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Posts Tagged ‘Sizzix Dies’
My Stampin’ Bear Has Her Own Lei!
Aloha, all!
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour sponsored by the 2011 Virtual Convention group, VC Rocks! Virtual? Convention? It's easier to explain the convention part and then lead into the "virtual." Each year Stampin' Up! has a convention open to all Stampin' Up! Demonstrators. Not all of us can attend, though. So there's a group that holds its own online fantasy convention – a "virtual" convention where we all have a blast for a lot longer than the actual convention in Salt Lake City!
Back in 2009, one of the big announcements at the actual Stampin' Up! Convention was that Stampin' Up! would be partnering with Build A Bear Workshop (BABW) with both stamping and Sizzix products. Those of us at the convention were given the opportunity to buy our very own Stampin' Up! Bear from BABW, and mine has been my faithful companion in the craft room ever since.
So today's project is a little gift for my little bear, featuring a Sizzix die that is a Stampin' Up! Exclusive. It's a "Bigz" die and it's called Island Floral.
And what else would you expect to be able to do with a die called "Island Floral" if not to make a Lei (especially if you live in Hawaii as I do)? And who would be better to show it off than my Stampin' Bear – who also lives in Hawaii and loves every day of it.
To make the lei, I used the larger of the two flowers on the die and the 3-pointed leaf. I cut 12 flowers each out of Real Red and Confetti White Card Stock, and 6 pieces each of Rose Red and Pretty in Pink Card Stock. Then I cut 12 leaves out of Garden Green Card Stock. (I cut 4 pieces of card stock at a time, so it wasn't really that much work.) While I wanted the flowers to have a lot of texture to them, I decided to let the leaves stay smooth to accent to all those textured flowers.
Once I had the flowers all cut, I sprayed them each with water and then crumpled them up and put them all on a cookie sheet to dry (photo at right). Once they were all dry, I very carefully unpeeled them from their scrunched-up state. Each of the papers cut from this die has a hole in the middle through which string can be threaded to get all those flowers on the lei, and I started stringing away!
There are many ways to construct a lei using paper flowers like this. The way that I made this one was to separate each flower with a spacer as I was stringing the lei. I used 1/2" lengths of green plastic straws (see the picture at the left) and, with the number of flowers I'd cut and 1/2" between each flower, I ended up with a lei that's about 30" long, just the perfect size for this little bear. You can make your spacers as large as 1-1/2" and you'll still end up with a pretty – and longer – lei.
I hope you enjoyed my Sizzix Big Shot Lei! And there are lots more Big Shot projects on this blog tour today. Your next stop is the blog of
Tammy Howell, also know as the Tarheel Stamper!
It's a zoo over there! A really cute one – really, go look – just click on her name and you'll be on your way. Have fun with the rest of the tour!!
Oh, and if you'd like to go back to Dawn Dickinson's blog to get another taste of that yummy ice cream cone, just click on her name and you'll be on your way back. If you'd like to read more about VC Rocks, you can visit the VC Rocks blog, too!
Subscribe to the comments for this postMore Paper Dolls (er, Bears)
Aloha, all!
I mentioned earlier that I was going to be working to make a magnet board for my grandchildren to use for the Build-A-Bear-Workshop (BABW) bears and their clothes. I’ve finally go the magnet routine down, and thought I’d share it. I’m not sure when I’m going to get back to more of this project because, believe it or not, there’s more than BABW and the Sizzix Bears in the mini catalog that you’ll be seeing before long. TONS more!! And I’d like to whet your appetite for some of the holiday-relates projects that you can make with the wonderful new products in the mini.
Here’s my first magnetic bear with his magnetic clothes (or is a "her"? We have skirts for the girl bears, but I’d think a girl bear could wear slacks, too, huh?). I found it a bit tricky to get magnets working on all levels with the bear and the clothes. But I finally did figure out a fairly simple way of getting the job done, and I’ve included a tutorial on that here on my blog.
Stay tuned as tomorrow I’ll have the whole magnet board set up with bears and other Stampin’ Up! related "stuff."
Convention Swaps!
Aloha, all!
Long ago I decided that I was NOT going to do swaps for this convention. For one thing, I just didn’t have that good an experience at last year’s convention with my swaps. For another thing, I was getting ready for my Convention Late Night Stampers demonstration, and we have a new puppy (check out his blog!), and DH has not been feeling well. So swaps were not in the picture.
BUT, I found by Saturday that I was just about caught up (well, so I thought, but more about that in a moment). So I decided that I would, indeed, make some swaps. Not many, you understand. Who knew what might come up at the last minute. But I did get my craft room cleaned up from all the stuff I’d been doing the last couple of weeks, and came up with a design. As I mentioned last week, I just love the Hibiscus in Greenhouse Garden. We have so many of those lovely flowering shrubs throughout our Hawaiian garden, that I knew that this stamp set would be a keeper (meaning, I will NOT get rid of it when it retires.)
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So, as I write this, my swaps are not done. But, once again, life has gotten in the way. BUT all the adhesives are adhered, and I WILL finish these before convention opens on Wednesday. I may be finishing them as I wait in line at Memento Mall. But I will be swapping! Here’s a copy of the finished card, and the condition of all the various parts.
Oh–and what I used for the swap: Greenhouse Garden, Teeny Tiny Wishes, Sizzix Scallops #2 die, Modern Label Punch, Sizzix Stampin’ Up! Movers and Shapers Punch Windows die, Circle Scissors Plus, Regal Rose and Garden Green (well, isn’t that appropriate) card stock, and a Stampin’ Up! Sizzix Texturz plate.
Later this week, I’ll share some of the cards that I received in return from my swaps. They will all be wonderful!
A Week for Challenges!
Aloha, all!
This past week’s challenge in the group called Stampin Up Late Night Stampers is for a card that is any size or shape other than a standard A2 size card (the kind that’s 4-1/4" by 5-1/2." I think that it became the "standard" back when we were marking printed cards out of business sized paper that you could fold in half vertically and horizontally to make a great greeting card. Back then anything that you could print on your computer in color was great!
I have ended up making 4 such cards, each of them a different shape and size.
Today’s card I made just for the challenge, not having any idea that I would be making more non-A2 cards the rest of the week!
To make this card, I started with a piece of cardstock 4-1/2" high and 9" wide. I folded it to make a 4-1/2" square card. I then ran the folded card through my Sizzix Big Shot using the new Stampin’ Up! Scallop Square die. I set the folded edge just inside the left scallop cutting edge of the die.
The colors are Crushed Curry, Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive, with some Crushed Curry 1/2" Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon. The stamped image is from the Oval All Stamp Set, on Whisper White card stock, punched with the Scallop Oval Punch. I made the larger Scallop Oval with one of the pieces from the Sizzix Stampin’ Up! Movers and Shapers Punch Windows die set.
Monday I’ll send this out to a friend!
More from the FCE Fair
Aloha, all!
As I mentioned last week, I spent quite a bit of time getting some cards and gifts from Robin’s Craft Room ready for the Family and Community Education (FCE) Annual Fair.
In addition to the little Pillow Box favor boxes I made, I also made up some gift cards with the Diaper Fold Pouch decorated with a variety of Sizzix flowers and other Stampin’ Up! Embellishments. Even with all the flowers and embellishments (including the delish Life Savers Lollipop!), the gift pouches fit nicely into a standard Stampin’ Up! Medium Envelope (an A2 size envelope). All of these, along with their envelopes, are also packaged in a Clear Translucent Medium Envelope.
Early in the Fair day, the little Pillow Box treats and greeting cards sold better than the gift pouches. But then I was on the day’s agenda to do a demonstration of paper crafting. I had chosen a hands-on demonstration on how to make the Diaper Fold Pouch, and gave every one a 7-1/2" square piece of Designer Series Paper to try one out. When I held up one of these packaged pouches to show how a finished project could look, one audience member bought it on the spot and all but two of the rest sold immediately afterwards! It’s good to demo stuff!!
Tomorrow, I’ll show a close up of the pouch, with details about the embellishments. If you’d like to try your hand at making your own, just click on the link above to get detailed instructions for the folding.
Oh, and you should know that every cent made selling these gift pouches, and the rest of the items I made goes directly to our FCE club for its charitable work. If you’re involved with a charitable organization, Stampin’ Up! products create an excellent quality gift to sell! I’ll show off another project I made early next week.
More Personalizing!
Aloha, all!
We had a totally busy day in paradise today–starting with a visit from an electrician who fixed that smoke alarm that has been going off at 4 in the morning more than I’d care to have it go off (um, actually, one time would be more than I’d care; but I’ve been patient). I’m truly looking forward to a full night’s sleep tonight!
After a few other social engagements, I finally had a chance to play in the Craft Room, and finished the second of the two ornaments that I wanted to make this year for the wreath being built by my son (Gus) and grandson (Quin). Yesterday I featured the "Q" ornament. Today the "G." Actually, Gus is not the name that I gave him at birth. His given name is Andrew. How he ended up a "Gus" is a story for another time.
But Gus he is, so a "G" is called for. I wanted the two ornaments to be similar but not the same colors. So today I reverted to one of my favorite of the Stampin’ Up! 2008 embellishments, the "Little Felt Flurries" (113697). No, I have not used them up!!! In fact, I can’t imagine you could use all those wonderful embellishments up unless you were mass-producing cards and ornaments. I rarely mass produce as I like to think about each and every card and ornament I make, so I tend to be slower than many of my fellow Stampin’ Up! demonstrators. In fact, I’m thinking of saving some of the red snowflakes for Valentine’s cards. Hey, it still snows in February somewhere in our wonderful country! Maybe even in Hawaii (I’ll let you know when I first see snow this season).
The "G" is from the same Serif Essentials Sizzix alphabet set (113464) as the "Q" of yesterday’s blog entry. For the "G" I used white self-adhesive felt, added some Little Felt Flurries, and mounted it all on Glorious Green card stock. This was cut using the Scallop Circle #2 Sizzix Die (113469) (as was yesterday’s gold scallop circle).
I’ll be punching a small hole in both ornaments (to make them easy to attach to the wreath) and mailing them off to Oregon tomorrow.
Happy Stamping!
Robin
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