Table Decor Challenge

Yes, we are still celebrating!

I have a challenge for you which you can read about below, but there’s more:

AJ Otto – The Willow Garden – AJ has some BLOG CANDY to share!

Sharon Johnson – No Time To Stamp? – has  more BLOG CANDY!

LeAnne Pugliese – Wee Inklings – Doesn’t every Mother need a helper, especially during the Holidays?  Well, for LeAnne’s Featured Project that is just what she is giving us, a Mother’s Holiday Helper! LeAnne is running a Challenge along with her project, providing us with templates and instruction so we can quickly and easily create our own helper.  Don’t miss it!

Now for my Challenge.  When I was growing up I was only too happy to decorate the table for special occasions.  As I had two brothers I didn’t get much opposition.  My mother was also keen to have have me take on the task as she was usually busy with the food.  My decorations were never that fancy but they usually involved hand made place cards and napkins folded in some fancy way I had learned or devised.  Sometimes I added flowers or candles.   My children also like this task and have incorporated stamping into their table decor.

My challenge is to create some items to decorate your table during the Christmas season.    You can make it as simple or as fancy as you like.  I’m calling it a 1-2-3 challenge so you can choose to complete one, two,or three co-ordinated items to dress up your table.  Here are a few ideas but feel free to share your own hand made table decorations:   place cards, napkins, napkin rings, candles and candle holders, menus, centrepieces.  Make sure you check out the decor designed by these talented ladies also:  Jennifer, Darlene, Joan, Jerri

Anyone may participate in these challanges and all the fun events, blogger or not!!!  If you upload to your Blog, provide a link to your entry in the appropriate post by the Challenge Hostess.  I also encourage you to upload your projects over at Splitcoast.  If you do upload at Splitcoast, PLEASE KEYWORD all Splitcoast uploads for this event SSC08 (Stamp Simply Celebrates! 2008).

Every year I choose a different colour scheme for Christmas decorating.  This year it is gold and white/cream.  I will  add more to my table decorations but I have three for starters: crackers, place cards and a treat triangle.  To make the cracker I took apart an used cracker from another year and copied the dimensions.  I used gold foil wrapping paper and whisper white cardstock, embossed with gold e.p.  To keep the shape as I rolled I put three pieces of rolled up card board inside, a centre piece and two end pieces.  With those three pieces in place I scrunched the paper where I wanted it to indent and then tied the ribbon bows.  I will be adding cracker snaps and novelties when I make the ten I need for our Christmas dinner this year. I’m sorry if my instuctions are a little hard to follow,  I will try and do a tutorial some time soon.

The place cards are very easy, I used brushed gold and whisper white cardstock, embossing and cutting out the tree and sticking it in place with stampin’ dimensionals.  I wrote the name with a Tsukineko emboss dual pen and embossed in gold.

For my third element I wanted some sort of little box to hold the Lindor balls which just called out to me when I was in Michaels.  They obviously needed to be part of my table decor, they were the perfect colour.  We all know I didn’t buy them to eat!  My daughter came up with the triangle idea, open not closed because she thought those perfectly co-ordinated balls need to be seen not boxed up.

The shape is an equilateral triangle, scored 1″ in on each side.  Where the scoring lines cross I cut out the resulting diamond shape.  I then pinched each corner together, punched through both sides and tied them together with a bow.  I don’t know that I have described it all that well, here is the shape of the triangle after scoring and cutting out the corners.

Thanks for dropping by and joining in the celebrations

Supplies:

Stamps: Snow Swirled (again!)
Inks: Encore Gold
Cardstock: Brushed Gold, Whisper white, Hallmark Giftwrap
Also: Gold organza ribbon, gold e.p., Tsukineko emboss dual pen

Double trouble

This is a fairly simple card but not at all simple to photograph.  It looks out of focus because I have stamped two of each stamp, the gold slightly offset from the red.  In real life the gold is more prominent and you can see four little gold ball stickies too.  The card is vanilla, but again, its hard to tell.  I used my stamp-a-ma-jig for the tree and the sentiment rather than trying to eyeball it, like I usually do.

Don’t forget to check in at No Time To Stamp tomorrow for the beginning of the celebrations there.  I will be back tomorrow to take part in the festivities.

Supplies:

Stamps: Snow Swirled,
Inks: Encore Gold, Riding Hood Red
Cardstock: Riding Hood Red, Very Vanilla
Also: Gold Rhinestone Stickers from Michaels