No, I'm not sharing anything wedding-related today, but I did pair a very old die with some new patterned papers and Tim Holtz dies to make the cute little Christmas basket I'll be sharing today. Case in point to prove how old the basket die is: is what part of the original Big Shot flyer when Stampin' Up! added the die-cutting machine to its offering in 2008. (Wow, I didn't realize I've had my Big Shot and this die for this long before I did the math, but I remember the announcement was made at the first convention I ever attended, which is how I remember the exact year.) The reason I remembered about this die today is that Stampin' Up! announced this week that they won't be doing their Stampin' Success magazine anymore. This is a bummer since this was a staple of the company for a very long time, but people tend to get their information online nowadays so I can see how they felt that the magazine was maybe not the best medium to make information accessible anymore. Anyway, I was going through some old magazines and when I found the Stampin' Sucess, I leafed through them to reminisce. I jotted a few notes of stuff I was seeing that could spark inspiration for upcoming projects and one of those notes was to pull out the basket die again, which I hadn't used in ages.
For patterned papers, I pulled out the Winter Wonderland paper from Heidi Swapp. I was so in love when I saw it online - and then when I got the actual pack, I was really bummed at how washed out the colors were. While I love the patterns, they're really faded in person so I wasn't sure how exciting they would turn out on project. I had planned to buy single sheets initially, and I quickly figured out that the paper pad was definitely more economical, so now I have this big stack that I'll try and use best as possible. I figured I'd pair them with the basket die. I started die-cutting the pieces for the basket and as I was putting it together, I realized that the paper are one-sided and that the inside of the basket is therefore left blank, which is a little boring. I hesitated for a moment - do I stamp the backside of the pieces? Ink them? Do I switch to another paper collection altogether?
What saved the original basket was the fact that I spotted the Deck the Halls - Colorize dies on my desk and realized that the colors of the papers would work well with the die-cut pieces, so I got working on them. My first idea was to simply add a bow to the top of the basket handle. It looked a little empty, so I decided I would do two leaves on each side. But because we die-cut by colors, I also had the other twigs and berries, so I added those as well and then I decided the pinecones would look really cute.
I was then debating about adding a piece of fuzzy trim at the bottom of the basket, but at that point, I got curious about how adding the strings from the same die kit would look. I tried just one to start and found out it's the perfect length to go from one side of the basket to the other. I kid you not, it reaches the seam precisely. So I die-cut a few more, added the smaller bows which were already die-cut from my first pass anyway, and I picked red tinsel to add to the bottom of the basket. I was then wondering if I should do a tag or sentiment somewhere. I looked in the paper pad for something neutral to stamp on and I realized that the papers have a strip that you can cut away, but it has some patterns on it. The one I picked had a tag that said "from:" on it. I thought it would look great if I signed my name on it and then when I give the basket away, the person will know who it came from. I added a punched border to make it prettier, punched a little tree from a sheet of patterned paper and added two gold pearls, plus an extra bow at the top that I had leftover from die-cutting a green string.
Considering how uninspired I was when I started the basket, I'm really happy with where I landed. I love this die set from Tim Holtz, I think that the individual small pieces will be really easy to incorporate in various designs. I'm especially looking forward to using those strings some more!
Supplies
Cardstock: Bazzill, Craft Smith
Patterned Paper: Winter Wonderland (Heidi Swapp)
Dies: Basket & Blooms Bigz XL (Stampin' Up!/Sizzix));
Deck the Halls - Colorize (Tim Holtz for Sizzix)
Accessories: Metallic Pearls, Border Punch, Circle Punch, Stampin' DImensionals,
Stampin' Write Marker, Red Tinsel Trim (Stampin' Up!)
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