JOYful resolutions {CSS group project}

Happy day-after!

if you're anything like me, you're living inside of a sugar overdose... I still can't believe that Christmas has come and gone!  It was such a wonderful time spent with family and friends, sharing gifts, making memories, and eating more food than we ever thought possible...

As we sail towards the year's end, and start thinking about our new year's resolutions (getinshape*cough*getinshape), some of us over at Clear & Simple are showcasing the limited edition JOY stamp set and offering our own crafty resolutions for 2013.

I've created a little something for the midnight ring-in.  An embellished bottle of bubbly, (actually, sparkling apple juice here, since we'll be serving it to the kids) a little confetti pouch, and re-worked party blowers.

(of note: last year, we set all of the clocks back so that the kids thought they were staying up until midnight with their cousins, when in reality, we had them all in bed by 9pm.  We did a fake countdown and everything.  I don't know if we were bragging a little too loudly, but Sofia found us out.  whoops!  This year, we're staying in and letting our kids stay up as late as they want.  I look forward to watching them drop like flies somewhere around 10:30pm... my husband thinks I'll be falling asleep on the couch by that time and leaving him to entertain the 3 musketeers.... I suspect he may be right.)


To create the embellished "wine" bottle, I cut into a sheet of silver cardstock to spell the word "cheer" (yes, a play on the usual glass-clinking "cheers") using the uppercase alpha dies, and backed it with a piece of very subtly striped patterned paper.  For a bit of extra frill, I adhered a strip of double-stick tape to the back of the patterned paper and gathered a length of white crepe paper, so that it looked ruffled from the front.  A bit more double-stick tape was used to adhere it all to the bottle.  To bring in a bit of blue to my bottle, I stamped a favor flag die-cut with the coordinating frame image, and stamped the "and happiness" sentiment from the limited edition "JOY" stamp set.  Some blingy rhinestones and silver cord finished it off.



For the midnight toss (doesn't everyone want confetti at midnight?  uh, maybe not the parent who'll have to clean it up, hee, but we'll allow it anyway...) I cut circles of various sizes from "my style blueprint," "silver," and "a blanc check" cardstocks.  I threw in a little coarse silver glitter at the end.  I knew the package would be ripped into, so no need to make a fancy topper.  A little creative inking (I nabbed the "for" and "midnight" from 2 different sentiments in the favor flags set) gave me a custom sentiment, and I framed it in blue to match the bottle label.  A little ruffling of silver tissue paper and silver cord also tied back into the embellished bottle.



The party blowers will be a sure hit!  I brought home a pack of really gaudy blowers from the Dollar Store, and immediately took them apart to make them more beautiful.  After taking apart the blower, here are the steps:

step 1: cut a length of silver tissue paper to size and wrap around the blower base.  adhere with double-stick tape.
step 2: using the original blower's paper (the part that rolls and unrolls) as a guide, cut a length of computer paper to size and fold as indicated by the original.  stamp a design (from "designer lines") before using scotch-tape to secure the paper closed.  roll the paper, and secure it with a small clothespin (or rubber band, or paper clip or anything like that) for a few hours (this will help it to keep the rolled shape.)
step 3:  secure the base to the blower.  I stamped a strip of white adhesive paper with a starry motif from the "sweet dreams" set and used that to adhere the two together.
step 4: try it out - works like the real thing!

My crafty resolution for 2013 is to collaborate more with other artists.  I have reached out to several local artists, and I hope that party season 2013 will be its best ever ;)

A few of my fellow CSS designers are also sharing their own crafty resolutions: Dana ♥ Lori ♥ CSS

Thanks for stopping by!

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