It's In The Bag & On The Card

     We all spend time making great cards for Christmas but what about gift packaging? Why not make a gift bag to match the card for that special friend, then pop over to Not Just Cards and show us.The waste from making this bag was used to make a card, it doesn't match the bag but it has made use of bits that may have been thrown out.

     Using both the Poinsettia and the Swirl Poinsettia dies I cut in gold and white, I kept the offcuts for the card.
     Assembling the flowers white over gold and shaping them slightly didn't take long but I wanted something special for the centres. Using a hot glue gun I added a large blob of glue to the flower centres and covered them with seed beads, gently pressing them down a little and leaving them until set.

     For foliage I used the new small ivy spray die and cut several in thin white card, I also cut a white greeting.
     The layers were all cut and matted before I put the flowers on, it's much easier to do when everything is flat. I have also learnt that if you wish to stamp on the top layer this should be done before it gets stuck on the bag, when folded up these bags can be a bit 'lumpy'.
     I love the Kraft and white combination, it's clean and simple and works well for any gender.

I would like to enter this project in the following challenges:

ABC Christmas - S-Sparkle & T-Texture

CraftyHazelnut's Christmas - Anything Christmas/option Patterned Paper

The Holly and Ivy Christmas - Anything Christmas

Merry Little Christmas - Anything Christmas

My Time To Craft - Anything BUT A Card

     Now what to do with the off cuts?  To start with I put the white over the gold layer but off set it slightly and stuck them together.
     Using the Poinsettia stamp set I put a large piece of red card in my stamp press and stamped it using a Crimson ink pad, I though black would look a little too harsh.

     I put the white and gold layer over the red and lined up the petals, there is a little overlay as the gold and white are offset, then carefully stuck them together making sure there was a red border all the way around the top layer. I put a tiny amount of glue on my finger nail so I could stick down the little bits without making a mess.
     There is a small difference between the Swirl Poinsettia die and the Poinsettia stamp, the smallest stamped flower does not have a corresponding swirl because it's too small so their are two of the next size up. This meant that the smallest flower was missing on the top white layer so I stuck one on top of the white and there was one flower hole with the wrong size stamped image, so I covered this one up with a red die cut flower dropped in the hole.
     The red layer was trimmed to give me a nice even border around my image panel, this was then stuck on to a white card blank. All that remained was to add some gold pearls to the flowers.
     Making a card with what I would usually have discarded made me very happy, after all no crafter wants to throw anything away do they!

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Happy Little Stampers - Anything With Dies

Winter Wonderland - Favourite Embellishments

Materials List - for both projects

JND132 - Swirl Pionsettia Die
JNDCC017 - Poinsettia Die

JND50013 - Elegant Poinsettia Stamp

JND129 Mini Ivy Die