when I positioned my Nestie onto the paper, I made sure that the top portion of the Nestie was OFF the paper. This way it doesn’t cut through and we end up with a fold, or a little card. And since we used the same die, our decorative tag top fits perfectly onto the tag or card base. Adhere it on and you are set. Take a look.

I then added a pearl and bow and stamped the To and From on the inside. Cute as can be!! As I said above, I did adhere this tag permanently to my box top, but these cute little cards could be used for just about anything! Now on to the box.

This is a simple box to make and it takes only 2 sheets of 8.5 x 11 cardstock – less actually, you’ll have leftovers! I did make mine of cardstock and then covered it with the Bella Rose DP to match my cards, but you could just as easily make the box out of DP and avoid that one step. I just didn’t have enough DP to actually make the box out of the DP. Here’s the measurements:
Cut box base 8 3/8 x 7 – score all 4 sides at 1 ¼”
Cut box top 8 ½ x 7 1/8 – score all 4 sides at 1 ¼”
I set the stopper guide on my Scor-It to 1 ¼” and quickly scored all sides perfectly uniform. By having an adjustable stopper guide on the Scor-It you can easily set it to whatever measurement you need – a feature I really love, especially when doing boxes when you need consistent scores on all sides.

Once scored you need to cut your slits where the box will fold to form your tabs. As you’ll notice from the photo, I actually cut out the entire width of the score, rather than just a slit. Doing this ensures that your tabs will fit perfectly and nothing will get hung up. Add tape to your tabs as shown in the photo on the RIGHT side of the box. They’ll end up on the inside of the tab on the inside of the box when you fold it into shape.
If you are going to make a plain box and then cover it with DP, the time to do it is BEFORE you adhere your box into shape. Do it while the box is still flat – just makes life much easier! After your DP is applied, THEN you can tape your box into shape and continue to decorate as you wish.
I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed making monogrammed projects during this past year. They are some of my all time FAVS both as to simplicity and for just a general WOW!!! factor! Who doesn’t LOVE to get something made especially for them!!! I hope you have some monogram stampers and are able to give it a try!!! I know it’ll turn out JustRite!!! Thanks for looking!!!

Supplies:
JustRite Stamps: JustRite Damask Border Starter Kit, Trompe Font, Brayton Font, Harmony Rectangle Stamper Set, Harmony Classic Circle Stamper II Ensemble
Paper: PTI White, SU Pink Pirouette, Chocolate Chip, Bella Rose DP
Ink: Versa Fine Vintage Sepia
Accessories: Scor-It, Petite Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinders, Kaiser Pearls, SU Pink Taffeta Ribbon and Chocolate Satin Ribbon, SU Ticket Corner and Corner Rounder Punches

Keep us in mind....."When it needs to be JustRite".

Day Three with Sharon Johnson - Believe

Sharon is on a roll!! Today she uses the word Believe in a very "Green" Post. Sharon recycles old Christmas Cards by giving them a JustRite face lift.

Believe! What a fabulous sentiment for this time of year – whether we are referring to a child’s belief in Santa or our more mature belief in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior who was born on Christmas Day, I just couldn’t let this series of Christmas posts go by without making good use of Believe! It is included in the Harmony Classic Oval Stamper II Ensemble. This series of Christmas cards are basically unrelated, individual cards, but all bear the common sentiment of Believe -- actually the ONLY stamping on any of these cards is the single word sentiment of Believe. And that’s the secondary theme of these cards – QUICK!!! Rather than stamp our images, I thought today we would concentrate on pulling beautiful images from elsewhere – somewhat of a recycling project as well!!! I’ll explain each card as we go. Here’s the first.

A warm and cozy card. Oh, long gone are the days when our boys were young and DID believe in Santa – how time flies!!! My main image was cut from a sheet of vintage Christmas images by Flair. I double matted it and then just played with DP pieces by Cosmo Cricket. My Believe is stamped without the border as I needed it to be smaller to fit my space, and is mounted on dimensionals. To make similar cards you can purchase preprinted images in so many places. Crafty Secrets has their Cotton Scraps which I am particularly fond of as well, but I just didn’t have any Christmas images in the Cotton Scraps. This card is 5.5” square.
Stamps: Classic Harmony Oval Stamper II Ensemble
Paper: SU Very Vanilla. Prism Island Mist Dark. Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy and Wonderland. Flair Vintage Santa Postcard Sheet.
Ink: SU Baroque Burgundy Marker.
Accessories: Petite Oval Nestabilities, Copper Brad, Mounting Squares.

This card uses no images at all, just my Believe sentiment used as the focal point with a pretty black sheer bow! It’s a pretty card for the holidays, making use of DP for color and interest. This also is 5.5” square.
Stamps: Classic Harmony Oval Stamper II Ensemble
Paper: Black, White, Crafty Secrets Radiant Pad DP.
Ink: SU Baroque Burgundy Marker.
Accessories: Sheer Ribbon, Pearls, Ticket Corner Punch, Petite Oval Nestabilities, Mat Pack, Piercing Tool, Mounting Squares.
My next 3 cards are all 5.25” x 8”. I have a lot of envelopes to fit that size and it’s a great size for the holidays. It’s just large enough to allow you to insert photos and a letter easily. And all 3 of these cards can be considered recycled projects. To make each, I cut the main image from a Christmas card that we had received in years past. Talk about FUN, QUICK and EASY!!! OH, does THAT open up possibilities for a lot of quick card projects. Take a look.

I just HAD to use this darling Holstein cow image. Being dairy farmers, we make our living with Holstein cows so this will be a fun card to send out!!! I cut the image with the bag of toys out-of-the box. Santa was walking on grass, and that just DOESN’T do for us northerners (LOL!), so I put some white jumbo rickrack snow for him to walk on. My Believe was just stamped on white, ticket corner punched, smooshed in a Versa Mark Pad, then embossed with Iridescent Ice embossing powder - - SO pretty and sparkly!!! The tree is a punch and I drew the garland with a glitter pen and added the Twinkle Stickers. It’s a fun card!!!



Just wanted to show a closeup of the sparkly Believe panel and Twinkle Stickers on the tree.
Stamps: Classic Harmony Oval Stamper II Ensemble
Paper: SU Real Red, Black, White
Ink: Versa Fine Onyx Black, Versa Mark, Spica Glitter Pen by Copic
Accessories: Tree Punch by Emagination, Ticket Corner Punch, SU Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder, Twinkle Stickers by Amuse, Jumbo Rick Rack, Mounting Squares

The card I cut apart here contained this gorgeous drawing of Mary and Baby Jesus. It’s rather hard to see in the photo, but the image is embossed around the perimeter – so lovely IRL!!! Lesson learned on this card – I cut this image a couple years ago and had it in a box of images. I DID NOT have the card back, must have been tossed. BUT I surely could have used the card back to have an exact paper on which to stamp my Believe. I did pretty good matching it with this scrap I had in my scrap box, but it would have been so nice to have the entire card for an exact match. Moral of the story – save the entire card, not just the image!!! My Believe panel is elevated with mounting square – a simple card with a VERY powerful message!!
Stamps: Classic Harmony Oval Stamper II Ensemble
Paper: SU Riding Hood Red and Black, and scrap of neutral
Ink: Versa Fine Onyx Black
Accessories: Mounting Squares

The fun part on this card is that when I stamped the Believe, I left off the B and in place used a chipboard B – fun!!! That was easy to do as I colored my rubber with a SU marker. I also added a sparkly rhinestone in the star’s center, and honestly, that sparkly star is just mesmerizing IRL – wish you could see it – so pretty!!! I outlined the perimeter of my recycled image as well as my Very Vanilla mat with a gold Sharpie pen. Here it is before I adhered it all together.

Can you see that my Believe is on the smaller of the Rectangle Stampers? Well, it’s for a reason. This stamp is in an oval set, but as you can see I have cut off the excess rubber. And just because it came in an oval set doesn’t mean you always need to use the oval stamper. As placement of the sentiment was important in this case, it was going to be a lot easier to get it straight if I stamped with a rectangle stamper rather than with an oval stamper. That’s the only reason – and it worked beautifully – got it stamped straight the first time!!! My chipboard B is mounted on foam squares. As for lining the image panel and Very Vanilla in gold, it’s really quite easy and fast. Whether you use a Sharpie with a bit finer tip or a wider tipped paint pen, the process is the same. Debbie Olson wrote a great little tutorial on edging with a paint pen, and that is exactly how I have done it for years. It works perfectly, every time. Check out Debbie’s tutorial here.
Stamps: Classic Harmony Oval Stamper II Ensemble, Harmony Rectangle Stamper Set
Paper: SU Very Vanilla, Always Artichoke
Ink: SU Always Artichoke Marker. Sharpie Gold Pen.
Accessories: K & Co. Chipboard, Rhinestone, Dimensionals.
And that wraps up this series of quick cards using only one sentiment stamp to create your card! Hope you give it a try!!! With the variety of sentiments available in not only the Classic Harmony Oval Stamper II Ensemble that I’ve used today, but all of the various JustRite sets, you will have plenty of inspiration to create away!!! Have fun!!!

Keep us in mind....."When it needs to be JustRite".

Day two with Sharon Johnson -JustRite Vintage Christmas Tags

Sharon has out done herself today with this gorgeous JustRite Vintage Tags !! All we can say is WOW!!! THESE ARE STUNNING!!! We think you will all agree!! Who knew that brown Vintage tags would be so delightful!!

Today JustRite goes vintage, with the help of Wonderland designer paper by Cosmo Cricket. I am really LOVING this combination!!! I’ve done 9 different tags that are fairly easy to mass produce when you break down the process, and we’ll get to that in a minute. But first I have a question – have you ever designed and made tags, lots of tags, for Christmas gifts – only to find out when you pull out your wrapping papers that NONE of your tags coordinate very well with your papers? Well, it’s happened to me – LOL!!! Over the past several years I have reverted to using a lot of brown paper – brown postal wrap – even grocery sacks cut and turned to the other side. I love the country/vintage charm of the brown wraps. And the good thing is, when I’m making tags, I don’t have to worry about my tags matching – I just keep the brown paper theme in my head as I’m creating, and it ALWAYS works!!! Here are a couple of brown wrapped packages.


The box on the left is wrapped in brown postal wrap and the bag is a purchased brown handled bag that is decorated up. See what I mean – brown, vintage, Cosmo Cricket, JustRite – a project that is Just Rite!!! Let’s get started.

For this project I used the Christmas Stamp Ensemble which is used with the Harmony Classic Circle Stamper III (that’s the largest at about 3.25”), and I also used Times New Roman Font in the smallest of the Harmony Rectangle Stampers. I used Ranger Distress Inks in Vintage Photo and Fired Brick and my ancient Deco Corner Punch by All Night Media and my SU Corner Rounder. Determine how many tags you’d like to make. I cut papers for 12 for this project, but only 9 are completed at this time. I wanted my tags to be sturdy, so I have a SU Chocolate Chip base with the Cosmo Cricket DP adhered to it. Cut your card stock bases to 3 x 7”. Then cut an equal number of DP strips into 3” widths, and I cut mine to 5.5” long. Now, if you are using an 8” DP pack as I was, you will be left with many 2.5’ x 3” pieces to use as well. I used these on the bottom portion of my tags.

Now that you’ve got your strips all cut, stamp all your sentiments using the Christmas Stamp Ensemble. I stamped onto SU Very Vanilla. You have 6 centers to choose from and 6 borders, for countless combinations. Because I wanted a smaller image, I only used my centers for this project. Once stamped, I then cut them out with my Petite Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinders. I then used papers from the Wonderland pack to cut out mats and scalloped borders for my stamped sentiments. Your color scheme is pretty well determined by the DP you chose, so take a few minutes and pull out all ribbons and other embellishments you think you may want to use, things that coordinate with your paper and go well with the style you are after – vintage for my project.

The next step is to adhere your DP to your cardstock base. I adhered the top 5.5” piece of DP first, then the bottom smaller piece, separating the two pieces of DP with a strip of a solid color. Then punch your upper and lower corners. I then stamped my To and From near the bottom of the tag, using Times New Roman Font and the smaller of the Harmony Rectangle Stamper (2 come in a box). I set an SU Jumbo Eyelet in the top of each tag with my Cropadile, and then adhered all the sentiments to their mats and frames. I also applied the Vintage Photo ink DTP to all my edges (DTP = means you apply the ink directly from the pad to the paper). And now you are ready for the really fun part – decorating up your pretty tags!
For these tags I used some really pretty wired ribbon-by-the-yard from Wal-mart, twill, a vintage button, rhinestones, and SU Antique Brass Hodgepodge Hardware. I love using wired ribbon – it just DOES whatever you want it too!!! So pretty!!!
This is probably my favorite grouping of tags. I LOVE the deep red velvet used here! Again, more of the same items listed above, plus some vintage lace from my sewing stash and a Prima.
Here I used a satin ribbon with blanket stitching that has a very, very fine wired edge from Michaels, and more of the same items listed above. Some of my main image sentiments are popped up with dimensional products and some are not – just depends on what other embellies are on the sentiment. With all of these pretty ribbons, are you wondering how I actually tie these tags onto packages? Take a look:

I just run my string or twine through the ribbon loop on the back with my tweezers, using that string to tie my tag to my bag handle or wherever. This allows the beautiful ribbons to stay as is, pretty as can be!!!
This is a purchase brown handled bag, and luck was with me on this one!!! My Cosmo Cricket Wonderland paper is 8” wide, exactly the same width as the bag! How handy!!! I first cut two 2” strips of the deeper red color and adhered one to the top and one to the bottom. Then I just selected an 8 x 8” piece of the DP and adhered it in the middle – my entire bag is covered and looks GREAT with so little effort!!! How fun!!!

And here we have the bag with a tag hanging on it and a small box wrapped in the brown postal wrap. Once wrapped, I took my Vintage Photo ink and DTP’d all corners of the package -- LOVE that look. I wrapped the package with string, tied on my tag, added a button in the upper corner to visually give it a little balance, and called it done!!! HOW FUN!!!! I just LOVE doing these types of tag/packaging projects, and I hope you liked it too and will give it a try!!! It will certainly be a JustRite project for the coming gift-giving season!!!

Editor added: If you love these tags and haven't been to Sharon's Blog today - click here to see the stunning card she designed to coordinate with these beautiful tags.

PLEASE NOTE: Some of your JustRite stamps, particularly those with large, solid images, may have to be conditioned to get a good, clear and sharp image. Please refer to this SCS tutorial on Conditioning Your JustRite Stamps.

Supplies:
JustRite Stamps: Christmas Stamp Ensemble, Times New Roman Font, used with Harmony Rectangle Stamper and Harmony Classic Circle Stamper III
Paper: Wonderland 8 x 8 DP by Cosmo Cricket, SU Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla
Ink: Ranger Distress in Fired Brick and Vintage Photo
Accessories: Petite Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinders, Deco Corner Punch by All Night Media, SU Corner Rounder, an array of ribbons, hardware, buttons, lace, twine, needle and thread, rhinestones, brown handled bag, brown postal wrap, red line tape, dimensional products, glue dots

Keep us in mind....."When it needs to be JustRite".

Day one with Sharon Johnson -JustRite Joy

It's Day One with Sharon Johnson and she has designed a beautiful Christmas Home Decor Project that would look spectacular on any ones mantel.

Joy To the World, The Lord is Come! Just hearing that song in my head puts me in the Christmas mood! So I thought I would start this series of Christmas season posts with a home decor item. Take a look –
I love this project – it’s somewhat Shabby-Chic with a bit of Old World Elegance. And the best part, it was quick and easy, which is what we all need at this time of year.

I purchased these chunky letters from Michaels. They are 5” tall and came painted white, which is perfect. It saved a lot of work as opposed to purchasing unfinished letters. And you’ll notice a tray under the letters that they sit in – well, I did buy that as well, thinking it would be handy. But as I started to decorate my letters, I decided not to use it. Inserting the letters into the slot in the tray just took up too much valuable space, restricting how I wanted to decorate the letters, so I decided not to use the tray.

To get my Shabby/Old World look I first wanted to cover my letters with paper. I chose paper from the Fruitcake Christmas 12 x 12 pack by Basic Grey. I traced each letter onto the paper, tracing on the back side of the paper. And when you trace on the back, remember to flip your letter over before tracing, otherwise you’ll get a backwards letter. I then cut my letters out with scissors. Now this is not an exact science for the look I was after on this project. It’s Shabby, remember? If the letters are not cut perfectly, it’s OK. Mine aren’t!

Once my letters were cut, I adhered them to the wooden letters with Mod Podge. I like to use Mod Podge for these type of projects as it holds very tightly and you never have a problem with edges peeling up. Now, when you are putting your letters on, if they don’t fit exactly perfect, it’s no big deal, because once the glue dries our next step is to sand the edges using a sanding block or file as shown in my photos. This gets rid of any paper hanging over the edges and just really binds the paper into the wood, creating a beautiful transition in a lovely Shabby style!

You could leave your edges just sanded if you like, but I decided to paint mine with Gesso as I had a bottle on my table. You could use Acrylic Paint if you don’t have Gesso. The idea is just to get some on the edges in a haphazard style – we’re trying to make our letters look old and worn, not fresh and crisp – so you really can’t go wrong with this painting project . Remember, we are after Shabby, which gives us a larger margin for error – LOL!!! And that’s a good thing!!!

Since my letters were ready to be decorated, I stamped my sentiment. Since my wooden letters said JOY, I wanted my sentiment to say *to the World, the Lord is Come!”, reflecting the real Reason for the Season! I had to break this down into 2 smaller sentiment panels, so I set up 2 blocks, one with each sentiment. The Harmony Rectangle Stamper comes with 2 blocks in the box when you purchase it – one of these larger blocks and also a smaller block. I used 2 of the larger blocks today. I decided to make my fancier capital letters with the Special Occasions Font (95 pt), and the rest of the letters were Brayton (both 50 and 25 pt). (3 sizes of letters come in each box of font purchased). I like the combination. As you can see, when we get to close-ups of the letters, I then traced over the Special Occasions letters with my Quickie Glue Pen and sprinkled on red glitter by Martha Stewart! Really dressed up those panels!!!
I wrapped my J with velvet ribbon. The chipboard snowflake is by Basic Grey, just covered with glue and Martha Stewart red glitter. I put a nice large pearl up on top.
The O is my favorite letter. The sentiment was made as above described using Brayton and Special Occasions Fonts on the Harmony Rectangle Stamper. The chipboard star is again by Basic Grey, covered with glue and Dazzling Diamonds. There is a hole punched in the sentiment for the ribbon to run through and the velvet ribbon loop is attached with glue dots.
The sentiment on the Y was made as above decribed, again using the Brayton and Special Occasions Fonts and the Harmony Rectangle Stamper. The ribbon is a pretty, satiny, wired grosgrain. Love using wired ribbon for home décor projects as it holds its shape. I added some rhinestones up on top.
And that wraps up this fun home décor project. I hope you decide to try something similar. You’ll have fun making it and then you’ll have the JOY of seeing it throughout the season!!! It’s one of those projects that is JUSTRITE!!!

Supplies:

JustRite Stampers: Brayton Font, Special Occassion Font, Harmony Rectangular Stamper

Paper: Fruitcake Paperpack -Basic Grey

Accessories: Chipboard Snowflake & Star - Basic Grey, Wooden Letters, Gesso, Mod Podge, Red Glitter- Martha Stewart, Dazzingly Diamond, Rhinstones

Keep us in mind....."When it needs to be JustRite".