Introducing Gingerbread Lane & the Essential Pillow Box

Greetings, Blogland! Today begins Papertrey Ink's September countdown festivities (the new products being shared today will be available on September 15th at 10:00pm). I have a few goodies to share with you this month, so let's get to it!

First, let's take a look at Gingerbread Lane! This $24 set (and coordinating dies) celebrates the sweetness of the holiday season! The set includes gingerbread people and a customizable house with both outline and solid stamps for maximum versatility. You can embellish to your heart's content with confectionery details or keep things simple for quick and easy projects. The set also includes sentiments perfect for every need, ranging from treat packaging to holiday cards and gift tags. The possibilities are truly endless!

How about we start with a simple, easy-to-mail Christmas card. I love sending cards at the holidays, but dealing with a large number of cards that all need special postage (during the postal system's busiest time of year) does not sound like my idea of fun.

This little ditty is a breeze, incorporating just a single layer of 1/16" foam tape and dimensional glaze for a bit of texture. I die cut my ginger lady and then used the outline, solid stamp, and button stamp together to whip up this quickie. I colored in her piping with a white colored pencil (a white pen would work well too) to add a little contrast and then added the aforementioned glaze to her buttons.

The sentiment (also from Gingerbread Lane) was stamped inside the chevron frame from Fabulous Frames. A little foam tape, impression plate/corner rounder action, and this card was ready to share.

Next up we have a wine bottle tag featuring the little house from Gingerbread Lane. I started by die cutting and stamping the house's outline and then filling in the main house image. Then I filled in my roof. The set includes both a full strip of gumdrops as well as a single gumdrop so you can go with a single color or multi-colored arrangement. Tip: the gumdrop at the very, very peak of the roof is slightly concave, so the single gumdrop image works best if you do a smidgen of masking. It's not totally necessary, but I wanted to give a heads up. No masking needed with the full strip of gumdrops.

I further embellished my house with the solid (square and roundy topped) windows, candy canes, door, and loop de loop images. The gumdrops and candy canes were then given a healthy dose of glitter. They look so real I started giggling like a five year-old. It's hard to show in photos, but it's awesome. I promise.

The banner at the top of the tag features one of the sentiments from Gingerbread Lane. There are both "from our" and "from my" sentiments in the set so you can send a gift/card/what-have-you from however many people you choose. Handy, no?

And last but not least is one of my very, very favorite contributions for this month's release. I give you the Essential Pillow Box. I love this pillow box. I designed this shape several years ago when I couldn't find an existing pillow box die that would fit a standard gift card. Everything on the market was just barely too small. So I put pencil to paper (so to speak) and here we are. I'm so excited!

Here are a few features of this new die:

• Fits through most of the popular die cut machines available these days. If your machine has at least a 5 1/2" opening you're in good shape.
• You can get two boxes from a single sheet of cardstock.
• It fits a standard gift card/credit card, but it's also a great size for all sorts of tiny treats.
• There are finger cut-outs in the inside flaps so it's nice and easy to get to the treat inside the box.

For my box today I began by stamping a half-sheet of white cardstock with Background Basics: Medallions. Then I die cut my box (if you cut first you may have trouble stamping on the debossed score lines). Another tip: I like to pre-fold my score lines before taping my box together because it just seems to close more smoothly.

Then I embellished the box with some Pinefeather saddle stitched ribbon, a bow from Bells & Boughs, and a little "just for you" sentiment. The button on the bow was stitched on with a little bit of metallic embroidery floss for just a bit of fancy-pantsyness.

Alrighty. That's all for me today. I hope you've enjoyed today's post. Make sure to visit with Nichole Heady, Heather Nichols, Dawn McVey, Betsy Veldman, Erin Lincoln, Cristina Kowalczyk, Melissa Bickford, and Tiffany Pastor for more countdown action. I'll be back tomorrow with more gingerbready, pillow boxy fun. See you then!

Recipes:
Sweet Season's Greetings Card:
Cardstock: Pure Poppy, Classic Kraft - Papertrey Ink; white
Stamps: Gingerbread Lane (available September 15th), Fabulous Frames - Papertrey Ink
Ink: Simply Chartreuse, Classic Kraft, Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink; Burnt Umber - Palette
Other: Fabulous Frames Dies, Linen & Canvas Impression Plate, Gingerbread Lane Dies (available September 15th) - Papertrey Ink; Foam Tape - Scotch; White Colored Pencil - Prismacolor; Glossy Accents - Ranger; Corner Chomper - We Are Memory Keepers

From Our Home To Yours Wine Tag:

Cardstock: Rustic White, Classic Kraft - Papertrey Ink

Stamps: Gingerbread Lane (available September 15th) - Papertrey Ink

Ink: New Leaf, Pure Poppy, Fresh Snow, Classic Kraft - Papertrey Ink; Burnt Umber - Palette

Other: Gingerbread Lane Dies (available September 15th), Wine Bottle Tag - Papertrey Ink; Glue Pen; Crystal Fine Glitter - Martha Stewart Crafts; Foam Tape - Scotch; Red Nail Heads - Mark Richards

Just For You Pillow Box:

Cardstock: White

Stamps: Bells & Boughs, Background Basics: Medallion, Framed Out #3, Fillable Frames #9 - Papertrey Ink

Ink: Scarlet Jewel, Pinefeather - Papertrey Ink; Noir - Palette

Other: Essential Pillow Box (available September 15th), Bells & Boughs Dies, Framed Out #3 Dies, Pinefeather Saddle Stitched Ribbon, Scarlet Jewel button - Papertrey Ink; Metallic Embroidery Floss (Precious Metals E168) - DMC; Foam Tape - Scotch; Scor-Tape