Have a Colorful Cozy Fall

While it seems that the rest of the world has moved on to Christmas, I'm still thoroughly enjoying my autumn crafting! I know that may seem like a silly thing for me to say since I work on Christmas ALL year long! ha ha! What I mean, is that the non-crafting world has moved on! LOL! I love giving Thanksgiving treats and gifts so for today's projects, I've created three box/bags that are filled with hot cocoa packets. I used the Swiss Miss Caramel Delightvariety for these gift. I plan on making some Pumpkin Bread to go along with the hot cocoa. I think it will be the perfect autumn treat to drop off to friends and neighbors!

I used some pretty autumn pattern papers from a paper pad(Fall Tapestry by Recollections) that my sweet sister gave me earlier this season that I've been dying to use! These colors and patterns work perfectly with the beautiful images from the Wendy Vecchi Autumn Greetings Stamp, Die, & Stencil set. I love that all of these come together in a bundle! These box/bags are so easy to put together! To begin, you will need a piece of pattern paper or cardstock measuring 7 inches by 10 1/4 inches. Score the long side at 1 1/2 inches. Rotate it to the short side and score it at 1 1/2 inches, then move that score line over to the 3 1/2 inch mark, then move that mark over 1 1/2 inches, and then 3 1/2 inches again. Hopefully that makes sense. What you're doing is creating a box with sides measuring 1 1/2 inches and the front and back measuring 3 1/2 inches. You will be left with a 1/4 inch flap that will be used to glue it together. Use a bone folder and crease the score lines crisply. You will need to cut up from each of the score lines on the bottom flap up to the long score line so you can fold them in to create the bottom. Once that is done, use ScorTape on the 1/4 inch flap on the side to secure it. Fold in the bottom flaps and secure with additional ScorTape. You can easily pinch the top and then secure with the clips like I have done, or you could punch holes to tie with ribbon, etc. This is a fun box/bag base that you can get creative with and tailor to your needs! You can see similar type boxes with visuals on how to put them together HERE and HERE (this one has a top flap, but the main box idea is the same).

I used the Wendy Vecchi MAKE ART Stay-tion to do all of the ink blending using the stencils that are included in the set. What I love about these stencils is that it gives you both the negative and positive shapes so that you can do masking if you want!

The Wendy Vecchi MAKE ART Stay-tion is so awesome! It comes with these 4 large magnets to hold your stencil in place and the actual mat is easily wiped off to keep it clean! In hindsight, I would have stamped the images FIRST, then done the ink blending with the stencils and then die cut. I die the die cutting first which made it a little tricky to hold the stencil in place! Lesson learned! I'm so excited to finally have a good system when using stencils!

I used an assortment of inks to color this pretty pile of leaves! Wendy vecchi Blendable Tiger Lily Die Ink, Wendy Vecchi Acorn Archival Ink, Fern Green Archival Ink, Archival Ink Orange Blossom, Archival Ink Sunflower

I made some simple tags and then added the leaves and acorn using foam squares for dimension. I also stamped the "autumn greetings" sentiment in Acorn ink underneath the larger leaves.

I particularly like the "stay cozy" sentiment and it goes perfectly with the hot cocoa gift so I added it to the side of the tag for an extra bit of detail and fun!

I added just a bit of ink splatter to the tags and the I added a fun assortment of Liquid Pearls to the tags to really give them some autumn color and for extra detail!

I don't normally add three different sentiment to a project, but once those fun Liquid Pearls were added to the tag, it just seemed fitting to add the "colorful cozy fall" sentiment to the bottom of the box/bags!

The tags are added to the top with a clip for an easy presentation! I had a lot of fun putting these together and now I just need to do the baking! We're expecting snow today,  so these might be just the thing to get delivered! I better get baking...thanks for fluttering by!