Wine/Bubbly Beverage Charms Gift

{This is a scheduled post while I am enjoying time away from the computer with my family – parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. I will be back with Skipping Stones Sketch Tuesdays in a couple of weeks.}
Ok so you just got invited to a big summer party… and you think maybe you should bring a hostess gift, but what do you bring?  A treat? A bubbly beverage? Flowers? A plant? A card? Hrmmm..  How about a treat, a “card” and some BLING?
I have always liked the idea of wine charms… they’re such lovely bling.. and how can you go wrong adding sparkle to something already sparkly?  Brent and I don’t drink alcohol, but we do enjoy a nice sparkly glass of something bubbly like Martinelli’s Sparkling cider so for today’s purposes, this little giftie will be modeled on a non-alcoholic sparkly beverage.  Feel free to attach yours to your favorite sparkly beverage.
For this giftie I used the Skipping Stones Design stamp set Margarita Birthday.  Again, being a non drinker I wanted to find a fun way to use this delightful stamp set.  {I do love celebrating good times with good friends AND a good virgin strawberry daquiri or margarita!}
Here’s a full view of the gift set: 

You can choose to give glasses or not.. I’m just showing for demo purposes.  The charms fit neatly in the hanging “box” on the bottle which is made as you would make a door hanger or similar “hanging box”.


These wine charms are made by attaching various 2 mm glass seed beads and 8 mm fiber optic beads from Rings N Things {I picked these out at the warehouse with my sweet friend Stacey Flores when I visited her in WA last February… so much fun!!} to some hoop earring bases that I picked up at Michael’s. I folded the ends of the ear wires over to make  a “hook” to close on itself.
                        
For the packaging I cut out and layered up circles of cardstock with my Nesties and Cuttlebug, added a scalloped edge to the box with a FIskars border punch and popped up some sentiments.  The daquiri glass is colored in with a mix of colored pencils, odorless mineral spirits, and a grey Copic marker.  I added a touch of bling to the glass with a Sakura clear glitter pen and sugared up the glass edge with some glass beads attached with Liquid Glass.  I love all the sparkle on this project!

The white circle and glass are one piece of cardstock.  I traced the Nestie circle around the stamped image, cut a rough circle around the nestie circle , cut out the glass up to the circle line and then placed the Nestie circle die on the image, popped the cut pieces of the image out of the die’s cutting area and ran it through the cuttlebug.  *Whew*  Did that make sense to you?  LOL! Perhaps I will to do a tutorial. Hrmm.
Anyway… Hope you enjoyed this little giftie project!
~Inky Smiles!!

Back To School - A Gift Set

I have some really awesome friends.

I ordered some SU stuff from a party that my friend Susan Culotti had (on the east coast of the US) a little while ago. When the box arrived, I couldn't wait to rip it open and start playing with my loot. So I got the box opened and to my surprise Susan had included a little surprise...

A TREASURE BOX!

So I unsnapped the flap, and slid out the tray in the little box....

It was filled with miniature TREASURES! (I am a sucker for miniature things, not to mention the colors... FABULOUS and FUN and will look so cute in my new studio!)



I IMMEDIATELY emailed Susan to thank her and asked her where she found all these little treasures and here's what she said:

"I bought a bunch of the dewdrops (Halloween, Cowboy, Poinsettia, Flame, etc.), so I had plenty to share, ya know? Figured a "sampler" was the best way to go - if you trip over a favorite, let me know what color it is, and I'll tell you which jar it came out of! The tiny clipboard is from AC Moore in the unfinished wood dept (it had a chain, so I'm guessing they were thinking keychain or something - I took the chain off), I made the little Post It holder out of chopped-down coasters. The cupcake Post Its, the wooden cupcake, the pencil holder and the pencils are all finds from JoAnn. When I saw them, my "cute counter" (as opposed to "geiger") went off the charts, so I knew you needed them! I think that's it! "

THANK YOU SUSAN! :)

So here's my challenge to you all.... over the next week, think of someone who needs a little cheer in their life and do something special. Send a card, bake some cupcakes, tend a couple of kids, wash a floor, give a hug.... make someone's day.

Inky Smiles!