alison archives designs: On the 11th Day of Christmas . . . Paper Pumpkin December Kit Tips

I thought I had my act together with the 12 days of Teacher Gifts, but this morning, I realized I came up one short. I have the finale gift ready for tomorrow, but I didn't have an 11th day.

Whoops.

Everyone needs cards, right? Paper Pumpkin to the rescue.

I don't know if I didn't have enough coffee (or because I didn't read the directions), but I made some mistakes with this one. I want to share with you some TIPS for this kit:

First of all, here is one of the finished products:

It's a cute Polaroid-style shaker card. I love it! I only wish I had known some things before I messed up the first three (don't laugh at me. It's not nice).

There are three different sentiments for this card: "Thank You," "Hello," and "Happy Birthday."

Here are the stamps you get:

Cute and versatile. Ok, so here are the steps to make it.

Step 1: Stamp your sentiment 4 times roughly where the Polaroid window will peek through. Don't worry about messing this up or overlapping. Nobody will notice because of the "bling" floating around inside.

Step 2: This one speaks for itself.

Step 3: There are 2 sheets of sticky strip adhesive. THEY ARE DIFFERENT! They really should have said something. In my coffee haze, I just grabbed one and started adhering madly, cursing how I had to puzzle together different sizes to make the strips fit around the frame. Then, when I ran out, I grabbed the other one and realized my mistake.

One sheet has smaller strips. The other has wider strips. The wider strips go along the left and right sides, all the way down. The smaller ones go across the top and bottom. Look at the pictures for more description.

Step 4: There is a toothpick in your kit. This is important, so don't lose it. There are also 5 sheets of these cute stars. You will use HALF a sheet per card. Make sure you get every color in there. You'll poke the stars with your toothpick onto the card base you've already stamped and then pile them up nicely, like this:

Oh, I forgot to mention the sequins. You need to shake some sequins onto the pile. Be generous. There are way more sequins than I thought. I was stingy with mine, and now I have a bunch left over.

Step 5: Place your Polaroid window sheet over the top of your stars and sequins. This is really fun because the static from the sheet grabs them, and it's like a little show watching them dance around as you trap them under the plastic. Now that I say that, it's kind of sad. Whatever.