Birthday Project

It was my sister's birthday this week and I decided to use stamps from the CB Spring is in the air and Spring Foliage sets again for her card. I stamped the crocus with a script background onto white card with Memento black ink and coloured it with a mixture of Spectrum Noir pens and Coloursoft pencils. I used antique linen and forest  moss Distress inks to tint the background and then trimmed it with a deckle edge cutter. I mounted it onto a piece of purple pearl paper and then onto dark green card. The base card is a 5"x7" white folded card used with the fold at the top and stamped all over the front with a stamp from the CB Texture Fragments with Brilliance galaxy gold ink. The catkins were stamped with memento rich cocoa and coloured with pencils.I tied the green organza ribbon across and fixed the image panel over it with dimensional foam and stamped the birthday greeting at the bottom.

I had a small plain box which was given to my husband on his birthday last year containing little jars of chutney and pickles.  It was very thin wood but apart from a label stuck on  the top and bottom  that both came off very easily, it was completely plain, and I squirreled it away as soon as he had finished with it for altering at some stage.I had given it a coat of white Guesso the other week when I was doing Jenna's J, but still hadn't decided what to use it for. So inspired by the lovely spring stamps and needing a gift for my sister's birthday I decided to see what I could do to beautify the box. I began by painting it all over with pansy and then a coat of crackle glaze. When it had dried I painted it over with snowflake, all the paints are Fresco Finish from Paper Artsy. While I was waiting for the paint to dry I stamped the crocus images onto tissue paper with black Archival ink and coloured them with Coloursoft pencils and then tore  them out. I stuck them onto the top and sides of the box with Matt Medium and when dry I stamped the pussy willow twigs between the crocuses around the sides.I also stamped parts of the flourish stamp from CB Butterfly Flourish Swirls around the edge of the lid,I used Stazon timber brown for this, and also used it to darken the edges slightly. I coloured some self adhesive paper lace with dusty concord Distress ink to decorate the edge of the lid. I mixed a tiny amount of the pansy paint with a lot of white to make a pale lilac colour to paint the inside with, and to finish the whole thing I gave it two coats of varnish.To complete the gift I filled the box with pretty flower scented candles.

I was on a roll now and thought why stop here, I 've got some plain gift bags in my stash that I bought some time ago from Crafty Individuals,so I could make a matching bag. I found a piece of corrugated card and cut it to size and tore it across the bottom and lightly rubbed it over with dusty concord ink and also darkened the edges. I stamped the crocuses again and this time, as I was running out of time I coloured them with Distress Markers.I cut the image out and tinted the edge with forest moss DI, mounted it onto purple pearl card and then onto the inked panel and fixed the whole to the bag. I cut a small tag with a Sissix die and stamped and coloured the small, crocus onto it and then used bundled sage and dusty concord inks to tint around the image, and the back of the tag also, and stamped it with Happy Birthday. I threaded some purple ribbon in the tag and tied it to the bag handle.

I am entering this for Paper Creators Crafts-Flowery Delight
Sweet Stampin-Mother's Day or for a Special Lady ( my sister )

Well done if you managed to stick with this to the end, I appreciate you coming by to look, and thank you to every one who leaves me lovely comments.