Broomstick display box.

Here's part two of my previous post...The box for the treat broom.

Materials.

4 Sheets of A4 card

Acetate 3  3/4  x 11 inches

1/4 inch wide double sided tape,  1/2 wide double sided tape and some 12 x 12  Halloween themed paper.

 Optional. cat punch

Approximately 15 inches of orange ribbon.

Take 2 sheets of A4 card  and cut 1/4 of an inch  off the long side of both pieces, it  should  measures 11 3/4  by  8inches when cut.

  Score length ways down both pieces at 4 inches 7inches and 7 1/2 inches. 

Take one sheet of the card and on the 4 inch panels, cut a window aperture. 

Cutting the window. Draw a large rectangle on one of the 4 inch wide panels. 

At the top and bottom measure and mark 1/2 inch in from the edge,   a draw a  faint line between the two marks.  Do the same on the other side... from the 4 inch score line.

At the top edge measure down 1  1/4 inches on each side and mark.  Join the marks with a  light pencil line. see photo below.

From the bottom edge measured up and mark 1 inch at both sides and draw a line to join up the  bottom line with the two side lines. You should now have drawn   a large rectangle which you can now cut out.

With the window cut out. It's time to add the acetate.

Using  the 1/4 inch wide double sided  tape, frame the aperture.

 Peel back about an inch of the backing tape, but don't take it off completely.

Don't use wet glue, you don't want any glue near the acetate. If it gets on the acetate it's not easy to remove.

Position the acetate over the aperture, making sure it covers all the strips of tape completely and keeping it flat. Anchor the corners on those exposed sections of tape. Hold the acetate firmly in place and slowly pull each piece of backing paper away and press the acetate down as you remove the backing paper.

Once all four strips of backing paper have been removed and the acetate is secure,  adhere  a strip of 1/2 inch wide double sided tape either side of the window, running from top to bottom.  Peel back 1 inch of the backing tape on each side as you did for attaching the acetate.

Cut two pieces of card 1/2 inch wide  x 11 3/4 inches long . Position one strip on top of each strip of  double sided tape. Slowly peel away the tape. 

Make sure they don't overlap the window edge. You really don't want them to show through the window.

                        These strips will neaten the inside edges and reinforce the sides of the window.

                                                      Don't worry about the top and bottom.

                      

Apply glue to the  long  1/2 inch  glue tab and  join the window sheet to the second  sheet of card  so you now have all four sides of the box in one piece.  

                     Once stuck firmly,  repeat on the other 1/2 inch glue strip to complete the box shape.

Cut a piece of  suitable Halloween themed paper 11 X 3 3/4 inches  and glue it to the  inside back panel of  the box.   A word of  Warning , Don't choose a paper that is dark or the broom blend into the background and will not be instantly visible.

For the base.

Cut a piece of card 5 x 6 inches and score at 1 inch on all sides.

The cut out the corners cutting off the score lines . This will help the base fit better.

Fold and burnish the score lines. Push the base into the bottom of the box. 

It should be a tight fit.  If it's a little too tight try tugging  the flaps over a little more and burnish at the same time. 

You could also try trimming a miniscule amount off those corners. That may be all it needs.

Push the base into the bottom of the box.

Make sure the flaps line up with the bottom edges of the box and the floor  is pretty much in line with the bottom of the  window,  flip each flap down a little  towards the middle of the box, and apply  a little glue to the flaps in turn and push it back in place. Making sure the bottom of each flap lines up with each edge. If they don't,  you could find you have a wobbly bottom. 

Use clips to hold the flaps while they dry.

In the Photo below you can see how the base forms the  platform for the broom to stand on.

Now for the top, This is a little more involved as it is really two tops although the finishing off top is optional.

 Cut two pieces of card-5 inches by 4 inches and score at 1 inch on all four sides just as you did for the base.  

It's basically exactly the same but with a small hole in the top to hold the broom handle and a ribbon handle to make removing it easier. You won't glue this piece in though.

Draw two diagonal lines across the card  to find the centre. Die cut a hole big enough for the broom handle to fit in snuggly.  Repeat on the second piece of card.

Take the piece of card without the flaps, and cut two slots. One each side of the hole, approximately 

1 1/2  inches away from the hole.  

Cut a piece of ribbon about 8  inches long  and thread the ends through each slot and secure with glue.

 I used grosgrain on mine  which is a bit more difficult to stick, so I resorted to sticking it down with duct tape. Then  I glued the whole piece of card on top of the card with the flaps, lining up the holes in the centre and sandwiching the ribbon ends between both pieces of card.

Now the following steps are optional.

I cut four piece of DSP  2 of which measured 2 x 3 inches and the other two measured 2  x 4 inches.

I scored them  all on the short side at 1 inch and folded them in half.

I applied glue to the inside of each piece and adhered them over the flaps.

The first lid is now complete.  Fit the lid into the top of the box just you did with the base. This will help keep the box rigid as you decorate the  rest of the box.

To decorate the box, cut two strips of DSP   11 1/4 inches  x 3/8ths of an inch for the sides of the window.    

Cut  1 piece 7/8ths of an inch by 4 inches for the bottom of the window.

For the top cut 1 piece   1 inch by 4 inches.

              Check everything lines up and that you have an even border before sticking in place. 

Just in case you have to trim a little bit off as I did.

I lined up the edge of the DSP with the edge of the window as I stuck the down.

Cut one piece of Halloween themed  dsp  11 1/4 inches by 4 1/2 inches  for the back.

 Cut two pieces  11 1/4 inches  by  2  3/4 inches for the sides and glue in place.

The next bit is optional. It's a cover for the top. I made this cover to prevent anyone using the ribbon as a carrying handle. As the first lid is really to secure the 

broom, so there is a danger of the box falling off if it's carried by the ribbon. 

So I chose  to make the cover lid to reduce the temptation of carrying it by the ribbon.

Cut a piece of DSP  3  7/8ths of an inch  by 2  7/8ths of an inch.

And cut a second  piece of  card  3  7/8 ths of an inch by   7/8 ths of an inch  and score at 1/2 an inch all the way round fold and burnish all score lines.

Snip into the corners or cut them off completely.

Make a single slot in the middle of the DSP,  feed both ends of a piece of ribbon approximately 4 inches long through the slot to form a loop and secure with glue. 

  

Then glue this to the top of the piece of card. 

You don't want this cover to be a tight  fit or the top will tear when the loop is pulled.

  Make a tag  and attach it to the ribbon below the cover.

Fold the sides down on the cover  and  drop it in the top. There is enough room in the top to place a few flattish sweets or lollipops before dropping in the cover.   Giving the recipient two surprises in one. 

I think I have covered everything, If I have neglected to say something or haven't explained something too well, drop me a  line and I' ll get back to you. But for now it's goodnight from me.

Treat bags

I have been busy making batches treat bags for the boys I work with. I have given up on making the bags themselves in favour of envelopes. I seal them and then decorate the front differently each week. Once decorated I trim off the end so I fill the envelopes with sweets.  These are last week's treat bags. 

 I used torn paper to create the background mountains and brushed ink over the edges of the paper. Once I had covered the front of the envelope with colour, I began stamping the flora and fawner in purple for the distant objects and black for the foreground objects.

These little scenes  seem to be the boys favourite style of decoration for these bags.

They've even started to collect them. Which is a lovely compliment to me.

 I use stampin up inks and blending brushes, Lavinia stamps and Versafine Clare black ink for the silhouettes, Stickles glitter glue for some sparkly highlights.

Inspiration is everywhere.

 Sometimes I'm asked where I get my inspiration and ideas from, my answer is everywhere. 

These cards are the perfect example of that. 

Last week while travelling on the motorway a van  delivering wine caught my eye. It had an attractive company design on the side, which got me wondering several things. First one being do I have a stamp suitable, two, which stampin up ink pad is closest to the colour on the van and three, could I reproduce the a similar design that would work on a card. 

Well I didn't have a grape stamp that would work, but I had a vine like leaf that may work. The above card was the result of playing with one leaf stamp from the autumn splendour stamp set, heat embossing it multiple times on white card, and using clear embossing powder. 

Then blending  a mix of blueberry bushel and soft succulent ink over the embossed card. 

The card below was made using the pieces I trimmed off the panel above. These would normally have gone straight in the bin.  But I had been watching a of lot videos on working with scraps, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. It's not my cup of tea, but it shows that you can make a half decent card out of the scraps that you would normally throw away.

And if you'd like to the design that captured my interest... Take a look at the back end of the truck in the photo below.

 

Don't be fooled by the front of this card... it's all happening on the inside.

This is a card I designed about 10 years ago, but never completed. Earlier this week I came across the prototype and decided to give it another go. It took three attempts but that was because I kept getting  ink on my fingers and it transferred to the card. But I persevered and this was the final result.

 

I started out with a sheet of basic white card  cut to  5  7/8 th  x 8 1/4 inches for the back panel. 

The front panel was cut to  8 1/4  x 5 inches. 

I stamped the balloons on both panels and masked them off before doing the ink blending.  

There are three score lines on the front panel and one in the middle of the back panel. But I'll come back to that later.

Warning!!  Do NOT score before completing the blending. The ink collects on the score lines making them much darker and unsightly and any stamping over the score lines will be patchy.

I  used torn paper and a blending brush and an assortment of green inks along with so saffron ink for the fields and blueberry bushel for the sky. 

The stamp sets I used are retired S.U  sets called,  Lovely as a tree and Up up and away. I used my cloud stencil, which is basically cloud shapes cut into the edges of a page from a glossy mag and blended ink over the edge to form the clouds. 

The front panel (The bit that folds out) I stamped the first balloon as close to the top as possible and masked it off.  I cut in half diagonally across the long side but in a wavy/hilly way, cutting around the red balloon.  After blending in the fields and a little sky. You may notice in photos that the sky disappears  later... I decided I didn't need it, so cut some off, then decided to do the front panel again without the sky.                                                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                   

 

The small trees are the single leaf stamp in the Lovely as a tree set.  

I began stamping the trees.  

Stamp the rest of the balloons  on the back panel and masked off before blending the sky.

  

With a the fine end of a dark brown stamp and write marker, I drew in branches  and thickened the leaf stem to turn it in to a trunk. I scribbled some shrubbery around the base of the trees to ground them.  Then coloured the leaves with Copic markers, a light  green at the top and dark green at the bottom and not forgetting to add some green on the shrubs.

The last thing to stamp were the trees in the foreground. 

On the front panel, I  scored a half  an inch in from each end to wrap around the back of the back panel and I scored a third line in the middle.

Score the centre of the back panel in the centre.

Fold the score lines and adhere the front to the back, by wrapping and gluing the the half inch flaps around the back of the back panel.

 I cut a 6x 4 1/8 th inch base  card in white and blended some clouds on the front to match the inside. Punched out a balloon  in white and coloured it. Confession Time... I did actually stamp the balloon on the front and then smudged it, hence the punched balloon. It was slightly bigger than the stamped one, so it covered my mistake well. Once all the blending and stamping was done I adhered the inside into the base card with Tombow mono glue.

 Push the front flap into the card to fit in a standard 6x4 envelope.