One of my favorite parts of Leadership was the Make & Takes!
We kept getting little glimpses of all of the projects we were going to be making on the last night, and it ended up being a complete "surprise and delight" each time a project was revealed! (Shelli said at Convention that they were going to keep surprising and delighting us!)
Usually, at the Convention Make & Takes I've experienced, we create several basic cards and a simple 3-D item, like a box. To tell you the truth, I've never gotten very excited about the projects, because they weren't very unique or challenging.
That wasn't the case this time! Not only were the projects exciting and fresh, they were challenging, showcased a lot of product, and frankly, weren't very inexpensive to make! More spoiling! Too Cool!
For You Card
This was one of the basic cards, because you can't have Make & Takes without doing at least one card, right?! Our free Leadership stamp set was the Clearly For You set from the 2011 Occasions Mini. We used that set for all of our projects, so you'll see how very versatile it can be.
Card Details: Card base is Baja Breeze, crimped half-way up with the Crimper Tool. We rubbed a VersaMark Ink Pad over the crimps to accentuate the "depth" of the lines. We added VersaMark randsomed stamped images to the Baja base, and the Old Olive piece.
The Soft Suede circle was die-cut with the Circles #2 Die, crumpled, then distressed with Soft Suede Ink. Next, we added a 3/8" Old Olive Taffeta Ribbon with a "for you" tag.
The Petal Card Punch was used to create the Crumb Cake layer, which was also randomly stamped with the flower image in Soft Suede. The butterfly image was colored with More Mustard and Cherry Cobbler Markers, then cut out and layered on a crimped 3/4" punched circle.
DVD Notebook
We also made a cute, and very functional, notepad holder out of the plastic DVD cases like the cases for the Clear-Mount stamps. Did you know that you could buy empty cases? You can!
You're supposed to fill the case with a decorated 5×7" notepad. I first saw this project at Jackie Bolhuis' Klompen Stampers blog: Easy Gift Idea.
Here is a picture of one of her projects opened to show the decorated notepad. She used a 5×8" mini legal pad that she had cut down to 5×7" at her local office supply store. The chipboard backing slips right into the DVD pocket to hold it into place.
You can see more of her samples here: DVD Notebooks.
Project Details: We used the Botanical Gazette Designer Series Paper for the base and the Top Note die-cut. The Crumb Cake Wide Oval Punch is stamped with images from the Clearly For You stamp set in Early Espresso Ink, then layered on an Early Espresso Decorative Label punch.
Crumb Cake Seam Binding is wrapped around the spine of the case and a Victoria Crochet Trim bow is tied to that. They also gave us a Trinket Key to dangle from the ribbon, but I decided to take it home to use on another project.
Fun Flowers Brooch
The most fun project we created (in my opinion, anyway) was a pretty, vintage fabric flower brooch! It's so lovely!
I loved this project! It's created with the new Fun Flowers Die and Springtime Vintage Designer Series Fabric…Too Cool!
The basic fabric flower is super easy to do! This one is made with six large flowers, three medium flowers, and three small flowers. Once you have them die-cut from the fabric, lightly spray them with starch, crumple, then loosely uncrumple, and let them dry.
Once they were dry, we just glued them together with a hot glue gun. For interest, we added a layer of designer paper punched with the Circle Scallop punch (should be available again soon), as well as a Paper Daisy that was painted with Champagne Shimmer Paint (oooh, I loved the look of this!). We also added some loops of Baja Breeze Seam Binding and tails of Victoria Crochet Trim.
I stacked everything directly on top of each other, so my flower is pretty full. You could also offset some of the flowers to make the brooch a little wider and flatter.
Finish it off by hot gluing a barrette or a pin on the back (near the top, so the flower doesn't hang funny) and you're good to go! Or, add even more embellishments…
We adorned our flower with a small Windowpane highlighting a butterfly image glistening with more Shimmer Paint. The beveled Windowpane is threaded with Crumb Cake Seam Binding, and attached with hot glue.
Finally, we used a 1/8" Very Vanilla Taffeta Ribbon to tie on a Trinket Key. I love those little dangly Keys—so much fun!
Well, what do you think? Do you like these Make & Take projects as much as I did? Would you be interested in making the flowers or DVD Notebook in a class? Let me know in the Comments Section (and be entered to win blog candy!).
And, that wasn't all! We created more awesome Make & Takes—Simply Adorned Jewelry! I'll show you those projects next time!
Until then…
Angie
One more way to use the Top Note Die….even though that wasn’t really the featured technique I noticed it because I love that die. I really like the technique of crimping the cardstock and then running the Versamark over the top of the ridges. Really neat idea. I can use that in my scapbooking as well as cards.