Tissue Box Covers

I saw these pretty tissue box covers, by Angela Barkhouse on the JustRite Stamps blog and thought what lovely gifts they would make.

Angela shares her tutorial for making them on the JustRite blog (see link above), but my tissue box wasn't quite the same size as hers, so I decided to design my own.

They are actually very simple to make. I assembled the box from offcuts of mountboard and covered it with scrapbook paper (K & Co. and Hot Off The Press). I used Nestie dies (Labels 5) to cut the hole in the top and make the side decorations, along with a Cheery Lynn die (the butterfly) and Leone Em punch ( the fern). The sides opposite each other are identical. The top and bottom borders were cut with the Die-namics Scallop Ribbon Border which makes a double sided strip, but I wanted just a narrow border so I cut it in half lengthways.

And that was it done! Easy peasy! The scrapbook papers were some I had had for years, and everything else was offcuts and snippets, so I even managed to use up some more old stash!

It would make a great gift, but I think I might just keep this one! However, I'm entering it in ValeryAnne's inaugural Butterfly Challenge, which began last week and which will be running fortnightly. I really hope it takes off (!), it's the perfect challenge for me!

Thanks for looking.

Stamping Sensations July Challenge

For a change we have a sketch for you this month at Stamping Sensations, designed by our very own Tracy, and also we would like to see summer colours. You can combine the sketch with summer colours, or just follow the sketch, or just use summer colours, it's up to you!

Our lovely sponsor for July is the very popular Little Claire, who have generously donated a bumper prize, including some of their newest stamps!

I've used a Little Claire owls stamp (which just happens to be my all-time favourite owl stamp!) for my card. Or should I say part of the stamp. To make it fit with the sketch, I masked off the two outer owls before I inked it up.

The owls were coloured with Promarkers to match the colours in the background paper, which is from the Shades Of Summer Background Papers pad by Crafty Individuals.

 The circles (plain and scallop) are Spellbinders dies, the scallop border die is by Die-namics and the leaf punch is by Leone Em. A ribbon and some little pearly flowers provided the finishing touches.

I am really looking forward to seeing this month's entries! If you'd like the chance to win those gorgeous goodies from Little Claire, do pop over to the Challenge Blog, where my talented teamies have come up with some beautiful samples to inspire you. It's amazing how they are all so different considering we have all followed the same sketch!