Getting Ready for Christmas with Lori Whitlock

Those of you who know me know that I often use my Silhouette to cut out different shapes for use on my scrapbook layouts. But, lately, I have realized there are so many other fun crafty projects I can do with my Silhouette! I have been stalking following Lori Whitlock's BLOG for awhile now, and she has so many fantastic project ideas and PERFECT cutting files, that I now have a list of project ideas to keep me happily crafting for...let's just say a l-o-n-g time!

I like to call Halloween the "kick-off" to the holiday season. I have already started purchasing Christmas presents. And so that my very nosy sneaky curious children don't "accidentally" find any of the presents I have hidden, I have already begun wrapping them. Thanks to Lori and my fellow Design Team members, I had an epiphany: I can be crafty and use all my favorite cutting files and scrapbook supplies even when wrapping presents!!! (cue the choir of angels singing "Hallelujah") So...

I really like the cute snowman and snowflake in Lori's CHRISTMAS SET 2, so I decided to use those to make gift tags. I took the tags from Lori's CHRISTMAS COOKIE SET and simply enlarged them so that my snowman shapes would fit on them. I used Echo Park's new Winter Park Collection, which was designed by - you guessed it, none other than uber-talented Lori. I couldn't decide which papers I wanted to use the most, so I decided to make several different types of tags so I wouldn't have to choose. First I made this tag:

I covered this little guy in Glossy Accents, added tiny pom poms cut from ribbon in place of buttons, dressed up his scarf with glitter, and included some little hearts that were included in the cutting files. Here's a close-up of the hearts:

I am all about creating dimension so I decided to use part of a spring from an old ink pen and glued it into submission behind my top heart. Now, it "boings" and bounces a little bit whenever I move the tag. I love it!

My second tag looks like this:

I had so much fun making this tag. I covered the snowman in crackle paint, and I painted the kraft paper tag a shimmery shilver color. I placed a snowflake behind my snowman and covered everything in small "pearls." As you can see, I also cut out a larger snowflake and used it to decorate my simple, kraft-wrapped gift.

I decided to do something a little different with my third tag.

First, I sewed buttons on my snowman shape. Next, I sewed it onto a second snowman shape about 3/4 of the way around, leaving a small opening. Then I filled the pocket with batting and finished sewing it together. I wanted to give it a fabric homemade-doll effect. I could have just as easily made this snowman with actual fabric and interfacing, but I was having so much fun playing with my Echo Park papers that I didn't think to use real fabric until AFTER the fact. That's okay, though, because I have more presents to wrap and more gift tags to make...

Last, but not least, I love to make flowers using Lori's cutting files. So I thought, why not make one to be placed on a present in place of a bow. I LOVED the result!

I simply replicated my shape a couple of times and then changed the sizes so I could layer them all together. I added a brad to hold everything together and coated each piece in Stickles to give it a little bling!

That's all for now, but if the wheels are spinning in your head and you are starting to think just how much you can put your Silhouette or Cricut to work for you this holiday season, be sure to check out these wonderful PROJECTS recently made by Carolyn King and Corri Garza for even more inspiration!