A tisket a tasket...

...a Christmas gift basket! That's my best attempt at coming up with a clever title for this blog entry, hehe. The other day while I was perusing through Michael's, I came upon the cutest little white tin basket and it was only 2 bucks! It literally was screaming at me to "take me home and embellish me...PLEASE!" Ok, probably not, but it was a good excuse to buy it at the time. I knew that I wanted to play with my punches and decided to make some holly. I thought that I could just easily do this with an oval punch and the scallop edge but that....didn't work. :) Anyway this post will be long and with lots of pictures if you are interested in seeing how I made my holly leaves. Here's the picture of the tin basket though!

A close-up of the holly


And I just had to make a card to match!


A picture of them both together


I think this would make a cute gift for someone. You could fill the basket with candies or cookies, or ...a gift from Tiffany's? Throw me a bone...a girl can dream! :)

All supplies Stampin' Up! on the card. I finally whipped out my Handsome Hunter...he's so handsome but oh so neglected!
Stamps: Best Yet
Paper: Handsome Hunter, Whisper White
Ink: Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Button Bouquet, Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon, Build a Brad, Seasonal Sayings rub-ons, Dazzling Diamonds

Read on for instructions on the holly:

Cut your cardstock to 1 3/4" x 3 1/2" and fold in half lengthwise like so


Take your shiny new 1 3/4" circle punch and slid folded cardstock in punch such that 1/4 of the inside is not shown (make sure that the top of the fold is NOT in the center of your punch) Punch on both ends.

Open up your cardstock and it should look like this


Then grab your 3/4" circle punch and center it along one of the sides and punch a small sliver out like so

Make 2 more additional punches on either side rounding out the straight edges


Do the same on the other side and you end up with this!



I hope this is a technique new to you because I have never seen it before! I'm sure it's been done though...what hasn't?!

Happy Stamping!