No. 1 Book and Gnome bookmark by Dori Mendiola

 Happy New Year AI Friends!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday and are ready for the New Year!

 Can't wait to see all the fabulous creations from Bonnie and Kim.  I have no doubt that they will have lots of fun products for us again this year!

I'm starting off the New Year using #6114 - Box Village Template dies from the Holiday Lane series.  

I slightly changed the book cover to make it look like a number 1 for my granddaughter's first birthday.  Hope it's clear for you to see - made with the #5940 Journal Cover Paper Pack - Purple Plaid paper.  

I used #5873 - Mini Birthday Journal Paper pack for the inside of the book.  The inside contains pictures, pockets, notes and details from her first year and as much as I would love to show her off, my daughter asked that I didn't, so, unfortunately I don't have many pages to show.  However, my main purpose in showing this book was to emphasize how you can make slight changes to extend the die sets to fit your occasion.  Let your mind go!  Mine sometimes goes in odd directions but it's fun to see what can be created.  LOL!   

  Her birthday was S'mores themed so I created a S'mores with a square die from the #5725 Nested square dies set and the #5407 Birthday Cake GCH frosting die.  The graham cracker part was cut in rectangle shape and rounded the corners with a corner punch.  I inked the edges, stamped a cute little face on it and added a bow.  The sentiment tag is from the #6121 Storybook template.

Gnome Bookmark:  Another slight alteration of dies - here's a bookmark I made into a Gnome using the #5931 Santa Puppet die set.  The only real change that I made was that I added an additional beard layer by partial die cutting to make it slightly smaller so that it fit on top of the bottom one.  Then the nose fit nicely in between the top beard layer and the rim of his cap.  I omitted the brows, mustache and eyes.  Since he isn't a Santa, I also omitted the belt and fur parts of his outfit.  I die cut his outfit using the #5832 Gnome PP.  This paper choice made him look like he was wearing PJs so I added a cookie and coffee mug (from my stash) in his hands.  I placed him onto a bookmark made with the #5223 - Bookmark die.  He actually resembled me after Christmas.  I was a complete couch potato with my PJs on and my coffee mug in hand.  Life is good! 

Welcome to 2026 and another fun year with Art Impressions. 

Thanks for joining me today!  

Have a great day and keep creating!