Wine Glass Charms

Hi Everyone!!
It's time for another wonderful tutorial from one of the lovely TPE design team members! This week, Ann Cutts is going to show us how to decorate wine glases and make some beautiful matching wine glass charms/markers.

Hi everyone this week is my turn to do our Thursday tutorial. I decided that as summer is on way (hopefully) some pretty decorated wine glasses with their own name markers might be a great idea to get ready for those hot summer days and garden parties.

These were so much fun to make and so easy. I know I have focussed on wine glasses for us grown ups, but this would be just as easy to do on children's tumblers or water bottles and perhaps they could even have a go at doing their own.

All you need is:
Plastic wine glasses - these are available at most supermarkets and are very cheap (my pack of 8 only cost around £1)
Rub ons
Wire in a guage that is sturdy but still thin enough to be flexible.
Circle nestability die cutters or circle punches.


First of all decorate your wine glass with the rub ons of your choice. I decorated the base and just one side of the glass as I wanted to be able to drink from the glass without touching any of the decorated area.


Then make your wine glass name marker. I used the smallest circle and smallest scalloped circle in my nestability set and decorated it with rub ons in the same design as the ones on the wine glass. Then I added name peel offs. Then I added two small holes at the top of the marker. These are needed for the wire to be attached.


Then I cut a length of wire about 3.5 inches long. This needed to be bent into a U shape to be threaded through the marker.


After threading the wire through the holes in the marker I bent the ends over to make tiny hook fasteners.


To complete my wine glass I carefully attached the decorated marker to the stem of the glass. The hook fasteners can be closed up at this stage to make them more secure.

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial and that it will lead to you looking at all your unused rub ons in a new way. If you do have a go at this please let us know here at the Pink Elephant as it would be great to see what people come up with.

-Ann Cutts, TPE design team

Gift Bag Card

Welcome back for another Tu-Tu Tutorial Thursday! This week, Ann is making a really cool card that looks like a gift bag. I am so in love with this card and I know all of you will be too!

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Hello everyone!

It’s my turn to do a tutorial again and this week I thought I would play around with the idea of adding shredded paper to a card design to make it look like a gift bag.
Before I start this tutorial though I would just like to wish Carol, one of our Design Team Members, a very Happy Birthday from all of us here at the Pink Elephant. It’s a special birthday for her this year so she needs an extra special card. I do hope you like it Carol!

Gift Bag Card

Designer: Ann Cutts, TPE dt

Materials needed:
A4 (11.7” x 8.3”) cardstock - double sided if possible
Organza ribbon
Eyelets
Extra strong Double sided tape
Shredded tissue - the kind sold to add to gift bags
Lollipop sticks
Circle nestability dies (or any method of cutting circles that you might use)
Embellishments/stamped images of your choice

Please note I have given measurements in my tutorial, but the basic idea for the card could be made in many different sizes. I would love to see what you can come up.
Now to start…

Begin by scoring the A4 piece of card along it’s length at 6” (15cm) and 7.5” (19cm) as shown in the photo.

Fold the card in half lengthways and then cut down the fold line to the second score line as shown below.

Now fold the card along the score lines so that the front and back of the card have a flap hanging down.

On the back of the card fold up the second score line and stick the whole flap securely onto the back of the card. This will help to keep this piece out of the way while you are constructing the rest of the card.

In the middle of the front flap make eyelet holes about 1.5” from each side. Attach eyelets of your choice.

Make a tag to be attached to your ribbon. This could made using the circle nestability die or any tag die or punch you have available. Starting from the rear of the flap thread the ribbon though one eyelet and then thread the tag onto the ribbon. The other end of the ribbon needs to be threaded through the other eyelet to the back of the flap. Leave a large loop of ribbon at the front of the card to represent a handle.

Fasten the ribbon at the back and then stick down your flap in the same way as you did on the back of the card.
Now cut a piece of card slightly smaller than the front of your card and attach the extra strong DST to the two side edges and bottom of the piece of card. The top needs to be left free of tape as this will not be stuck down as it is where the shredded paper is added.

Stick this piece of card to the other side of the card front.
Now comes the real fun part - choosing what to put on the front of the bag…


And of course adding the shredded paper to the top. I found that the best way to add this was to pull a small amount from the bag its sold in and roll this into a ball between my hands. You can then push the ball into the opening at the top of the card fluffing it out a little as you do so.
Once you have got the shredded paper in place you can add your lollipop stick signs. These are not essential, but I think they add a bit more fun to the card.
I used circle nestability die cuts to top my lollipop sticks. I stuck one circle on the front of the lollipop stick and one on the back so that both sides have a neat finish. Add another inner circle with a sentiment and your card will be completed.
I really hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and it’s given you ideas to use in your own card making.
Ann xxx

Easter Egg Treasure Hunt

The Grand Easter Egg Treasure Hunt Tutorial

Designer: Ann Cutts - Design Team Member

Please click on photos to enlarge

When my own children were little one of their favorite Easter activities was egg hunting. One Easter I left a trail of clues all over the house and garden. My two girls had an amazing time reading the clues and searching out the eggs. It was remembering those happy days that led me to designing this fun activity that I hope you will like and perhaps make to use with your own children or grandchildren this Easter.

Materials needed:
Card suitable to use in a printer
Clip art, rubber stamps, die cuts or other suitable materials to decorate your clue cards.
Small envelope die, punch or template.
I don’t think I need to go into great detail on how to make these cards as I’m sure you’ll agree that the pictures are self explanatory.

To create my game I used the new Messy Rabbit CD by Joanna Sheen. I chose a different rabbit image for each of the cards and added a rhyming clue. I printed these out and made small envelopes using my Cricut machine to attach to the front. Inside each envelope I put a little card containing the answer to the clue.


You may want to only do the text on your clue cards and then use your rubber stamps or maybe die cuts to decorate and pretty the cards up later. The choice is yours. Do make sure that if you are using die cuts or rubber stamps that you plan the size of your card or text before printing so that both the images and text fit on the card properly.

As a teacher I am always aware of the educational potential of any games I make. This Treasure Hunt is an ideal opportunity to encourage early readers to practise their reading skills. In the early stages of learning to read picture clues play an important part in helping to decipher the printed word. The images taken from the Joanna Sheen CD are perfect to encourage children to develop this skill. If you are able to use these images or similar do take the opportunity to talk about the picture and guide your child in using it to help them to work out the location of the next clue.

Each of the clues in the game are rhyming couplets. Rhymes are a great way to encourage and give children practice in focussing on the sounds in words.. It may be that you have one child old enough to read the cards and perhaps a younger child who will enjoy the sound of the words and be able to guess (using the rhyme and picture as clues) the answer.

Some of the card ideas given here might not be suitable for your home or perhaps the weather might make it impossible to go outside. Do use the rhymes that you like and have a go at making up others that fit your home better.
It would be really great if you do create some of your own rhyming clues if you could leave a comment here sharing them with us. We would love to hear them.

For each clue card I made a little envelope with the answer inside and attached it to the front. These add to the fun of the game, but also if you have a very young child who can’t work out the clues opening the envelope keeps them involved.
A couple of small eggs placed alongside some of the clues may be a good idea. They will add to the fun and also make the game last longer.

I’ve only done a few cards to give you some ideas. Obviously you can make as many cards as you like. I know my children didn’t want to stop when they played all those years ago and it is surprising how fast they find those eggs and clues.
Don’t forget if you do make some rhymes please add them to our comments - the more rhymes we have the better the game for all of us.
Most of all have fun!

Ooops forgot to say you should choose one clue card to be your last one and have 'the treasure' hidden in that location. The bath is a good place as there is plenty of room to stash the eggs an it's not somewhere they will have passed when searching out the other clues.'

Ann xxx

Pssst....I just noticed when I was visiting Ann's blog that she is giving away blog candy to one lucky person out of those that leave comments with rhymes for this game!! So, please do share ideas...the candy is great! --Robin

Ribbon Holder Tutorial

Hi everyone! Today we are bringing you our very first tutorial by our own Ann Cutts! She has come up with a fun way to make a ribbon holder to store ribbon. I want to note that I added the US measurements in parenthesis after Ann's metric ones. They aren't exact, but very close to it. I just thought it would be helpful to those that don't use metric. So, sit back and enjoy our first tutorial for The Pink Elephant!

To create my ribbon holder I used a clear set of stamps called ‘Zoophabet’ by Penny Black, but you could use any alphabet stamps or die cut letters to make a great gift for a crafting friend. If you do use a different size of letter it’s a good idea to plan things out on your cutting mat to make sure you know what size of card, etc you will need to use. As you can see in the picture laying my pieces down on my cutting mat with a space in between for the ribbon really helped me to work out the size of card needed.

The stamps I used were perfect for stamping onto the 4cm x 5cm (1.5" x 2") scalloped rectangle from Spellbinder’s Nestabilities Classic Scallop Large Rectangle Set so all the measurements given in this tutorial are meant to work with stamps or die cut letters which would fit in that kind of area. To make the base of the ribbon holder you need cut a piece of card measuring 7cm x 30cm (2.75" x 12"). Then mark the card at 5 cm (2") intervals along the top and bottom of the whole 30cm (12") length. You should end up with 5 evenly spaced marks.

Then using a circle punch cut semi circle notches at each of the marked points on your card. As you can see in the photo my Woodware small circle lever punch can be turned over and has marks on it that allow me to line up my pencil mark with the arrow on the punch to ensure that each circle is where I want it to be.

These half circles form the spaces for the ribbon to be wound around. After punching all ten semi circles your ribbon base card should look like this.

I have used white card in the pictures to hopefully make the tutorial clearer but for my ribbon holder I used a pearlescent blue card to make the letters of the alphabet pop out more.Next you need to cut out 6 scalloped rectangles using the 4 x 5 cm (1.5" x 2") scalloped die. If you haven‘t this particular die you could cut plain rectangles.

Then stamp out each of the letters needed to spell the word ‘RIBBON’ on to the rectangles.

These can then be coloured and decorated to match the colours of the ribbon you intend to use. I added gemstones to mine - a little bit of bling is always fun. After decorating add the rectangles to your base card leaving a 1cm (3/8") space for the ribbon where you have made the notches.

Finally to finish the ribbon holder wind about 1 metre of 1cm (3' x 3/8")wide ribbon around each of the notched areas of your holder. This can be fastened at the rear of the card with a little bit of tape.

And here is Ann's finished ribbon holder.

I think these would be cute if you made multiples of them to store all of your ribbon and put them in a clear box standing up. Have the one that spells 'Ribbon' in the front so it can be easily seen and then just do plainer ones for behind it. It would sure free up alot of space that those ribbon spools take up!

We hope you have enjoyed Ann's tutorial. We are going to start doing 2 tutorials a month on Thursdays, so be sure to check back in two weeks for the next one!