Easter Baskets and Boxes

Coming up soon is my Easter Baskets and Boxes class and after scouring tons of blogs and sites for ideas, these are the gorgeous containers I came up with for this year.

A cutie in daffodil, this wee basket is made from the petal cone die:

Using the scallop envelope die, this one features Spring blossoms and I added some fabric to match the dotted ribbon (idea cased from Connie Collins):

Of course there has to be an adorable punch art Easter bunny; this one is from a tutorial by Kay Sha (which you can see here) and I used the Fancy Favour die:

It can easily become a basket with the addition of a nice handle.

And no boxes class would be complete without a mini milk carton hexagon box. I've watercoloured the cute bunnies from the Everybunny set to decorate the sides:

I made a couple of other projects too just to give my ladies some more ideas. Here's a carrot container made from the petal cone die (filled with chocolate bunnies, lol) and an Easter bonnet made from an empty brad/button container:

Please note that no Easter eggs were harmed during the making of this blog post.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Wisteria Overload

Some friends are coming to play next week and they asked to make my Easter milk carton treat box from this post last year. I decided to update it with some fresh colours and I really like how it turned out. Have a look to see who's nestled in amongst the grass:

Materials used:

• stamps - A Good Egg (retired)
• card - wisteria wonder, certainly celery, so saffron, pool party patterns dsp
• other - mini milk carton die, grass punch (MS), certainly celery grosgrain ribbon, peach parfait marker, dimensionals, Big Shot, Crop-o-dile, sponge daubers, basic black marker

So cute! Might just have to add this one to my Easter Baskets class next month.

If you haven't made one of these great boxes yet I have a tutorial here - just omit the legs part.

The sun is shining again today, hooray! And that makes me think of flowers and nature so you can see that influence in my card, which is pretty self-explanatory; take a lookie:

Materials used:

• stamps - Letter It
• card - wisteria wonder, basic black, whisper white, calypso coral, Berry Blossoms dsp
• ink - wisteria wonder, calypso coral
• other - pearls, boho blossoms punch, dimensionals, sponge daubers

Very retro! Takes me back to my teens ... ah, memories! 

Hope the sun is shining at your place too. Thanks for dropping in.

Cheers

Kez

Honey At Last!

I don't think I've ever had a project that has taken me as long to complete as this one - it has been literally MONTHS in the making, LOL!

The card was actually made in April of last year and I'd never used it, then earlier this year I saw an idea for a matching gift box using the mini milk carton. I began constructing it but didn't have any product I was happy with to give a beehive effect - until last weekend, that is. At the papercraft show in Penrith DD13 spotted the PERFECT embellishment and I finally got to finish my project!

And what gift would I put inside the box? Why, chocolate honeycomb of course! LOL!

Materials used:

• stamps - Just Buzzin' By
• card - basic black, whisper white, summer sun
• other - dazzling diamonds, dimensionals, markers, black taffeta ribbon, mini milk carton die, Big Shot, chicken wire panel by Dusty Attic, 32mm circle punch, cropodile

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Unconvention 4 - Other Projects

Finally got my photos sorted and can show you the totally GORGEOUS project that Rob had for us to do at our Unconvention.

We were making a lovely 6-sided box using the mini milk carton die and Rob had tons of beautiful samples for us to see the different ways you can do them. Here are some photos of her samples:

They were all stunning but I think everyone's favourite was the Artistic Etchings one shown above. Just gorgeous. Now I need to find time to case it!

Here's the one we all made:

The others coloured flowers from the Pretties Kit with markers, but I used DSP and the Birds and Blossoms die for mine. The colours are "kerry cobbler" and daffodil delight - don't they look stunning together?

Well, back with photos of other swaps when I get organised. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

Easter Goodies

Over at Crafters Anonymous I joined in the Easter Swap for a bit of fun. Our brief was:

• Rule 1: Item MUST contain Chocolate
• Rule 2: It can be any medium
• Rule 3: It must be in a bag or box

Since my swap buddy, Theresa, has let me know that she has received my goodies, I can now show them to you.

Firstly I made an easel card and my colours were heavily influenced by some lovely cards made by Jenny Moors as I liked her Spring-like combo. I pulled out the A Good Egg set for it's annual dust off! and set to work. 

Now, boxes aren't really my strength but I figure I'll only get better if I practice (that's the theory anyway!), so firstly I had an attempt at a box made with the scallop envelope die. I'm not completely sure that it is perfectly square, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Here's my effort:

Next I made a box made from the mini milk carton die and I felt more confident with this one. I've gone with the simple tie top version and yes, there's a chick on all six sides. I think I'll be making some more of these; they were reasonably easy and I love how it looks a lot like a bag.

The best part was filling them with chocolate goodies! I added in some little chicks too for a bit of fun.

Materials used:

• stamps - A Good Egg
• card - peach parfait, so saffron, Baja breeze, watercolour paper
• DSP - so saffron patterned (retired), peach parfait patterned, Baja breeze patterned (retired)
• ribbon - Baja breeze seam binding, pumpkin pie grosgrain
• punches - scallop circle, XL scallop circle, 2 3/8" circle, non SU circle, large oval, scallop oval, decorative label
• other - mini milk carton die, scallop envelope die, so saffron brads, crop-o-dile

Hope you're having fun making Easter projects too! Tomorrow I'll show you the lovely things Theresa made for me!

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Mini Milk Carton Carrier

A few people have asked, so this is where I got the instructions for the mini milk carton carriers in my blog post yesterday. These instructions are for both the two-box and four-box holder.

www.stampingpro.com

Click on the Instruction Sheets tab at the top, then scroll down the list to Milk Carton Holder.

Check out Chiaki's other fantastic things while you are there!

Cheers
Kez

Boxes and Bags

I have a class tonight making Christmas Gift Boxes and Bags, so I've been busy as a beaver making up samples to show just a few of the lovely things you can make. We won't be making all of these, but they are great for inspiration. Some of these are things that have been on my "Must Do" list for quite some time, so it's been great to finally get around to trying them!

One that I've been meaning to do for while is a Fantasy or Stepper box, so here's my first attempt. Much easier than it looks, luckily!

I also made an acetate box at last, which unfortunately was NOT easier than it looks - in fact I found it quite fiddly, so although it looks good, it won't be on the list for my class to make!

The Haute Tote bag we made for Mother's Day looks terrific in Kerry Cobbler Xmas paper.

One thing I had to try out is a carrier for the mini milk cartons - soooo cute! Love these little cartons! You can do a two or a four!

The Xmas Stocking box always looks good and especially in this year's papers:

Of course a gift card holder never goes astray and this is a different one to what I've used before. I dragged out some retired Purely Pomegranate card and papers and they look gorgeous with the crochet trim.

The old bag in a box (or is it box in a bag?) is a firm favourite - so simple to make and you can vary the size up or down.

Box #2 is terrific for little things and you can join two together to make a little carrier too:

And of course you can just do regular boxes in many variations to suit your needs:

Hope you're having fun making your own gift containers for pressies - if you'd like me to bring this class to your place, just let me know. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kez

More Photos from Sunday

Here are a few more photos of my lovely helpers at the Cards for our Troops day on Sunday. (excuse the names being in odd places, I can't get this silly program to do what I want!)

 Robyn

 Lynda

 Jenny and Maureen

 Filomena

Rae

You can see I kept them all working hard! LOL! Actually, they worked soooooo hard that I gave them all an "early mark"! Yes, that's right, we had everything finished ahead of schedule! How's that for dedication?

In all of these photos you'll see a little white bag with handles. Each lady received a Thank You bag of goodies from me - I do have photos but am having real computer issues at the moment and can't upload them from my camera. I'll get them up asap.

It was a great day and I'm already looking forward to next year's event!

Cheers

Kez

Edited to add: Here's a photo of the goodies in the thank you bags - an owl giant paper clip bookmark, mini milk carton with ribbon samples, calendar fridge magnet and Smarties tube (kindly made for me by Robyn). This one seems to be empty - don't know how that happened!!!

Cuteness On A Small Scale

As my class tonight are making a Halloween card, I suddenly had an idea yesterday to make a Frankenstein mini milk carton monster. DD12 and I had sooooooo much fun making Frankie that we kept going and made a Mummy and a Dracula too! Here are my versions:

Cute or what? I tell ya, I was glad I have so many SU punches! LOL! Dracula's hair, nose, eyes and fangs are all made from punches - wonder if you can guess which ones?

Here are DD12's little cuties:

I love the bandage uncurling on her Mummy!

Hope you like 'em! Thanks for calling in today.

Cheers
Kez