2023 Cookie Book - Candy Coated Christmas

I've been getting the word that the people who get their book in the mail are indeed receiving them so it's time to post the cookie book this year.  I wait till everyone has seen it, so I don't spoil the surprise.  

Candy Coated Christmas - see how the clear cover 'coats' the book?  This is a standard A5 Planner - 6 ring binder.  Got them on Amazon.  Inside the pages and pockets are, I'm going to guess, 85% cut from Elizabeth Craft Design Planner series.  She has two sizes, Planner and Sidekick, this is, again, the planner series, so larger than the Sidekick.  The rest of the stuff came from various sources - like Temu - or my stash.  I'll blog separately about Temu. 

I tried putting all these photos into a movie - but Google's blogger won't let me add it to the page.  Probably too large. 

Here we open the cover and get a better look at all the pretty colors!  Things are peeking out on all the edges; it just makes you want to keep turning the pages.  The majority of the paper is from Carta Bella's Homemade collection.  The matching sticker pack was used as well, and I added Seasonal Salutations No. 2 from Echo Park to the mix as well.  

Pull out the tags on the first page to reveal the title and year of the book.  That pocket with the slots in it came from Temu, which means they probably stole it from some other collection.  But I digress.  As I said, more about Temo later.  The alphabet for 'Candy' is Sizzix's Shadowbox, the word Christmas is from Tim Holtz.  The numbers used for the year are ECD again, and the hearts I just cut with the Circut.  

Next page is the list of all the cookies the bakers chose to make.  Every one of them this year were quite good.  They outdid themselves, for sure.  As the title suggests, anything coated, dipped, sugared, rolled in, blended with candy was permissible.  The tin solder is ECD.  The ornaments came from my stash.  The page with the whisk on it is again, ECD.  I did a little bit of creative licensing with it, by removing everything from the whisk to the binder holes and then mounting that on something more related to cooking. I basically hollowed it out so the whisk would be more prominent.  

I stamped the Santa and sentiment a bunch of times and cut them out with an offset using the Brother Scan and Cut. I cannot tell you how cool that thing is.  It is so much easier to stamp and cut with that thing than any other machine out there.  I blogged about this machine earlier.  Go read it!

I blogged about the clip art candy cane in my Christmas card post earlier.  Go read that too.

The heart pocket is from my stash.  Not sure of the maker.  Same with the pocket with the gingerbread man.  I didn't save the packaging so no clue where it originated from.  The stamp came from Temu.  

Next up is the folder from ECD, the recipe is inside.  The page next to it is all ECD decorative stuff.  I added the sticker and the red dots for some interest.  

Another EDC pocket - but when you cut this one, it's got multiple pockets on the page, so I snipped them apart.  I used the other part of it with the clip art candy cane.  If you go back you can see how the two fit together.  I separated the two parts between books so it wouldn't be obvious.  That means the colors are different in each book for all pages that use parts from one die.   

Repeating pockets and folders from before.  And here is the female gingerbread person.  The tree is ECD.  Notable, on every page are individual decorative hole reinforcements, both front and back.  Jesus, Mary and Joseph, do not attempt cutting and gluing these tiny things on this scale (27 books in total) without using Sookwang!  See my post about Sookwang earlier. 

More repeats of pocket pages and folders. 

These pockets came from Scrapbook.com - as part of their branded collection.  the Spatula and rolling pin were from the stash.  The mixer is a sticker from the aforementioned Homemade collection.  

I slipped a hand made Christmas tag into the slot on this page.  This is again, just like the clip art candy cane page, but with the different tuck in, you don't even notice.  

Here at the last page and the back of the book you'll find a little envelope stuck to the back cover.  These binder covers came with two elastics, one white and one black.  When the white one breaks, or loses its stretch, you've got a spare!  Happy Christmas, Everyone!  I'm off to the cave to make "Merry January" cards for the new year.  

Sookwang - The Bomb for making things into stickers

In my post about the Cave upgrades I mentioned using Sookwang to stick down a felt pad to one of my tables.  If you don't know what that stuff is, it has many names, Scoretape or Scortape, or Skortape (however its spelled) is one used here in the US.  Just about every paper crafting outlet has branded some kind of rolled two-sided sticky business.  Scrapbook.com has one, Simon Says has one.  I've tried them all, and none compare to the original product from Korea branded as Sookwang.  I get it from office supply stores, online of course.  Just google it, you'll have no trouble finding it. 

Why is Sookwang my #1, you ask?  

1. I buy it in 6" wide rolls, so two stripes of the stuff cover an entire sheet of 12x12 card stock.  Other brands are only 4" or 2" wide. If you need a 4" or 2" strip, just cut off that length from your 6" roll.  Duh.  
2. When using the Big-Shot and any kind of die - be it wafer thin or Sizzix original - the sticky stuff does not gunk up your die.  Other brands - not so much.  I have not tried cutting paper backed with Sookwang with the Cricut. But - people cut printed stickers with their Cricut all the time. This is a bit different as you are asking the blade to not only cut the intricate shape, but also cut through a layer of sticky tape + its backing.  If you try it, you may have to let the machine cut your images more than once.  That's done by not unloading the paper when it's done cutting, instead hit the CUT button again.  As I type this, its entirely possible the other brands of sticky business I referred too earlier may actually be better for using with your Cricut.  I'll never know as I gave away the stuff that frustrated me.  I own two Cricut machines - but I am surely not married to them.  They have their place, but it's not where I live.  
3. Pulling the backing paper off the cut product is easy compared to others.  I've had to use straight pins to help pry off the backing on other bands.  That's nuts. 
4. Cutting Sookwang with my guillotine is super easy, and again, does not gunk up the blade.  If you get it on crooked and need to trim some of the sticky stuff out of the way, I just whack it with the guillotine and pull off the offending piece. Easy-peasy.  
5. The rolls are huge - one lasts me for years.  I mean, I don't need a sticker every day.  But let me tell you, with this year's cookie book - (blog post coming soon) - putting all those page reinforcement holes on every single page x 26 books, you can bet I die cut them using paper backed with Sookwang!  Can you imagine gluing each one of those things one at a time by hand?  Nope.  No way.  Love Sookwang.  You will too.  

Craft Cave Upgrades

 Ok!  In my Christmas card post I alluded to some upgrades in the craft Cave.  Here we go! 

Brother Scan and Cut DX - ($199.00 on sale) this is the only thing on the market with a built-in scanner.  Every other cutting machine on the market requires you to scan your sheet of stamped images, open them on your computer and finally import them into the software your cutting machine uses.  Saying this next bit loud for the people in the back, SCREW THAT!  The creative process is a fluid thing.  Stopping to mess with scanners, computers and absolute CRAP software like Design Space - yes, Cricut, I'm talking directly to you, is a creativity KILLER.  Brother fixes all that by allowing me to stamp my sheet full of whatever I want, scan it into their machine, set an offset if I want one, and cut.  Boom.  Is it perfect?  No, there is a learning curve, but it's not too steep.  At least not for the model I bought.  Get one of these if you are doing a lot of fussy cutting around your stamped images.  Get one of these if you're spending tons of cash on dies that match or outline your stamps.  This will pay for itself inside of year if that's what you spend your dollars on. 

Pocket Full of Miracles - Christmas Cards

It's December once again.  I finished the cookie books early this year.  A Miricale unto itself.  I took a look around the craft cave and decided it's just not working for me anymore in its current state, so I spent a little money and a lot of time and overhauled the whole damn thing.  I'll go through all that in a separate post.  But once it was done, this little Christmas pocket/card thingy jumped out as needing to be created and sent out.  Try as I might, it's not in the mail in time for St. Nick's day.  It kind of reminds me of the little things you'd put in a stocking.  

Everyone gets a unique holiday bookmark made from scraps cast off from many varied different projects over the years.  I've sent them out before, so it's not a new thing, but if you are like me, I lose them all the time.  It's fun to come across them, usually in a cookbook for me, months later.  That's the first thing. 

Next, is a clip art candy cane that I found on my computer earlier in the year when I replaced it with a new and faster model.  I love this candy cane image.  I even used it in the cookie book this year.  New in the craft cave, a Brother Scan and Cut allows me to print or stamp any image I want, and then cut it out with or without a border.  I can also cut out the shadow offset you see in blue.  However, I fussy cut those blue backgrounds this year as I had a ton of smaller scraps that worked, so rather than fuss with loading one scrap after another into the Scan and Cut, the old-fashioned hand work was much easier and faster.  Goes to show that technology has its place, but it can't do everything.  

Thirdly - I included a hand stamped holiday wish tag.  This tag was inspired by Heidi Swapp, who, if you found her on FB, you'd see her creating lovely cards and tags all starting with a blank.  She creates and sells stamp kits and class videos that you can buy and watch to create your own unique piece of stamped art.  Well, I'm sorry Heidi, but your price point is too high for your stamps, and with the embarrassingly large amount I already own, I think I can piece together something just as cool as yours.  But thank you for the 30 seconds of video you show that inspired me to give it a try.  

The last thing is the pocket itself. Now, I know we live in a digital world, but if anyone is still using the old-fashioned paper Planner, I've punched some holes in the pocket that will fit perfectly into your A5 6-ring planner binder.  Who doesn't need an extra pocket? 

One last note - I made 46 of these. That is not typical for me.  I tend to get bored with a thing and max out at 10 or 12 before moving to the next design in my head.  I think it was the variability of the bookmark and the pocket papers that kept me interested.  Every one is different.  They all tucked into an A7 envelope cut with my Big Shot Pro.  I got to use up a ton of holiday paper that's been laying around.  It's very waxy, so not really good for cards as things don't like to stick to a waxy coated paper.  But with an envelope seal, and an address label, it's great for cards.  Yeah!  Something else all used up.