Easter Treats

No challenge today, I just want to share a cute little Easter project with you. Aren't these just darling?  They are not entirely my own creation, I went looking on-line for a treat box and found a tutorial at XO Stamping Studio, I just made some changes to make it Easter themed.

One of the things I changed was the way I cut out the purse die.  I realised that I did not need the whole die and so to save card stock used an A4 sheet of card stock cut into quarters (14.9cm x 10.5cm).  

 As you can see this makes a bit of a mess of the purse, but leaves the parts you will need for the treat holder. 

You can see from this picture that you will still need to trim a reasonable amount from the purse!

The next step is to trim the top off each of the panels. The neatest, most consistent way to do this is to fold up the bottom of the purse and line up with one of the vertical lines on the paper trimmer - I used the 6cm mark (2-3/8"). 

To make this easier for mass production I used a small piece of craftwood I had lying around and after lining it up butted the bottom of the purse against it for a neat even cut. You could also use a small set square, a flat cutting plate from your Big Shot, or a piece of chipboard.

 I am very much the fan of making things easier for myself, so I created this little template by running some chipboard through the Big Shot and then trimming approx 3mm (1/8") from each side.

One of the benefits of this is that you can then position the template right over the DSP right where you want it.  I really like when things are centred and this works perfectly.  Adhere one of these to each panel.

Apply adhesive to the side tab on one of the panels, I used Tombow, but Sticky Strip or other strong adhesive would also work well. 

 Line the tab up with the side of a second panel.  I found it easier to fold the tab over and ensure the two pieces were lined up evenly.  Do this with the second pair of panels, then use same process for adhering the two sections together.  

Add a base 6.7cm x 6.7cm (2-5/8" x 2-5/8"). Then fold over the tops and adhere with TomBow or Sticky Strip.  

Decorate the box as desired according to the occasion.  I finished mine off with cute little punch art chicks using the 2-Step Owl Punch and sentiment from Teeny Tiny Sentiments.

Happy Stamping

Pirate Christmas

I made this card at the request of a friend from work.  Her partner loves pirates and she wanted a pirate themed Christmas card for him. I don't have any Pirate stamps so had to put my thinking cap on and, along with an internet search, decided the Owl Punch was my best option. I took inspiration from a particular card where the pirate was standing on the bow of a ship, although I made mine a little more Christmassy with a red jacket.  

This is the card I made for her, the sentiment I printed out on the computer before punching out.  The bag of presents is one of the Ornament Keepsakes framelits, and of course the pirate is made with the owl punch. I cut the bow of the boat free hand and then did some score marks for planks of wood, then dragged my stamp pad across it to give a wood grain effect.  The ocean was embossed then cut with framelits, layering vellum between the two card stock layers.

Having had so much fun with the card, I decided to add a couple of gift tags. Along with loving pirates, my friend's parter's favourite colour is orange! She loved them when I showed her, and reported that her partner loved them too, taking the owls off the gift tags to keep on his computer screen!

Happy Stamping

Festive Friday #48

This week at the Festive Friday Challenge the challenge is to use Punch Art!  While I used to do a lot of punch art (years before joining Stampin' Up!) and loved it, but since then the stamping inky side has taken over so it was nice to get the punches out and get creative.

I have always liked the little Owl Punch used to make reindeer faces but wasn't sure what I could use for antlers, so I put the project on hold.  My very next project (which I can show you soon) involved cutting out some snowflakes with the new Snow Flurry die, and for my project I only used the largest of the snowflakes.  Seeing the other two cut out just lying on my desk I realised that the middle sized one would be great for antlers!!!  And sparkly antlers at that and with sparkly antlers they just had to have sparkly noses too!  I had already adhered the noses before deciding to add sparkle so just used some of the new Dazzling Details to finish them off.

Wanting to add a few more punches to the project I stamped the sentiment onto Very Vanilla card stock and then punched out using the Word Window punch. I then punched a window out of the die cut DSP with the Modern Label punch and used Dimensionals to pop up the sentiment!  The DSP was cut with the Clear Oval Accents with just a smidge trimmed off the top and bottom.

A great way to line up your punch when punching a window is to first punch the shape from a Post-It note (including adhesive) and then position that onto your project.  Then flip your punch over and line up the Post-It note with the punch and you will get it perfect every time.  I didn't take photos as I went for this one but will do so next time!

Happy Stamping

Trick or Treat

For the last two weeks I have been working with a different team and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with them, and getting to know them all.  Next week it is back to my usual job, and back to part time work, which will leave more time for crafting!  Tonight I decided to have a look at my fav challenge blogs, with the thought of planning a card to make tomorrow, that was until I came across The Friday Mashup and was totally inspired by this week's challenge.  This week was a colour and theme challenge, and I decided to do both, creating a Halloween themed card using Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Lucky Limeade and Concord Crush.

Now in Australia we don't really celebrate Halloween, certainly not to the extent that it is celebrated in the US or UK, this is reflected in the limited Halloween products in our IB&C. However I did not want to let that get me down, and I think it was the little owl in the Warmest Wishes set that FMU are giving away this week. 

I used the owl punch and added some bat wings to give him more of a Halloween look, and a little green vest to match the new Lucky Limeade ruffle ribbon on the card.  I decided to use my new Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border Punch (boy that is a mouthful!!) and used two strips of it under the ruffle ribbon, I think the two of them go very well together. Can you spot the little bit of extra ruffled ribbon I have used to framed the Concord Crush circle? I cut a piece of ribbon in half lengthwise and then attached it to the back of the circle using SNAIL.

I did learn an important lesson on this card ... Use your black glitter before you add the letters to a multi-layered, embossed card! Boy does that stuff get everywhere!

Stamps: none!
Paper: Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Lucky Limeade, Concord Crush and Naturals Ivory; Lucky Limeade DSP Stack
Other: 2-step Owl Punch, 2 3/8" Scallop Circle Punch, 2 1/2" Circle Punch, Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border Punch, Lucky Limeade ruffled ribbon, Timeless Type Junior Alphabet die, black super fine glitter.


Happy Stamping

Birthdays ... Take 2

The next project I wanted to share was something I made for my friend Pete.  Pete and I were on the same Orientation training for work 8 years ago, and just seemed to hit it off.  We liked the same types of movies, books, and later discovered a shared love of cooking.  Pete is the only person I will let into my kitchen while I cook, everyone else gets kicked out, I think it's because he doesn't get underfoot.  Anyway I digress, the other thing that Pete and I share is a birthday (not quite the same year lol)!  I wanted to make him something a bit special so did a bit of blog surfing and got my inspiration from a card made by Carie Nixon, I did some changing of colours to be a bit more "manly" but kept the sketch pretty much the same.

I then wanted to make a little card for the bottle of wine I was giving Pete as a birthday gift, and wanted it to match the card as closely as I could, given the smaller space.  I was really happy with the way that it turned out. I just love the 2-Step Owl Punch, he is just so versatile, here I have added some googley eyes, and some pearls as buttons on his vest.  The wine bottle topper was inspired by a creation on my friend Jenny's blog that she had made for Father's Day last year.

The scallop squares were done using the SAB Punch Bunch and you can see here how I highlighted the HB with my version of Kindy Glitz - Crystal Effects mixed with Dazzling Diamonds.  I love my little bottle of this stuff, I can choose how much Dazzling Diamonds to add AND it's not quite as messy as it gets when I sprinkle the DD onto the card after the crystal effects.

Happy Stamping