Cascading box

Hello my friends.  My posts get fewer and fewer these days, don't they?  I'm so busy with Craft-Dee BowZ that I neglect to post on my original blog.  The only reason this is being posted  on Ciao Bella is because it does not  have a bow (shhhh!  I know that's blasphemy for me!)!  Yikes!  How could I create a project without a bow?

Having said that, this is something I had seen on YouTube quite a few years ago and I tripped across it again and decided it's time to try it.  It was more than easy!!  The toughest part is making up your mind how you want to embellish it!  I kept it fairly minimal since I'll be teaching this in December.

I've called it the Cascading Box project.  I have no idea (as usual) where I found the original and what it was called.  This was so much fun to make!  You start with a 6 x 11-3/4" piece of DP for the box base and then create four small boxes (for the inside - see picture below), origami style, and a cover.

Here's the completed closed project.  I used IO tree dies as well as the small snowflakes which were adhered and  suspended on white thread.   I just wanted some sort of movement with this project for some reason.  The ferns are also from IO.

And this is what it looks liked opened up.  Isn't it a great, fun thing to do?  And doesn't it look like the boxes are cascading, hence the name I dubbed it?

 

Here's a close-up of the box cover.  I did this using five different snowflake dies. I used dimensional tape (sometimes doubling it up) on each layer to give it the height that I wanted.   I then glittered them once they were all together by dipping a paintbrush into PPA glue and brushing it on and then sprinkling white glitter over it all.  It's really much prettier in person.  The pine boughs were done in a similar way using a frosting glitter.

Well, that's it for now.  Hope this inspires you!

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella! 

Those teeny, tiny flower dies!

Oh my!  I just fell in love with IO's Spiral Flowers die!  This 5-die set makes the cutest little flowers ever!  Here's a sample of 3 cards I'll be doing for my Die of the Month class for Kept Creations on May 3rd.  Each month I introduce a new die or dies and show the ladies different ways in which to use them (refer to my Mustaches dies post HERE).

To give you an idea of how tiny these flowers are, I placed one on the head of Abraham Lincoln on a penny.  Take a peek!  Isn't that a scream?

This first card I combined some Art Impressions stamps to create a wreath and then shaped my flowers to decorate the wreath.  I used a Spellbinder die for the card base and topped the look off with a tiny 1" bow made on the Craft-Dee BowZ to complete the look.  A tiny bit of Stickles was added to make it shimmer a bit.

This next card was made using IO's Shake Its windows.  I created my own colored cardstock for the flowers by using different Memento inks and blending them onto the cardstock.  I then die cut the flowers, rolled them and placed them inside the Shake Its windows.  Before sealing it up, I added some Prills (gotta love them!!!) and a bit of glitter which is a little hard to see in this photo).

Then, to encourage my student s to get more out of their dies in an unconventional way, I simply die cut the spiral flowers and glued them down flat onto the same colored card stock giving it an embossed look.  I added Dimensional Pearls to the centers and the sentiment is backed with Washi Tape then tapped it all with my dots stamp.

Here's another card I did just for the heck of it.  I used this lovely Lattice Background die by Spellbinders on a 4-1/4" square card, added my tiny flowers and some extra leaves (Memory Box) and some Viva Pearl Pen for accents and it was done.

And here's a close-up of the flowers.  So adorable and so many possibilities!

Well I hope you've enjoyed this post and I'd love to hear from you.  Even better, I'd love to see some of you at this class.  We do have lots of fun with dies!

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella!