Warmest Wishes | VIDEO | Natalie Elphinstone

We're quickly hurtling towards Christmas and if you're of the inclination to create some handmade Christmas cards (and I'll hazard a bet that the majority of people reading this probably are!!) then it's well and truly time to start creating your Christmas cards! In fact, I'm sure you already have right? But it never hurts to throw in some new inspiration and maybe I might encourage you to try something you've never tried before.

Did you manage to grab one of the new release stitching dies that Neat and Tangled designed in collaboration with Benzie Design yet? These are changing my perspective on the traditional paper-based Christmas card this year by encouraging me to add some felt embellishments with all the trimmings!

If you notice carefully, the Ugly Sweater Die Set comes with a whole range of small dies for decorating your sweaters with. But don't feel that you have to be limited to just that, when all the pieces can be used as stand-alone embellishments for sooooo many of your Christmas projects. And that's exactly what I've done here. I used the wreath and the poinsetta and the bow to make a kind of banner across my card, and the texture created by cutting these from Benzie Design felt is just incredible.

In my video today I'm going to walk you through the process of creating this card start to finish (including the part where I first finished the card with a whole different sentiment and then changed my mind and used this one instead!!!) I hope you enjoy it, and I hope I've inspired you to add some fabric textures into your next card.

        

Supplies:

Neat and Tangled with Benzie Design: Ugly Sweater Stitching Dies
Neat and Tangled Merry Kisses Stamp Set
Neat and Tangled Tiny Cuts Die Set

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September Release Day 2: Stitched Unicorn and Stitched Cloud Dies!

Hello friends! Welcome back for 2 day of our September release! Each day we are showing off some new products, providing lots of inspiration, and even having a giveaway! 

In case you missed Day 1: Hello Fall stamps and dies be sure to go check it out HERE!

Today we have two very special new die sets! We have teamed up with our good friend at Benzie Design to come up with some fresh and fun stitchable dies!  We are starting this new line off with some whimsical fun - Stitched Clouds and Stitched Unicorn.

You can use these dies with felt, paper, or other fabrics. These dies can be used in a variety of ways: stitch and embellish as a single layer, stitch and create a stuffie, stitch with paper, stitch and create a banner - so many possibilities! The design team has lots of examples below.

And now for some incredible inspiration! Be sure to head to each design team members blogs for details by clicking on the photos, and for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate! One person will be chosen from among comments on the design team members blogs!

I'm so excited for these new products!

Would you like to win our new Stitched Unicorn and Stitched Cloud dies? To enter:

1. Be a follower and leave a comment! 

2. Follow us on Facebook and share about release with your friends! (leave another comment)

3. Follow Neat and Tangled on Instagram and repost about our release! Use #neatandtangledrelease (leave another comment)

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NT/Benzie Design Collaboration Day 4

I can't believe it's already the final day of our collaboration with Benzie Design!  Benzie specializes in felt, with 90 colors available in their house wool blend and 36 colors of homemade felt pom poms, but they have lots more to share including various 'felt-fetti' die cut shapes, kits, felt notions/tools and more.  This week (Monday - Thursday) we'll be sharing some projects featuring Benzie products.

There are also giveaways!  We'll be picking one lucky commenter to win the Carnation Collection felt pack and Atomic Pom Poms pictured below.  Be sure to also stop by the Benzie blog as they'll be posting on Monday and Tuesday and will select one lucky commenter to win a $25 credit to the N&T store.  Winners will be announced over the weekend.

Today Cheiron is sharing with us.  We love this project and it would be a great one to do with kids!

Hi there, it's Cheiron here and I had so much fun playing with Benzie felt this week, using their Carnation Collection palette of felt. I just love these fun and festive colors for any occasion.  I often see amazing stitched layered felt banners on Pinterest, and I adore them. If you know me, I do not have ANY sewing ability at all..but I used the Polygon Cover Plate die to help me out with this project.

I took all the felt colors, and cut them out with the Polygon Cover Plate. I had piles and piles of polygons...

I sat in my chair for a couple hours and caught up on some Netflix and managed to finish two of these fun garlands. I used some gold metallic embroidery floss to string it all together, I pinched each polygon together and threaded the needle through it, and every 10 or so pieces I slid it down to the end so it would not get tangled up.

This is such a fun little garland to hang up for a birthday, cocktails with the girls or even in a co-workers cubicle to celebrate a milestone at work. If you have an older child that likes sewing, you could have them help you create a ton of these garlands for your holiday tree!

Thanks so much to the folks at Benzie for collaborating with us this week!  We had so much fun working with their products!  Don't forget to leave comments on the collaboration posts here and over at Benzie to be in the draw for the prizes.  We'll announce a winner this weekend.

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NT / Benzie Design Collaboration Day 3

Hi there! Welcome back for day 3 of our collaboration with Benzie Design!  Benzie specializes in felt, with 90 colors available in their house wool blend and 36 colors of homemade felt pom poms, but they have lots more to share including various 'felt-fetti' die cut shapes, kits, felt notions/tools and more.  This week (Monday - Thursday) we'll be sharing some projects featuring Benzie products.

There are also giveaways!  We'll be picking one lucky commenter to win the Carnation Collection felt pack and Atomic Pom Poms pictured below.  Be sure to also stop by the Benzie blog as they'll be posting on Monday and Tuesday and will select one lucky commenter to win a $25 credit to the N&T store.  Winners will be announced over the weekend.

Today we have both Elena and Miriam with us.  Up first, Elena is sharing with us a quick and easy holiday packaging idea:

When I saw the Felt-Fetti Holly kit in their store, I knew I could whip up some very festive Christmas packages!

I used a trio of red and white striped gift bags that I had on hand, the Felt-Fetti Holly shapes, the Neat and Tangled Merry and Bright die, and our Classic Tag 2 shape.

If you don't enjoy hand-stitching you could easily used a hot glue gun to put it all together, but I think it added so much cuteness to the simple tag!

I adhered it to the top of the tag, added the beautifully handlettered Merry and Bright sentiment, and finished off the tag with a strip of green paper to balance out the green holly leaves.

To attach the tag to the bag, I opted for a really homespun look: I folded the bag and clipped it closed with a tiny red clothespin. I love that look.

Next up is Miriam:

Hey everyone!  I had so much fun creating with Benzie felt.  I created two cards today, for the first card, I selectively cut the large flower from the Succulent Cover Plate from three shades of green.  Before I die cut the pieces, I backed them with white cardstock.  This adds reinforcement and allows you to adhere the pieces easily to your card.



I also cut the flower from cardstock and used the webbing as a guide to get my pattern started.  Once I had the first few pieces in though, I just eyeballed the space between the pieces.



Even though the cardstock does add a lot of reinforcement, the tiny pieces can still be a bit tricky, so you need a die that has large enough pieces, the petals for the succulent were a perfect size.  The only tricky bits were those teeny tiny pieces in the center.  I just needed to be very careful with those and used craft tweezers to adhere them.

The sentiment is from the Gardenia Blooms Journaling Card set and it was stamped on one of the banners from the Scalloped Dies set.



My next card features the Maple Thanks and Oak Leaf Dies.  I cut the solid shapes from felt and the webbing/detail dies from cardstock and woodgrain paper.

The solid felt shapes were stitched to the card itself along the center line.  Then I used spray adhesive to attach the webbed pieces.



The sentiment, also from the Gardenia Blooms set was stamped on one of the skinny tags from the Classic Tag 2 die set and was then trimmed down and stitched on as well.

I thought it would be fun to dress these cards up a bit, so I cut a Doily Envelope wrap from felt for each of them.



Caveat, this is beautiful, but these doily pieces are very delicate in some sections and so you have to be very careful with them or you'll get some tears.  The felt cuts well, but I think because of static cling the pieces need a little help coming out.  I used a largish needle to just poke the pieces out and that worked pretty well.



I love how pretty the details look in felt!



OK, be sure to leave a comment to be entered to win the Benzie prize and then head over to the Benzie blog where you can leave a comment to be entered to win a $25 store credit to Neat & Tangled.  Come back tomorrow for our final collaboration day!

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N&T / Benzie Design Collaboration Day 2

Happy Tuesday!  Welcome back for Day 2 of our collaboration with Benzie Design!  Benzie specializes in felt, with 90 colors available in their house wool blend and 36 colors of homemade felt pom poms, but they have lots more to share including various 'felt-fetti' die cut shapes, kits, felt notions/tools and more.  This week (Monday - Thursday) we'll be sharing some projects featuring Benzie products.

There are also giveaways!  We'll be picking one lucky commenter to win the Carnation Collection felt pack and Atomic Pom Poms pictured below.  Be sure to also stop by the Benzie blog as they'll be posting on Monday and Tuesday and will select one lucky commenter to win a $25 credit to the N&T store.  Winners will be announced over the weekend.

Today Sveta is sharing a home decor project with us:

 I'm very excited to collaborate with such an amazing company and present you my project!

I'm totally a card making person but when I saw these felt products I fell in love! I like that Benzie Design have great color combos sets, it's really inspiring. I wanted to make a felt garlands for a baby.

I used Neat & Tangled Dala Horse die set that is perfect for felt creations. I die cut big and little horses that reminds me of mother and child from Mermaid Lagoon Felt set and sewed them all together.

I also made coordinating garland  with felt Swan Lake palette pompom set using two sizes of pompoms. This one was especially easy to make: all you need is just needle and the set from Benzie Design!

I plan to use these garlands above the baby's bed when she will arrive, and most probably will make matching mobile.

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N&T / Benzie Design Collaboration Day 1: The Making of a Unicorn Themed Birthday Party | VIDEO

Hello friends!  We're so excited to be teaming up with Benzie Design!  Benzie specializes in felt, with 90 colors available in their house wool blend and 36 colors of homemade felt pom poms, but they have lots more to share including various 'felt-fetti' die cut shapes, kits, felt notions/tools and more.  This week (Monday - Thursday) we'll be sharing some projects featuring Benzie products.

There are also giveaways!  We'll be picking one lucky commenter to win the Carnation Collection felt pack and Atomic Pom Poms pictured below.  Be sure to also stop by the Benzie blog as they'll be posting on Monday and Tuesday and will select one lucky commenter to win a $25 credit to the N&T store.  Winners will be announced over the weekend.

Today Natalie is here to share THE BEST birthday project ever!  Here's she is:

What a Magical Day!!

My middle daughter turns 8 in a couple of weeks and she's already planning how she wants to celebrate. Everything is unicorns for her lately, and my Neat and Tangled Magical Day stamp set and matching dies has already had quite the work-out! But we couldn't resist using them once again for her party invitations, and it also became the inspiration behind the matching headdress we made for the event.

When I heard about the collaboration with Benzie Designs I immediately signed up because I love working with felt. I usually use my die-cutting machine and my steel dies, but of course you can freehand cut it as well. And the colours they offer are spectacular! My favourite palette from Benzie is called 'Electric Company' because it's the whole brightly coloured rainbow. But I also adore 'Mosey Palette' because sometimes you just need to tone it down a little too!

I asked Moriah to pick her 4 favourite colours from the Electric Company felt pack and I then used them to form the mane of the unicorn headdress. I love her choices! I then used the same colours, but in watercolours to paint the mane on the Magical Day unicorn so they would be matching.

Now I know it might appear at first glance that the headdress is a little complicated, but it's actually quite easy, and could even be achieved with a no-sew technique. The Benzie felt is really thick which means it cuts really nicely and is quite amenable to a hot glue gun without the glue soaking through. And because it's a wool blend the edges won't fray either. WINNING!

In my video today I'm going to show you how I created both my Magical Day party invitations with their watercolouring and foiled details, as well as this super-fun unicorn headdress made with Benzie Designs felt.

             

I think this smile says it all....

Thanks so much for stopping by, don't forget to head over to the Benzie blog to see what they have to share and to enter to win their giveaway!

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