Try Something New .....

Yipeee its that time again, when I'm offically allowed to craft.

Dont you know I've commitments to the Besties group to keep... well thats my story and I'm sticking to it. So I crept away from the festive activities and got to play with my Christmas presents, But I'm happy to share and heres what I came up with

 The first photo shows the 'collection'. The card was really my original intention but as I was working on it, the tiny bag and doll idea developed, actually it was fun to do too - Hope you like them

I was lucky enough to recently purchase a diecut machine- Yes its a significant investment but I just love it. It has been used alot in this weeks post.  I chose this Bestie image beacuse of the HUGE eyes and gorgeous flowers. Lilac cardstock was embossed, Using my watercolour pencils I toned the Bestie flowers with the card. Using my Tonic punches and stamp set - I created the lily and again coloured it with the pencils.Using two of my new dies - I added a second flower and the border

 I think maybe in this photo its easier to see the flowers and dies used.

                                     

This is a just for fun post, I coloured using my waterclour pencils img106 which is really only the head of a Bestie. I gave her a body, dress and every glamour girl needs a bag

I had been given some pipe cleaners by a friend and I thought they might make a suitable body for this. Again using the diecut machine- I cut a scalloped edged circle on very light material (netting) and made that into the dress. I cut a tiny hole in the centre of the dress pushed the pipecleaner through and stitched it into place, Using double-sided tape and a blob of glue, I stuck the head to the pipecleaner.

To make the bag I used the diecut machine, Xcut embossing folder, Joy and Xcut dies. I took some photos as I was going along ( I thought they might be helpful.)

I cut out some card, very roughly as you can see. Two pieces for each of the sides, the shorter rectangle for the handle of the bag, and the longer strip for the join between the two sides. This needs to be approx. the same width as the handle but with extra allowed on each side as it will be scored and attached to the front and back of the bag 

 Using the dies, I ran each of the sides and the handle through the Xcut machine.

 Placed the sections in the embossing folder Note as as the folder wasn't long enough, the longer piece had to be put through twice

Next the middle section was scored ( photo is a bit blurred but hope you get the idea)  

 Rather than use a rule- I measured the length of the embossed square and scored the 'centre piece' at appropriate points, bent the card, and did the same along the bottom and other side.

 Using double-sided tape, It was stuck in place

 Double sided tape was then put on the open side and the second 'square' was stuck down

 To attach the handle to the bag I cheated a little bit, two tabs were made as shown above. I snipped the center column at each end of the handle, slipped the tabs through and stuck them together with double sided tape

Doing it this way - saved me having to measure things exactly , it allowed a bit of wiggle room when attaching the handle to the bag. 

 The handle was attached by placing the double sided tape on the outside of each of the tabs, Then placed inside the bag to keep it neat.

 Once created - then the embellishments can be added as required. I kept it rather simple as I just loved the tiny butterflies and very sweet tiny flower, Thanks to Gill for these dies  :) They were coloured with watercolour markers 

 Thank you for stopping by today and I hope the above instructions were clear.
To see what the other Besties Design Team members have created - check out http://mybestiesuk.blogspot.ie/

Wishing you all peace health and happiness for 2014 and hope you'll stop by again soon.