Mel Stampz: LPS {Butterflies} Pretty Petals Purse

Amazingly enough, I still have that blammed migraine. It feels like it's been weeks, but it's "just" been a few days-Dag-nab-it! Well, maybe I can chase it away with a little stamp therapy?

This little red bag is for the newest LPS Monday challenge. I finally caved & bought a couple of Lauren's "my timeless templates." Susanna was just making them look way too good (it's all her fault! hehehe) ;O) The templates come with instructions, but I've just included a couple of things I did with this one, in case anyone's curious. :O)

1...LPS challenge: your favourite colour combo
and a Pretty Petals Purse box:
2...making the pieces
3...embellishing the box
4...assembling the whole thing

-1-

What's your favourite colour combo?

The latest Little Paper Shop colour challenge is to use your favourite combo. And you thought that would be turquoise for me, hey? My favourite colour combo is almost always monochromatic (shades of turquoise ROFL), but I thought I'd shake it up a bit with red & white. Can you tell I don't get out much, lately? ;O)

All the details will be on the LPS blog here:
(Monday morning)

Hope you can play,
'cause how easy-peasy is that challenge?!?

-2-

...make the box pieces:

This is one of Lauren's Timeless Templates: Pretty Petal Purse. I think this is the first thing (other than a cricut project) that I've ever made on here without sharing the free template, but I couldn't resist buying a couple. It's so bloomin' brilliant how this goes together!

{Butterflies} acrylic stamp set from LPS
Distress ink (Aged Mahogany)
Clear embossing powder
White craft ink & pearlescent clear e.p.
Heat gun
Riding Hood Red cardstock
Vellum cardstock (for butterflies)
BasicGrey paper Aged&Confused Sublime Vintage Floral ACS-050
Double-sided tape
Tombow Monomulti
White acrylic paint (for strengthening the vine)
Paper piercer
Red embroidery thread & needle
Circular object to trace
Pencil & eraser
Scissors
Scor-Pal or other scoring tool

Step 1} Make a pretty petals box base

A) Print box template on patterned paper & Cut it out
B) Score & fold it
C) Adhere cut patterned paper to cardstock & trim around it
D) Marker edges to hide dotted lines

Step 2} Print the piece that makes the sides, cut it out, & score it (I removed the dotted lines in Photoshop for a clean look.)

Step 3} Make a handle by adhering a strip of 12 x 12 patterned paper to some matching cardstock.

Step 4} Stitch the handle, if you like.

-3-

...embellish the box

Step 1} To make a pointed petal shape: Trace the side of any circular object, twice, shifting it to conflate it the shape into an eye shape)

If you want you can mark the height out in pencil first so you'll have an exact measurement. This one was 4-3/8" high. The neat thing about this is you can make your own proportions by changing that height.

Step 2} Cut the petal shape out

Step 3} Trace the petal shape onto the back of patterned paper to make a second matching one

Step 4} Stamp the petals with {Butterflies} vine in Distress ink & emboss it

Step 5} Adhere the stamped petals to cardstock & cut out

Step 6} Stamp more vines, emboss them & cut them out.

Cheap trick: a sneaky way to make the paper really durable for finer cuts like these is to paint the back of the paper with white acrylic paint.

Step 7} Cut out butterflies, Fold them a little from the bodies (to shape wings up) and stick two together to make 'em double-layered.

-4-

...assemble the whole thing

Adhere the side piece to the pretty petals base

Adhere the petal pieces

Attach the handle (I made a quick pair of liners for the inside by tracing the curve line of the template, so it would hold the handle securely):

Adhere the vine leaves:

The vines cut apart nicely, so you can have different heights or single leaves. :O)

...and finally, add the butterflies:

Last, but certainly not least, I'd like to send a shout out to Ann, who is joining us LPS peeps. Welcome Ann! :O) (Her work is so gorgeous! You can check it all out on her fab blog: Stamp With Me.)

See ya Tuesday; maybe this stinker
of a headache will hit the trails! ;o)