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!