Quick and Easy Easter Basket

Welcome Tutorial Tuesday! Hope your week is off to a great start.  Today I have for you a quick and easy Easter basket. Perfect for a hostess gift, gift for co-workers, friends, just about anyone, or the center of your Easter table. I happened to come across this great tutorial at Scor-Pal on making a box. I knew I wanted to make a simple basket and wanted it 4" across the bottom and I wanted 3" sides. Based on the formula in this tutorial (4+3+3 which is the box size plus two times the height size) I knew I needed to cut a 10" square to make my box and then score each side at 3". I then cut the flaps as indicated in the tutorial.

This picture is from the tutorial

I adhered my box using scor-tape. My handle which was just the 2" X 12" strip of patterned card stock I cut off to make my 10" square. I attached my handle to my box behind the outside flap so the bottom of my handle was hidden. Now that the basket was together, it was time to decorate it. I cut my rabbit from the Easter 2010 Cricut cartridge at 2 1/2".  I ran the rabbit through my Xyron sticker maker upside down so the sticky was on the front of my bunny. Okay so now I have a confession to make. I thought that at some time in the past I had purchased the Earth colored Ultra Fine Flower Soft. However, if I did, I sure couldn't find it and was not where I store my flower soft. So now I had a dilemma. I wanted to make my rabbit furry, so what to do? I took some of white Ultra Fine Flower Soft and added several drops of  ginger alcohol Ink to it in a plastic sandwich bag and rubbed it around in the bag to get the color I ended up with. However, I also ended up with ginger colored hands and it had a bit of an odor to it from the alcohol ink. So while it worked in a moment of panic I plan to get some of the Earth colored Ultra Fine Flower Soft when Kim has it back in the store. Just much simpler to us.Once I had my bunny sticky and the flower soft the color I wanted I added it to the front of the bunny and pressed down on the flower soft (that's how I got the colored hands) to be sure it stuck to the adhesive. I then added a bow at his neck and a google eye to him and adhered him to my basket.

Next I cut the grass. The grass is also from the Easter 2010 cartridge and was cut at 1 1/4". Each strip is actually 2 of the images that I flipped and welded together on my Gypsy. You could do the same thing with the Cricut Craft Room if you don't have a Gypsy or Design Studio. I cut my grass out of some Core' denations paper and the light green is actually the back side of the card green. I adhere the grass to my box at the bottom and then fluffed up the grass to give it some dimension For my Easter eggs, I cut these from the Doodlecharms cartridge using real dial size and 3/4" and 1". Before cutting the eggs I grabbed some scraps of card stock in pink, yellow and lavender. I used my WOW! Funky Border Strips clear stamps and several colors of distress ink to create some patterned paper to cut my eggs from. If you haven't tried any of these clear stamps you should. WOW! makes them so they work really well with their embossing powders (just a suggestion all you WOW! club members). Kim carries several of their stamps sets. It is worth checking out.

On the lavender paper I used the Peacock Feathers Distress ink and the small dot border stamp. On the Yellow paper I used Shaded Lilac and the small squares border stamp. On my pink paper I used the Squeezed Lemonade and the Pickled Raspberry distress ink and the single row of dots border stamp. I first stamped the Raspberry and left about an 1" between the two rows, then went back and stamped the Lemonade between the Raspberry. Once I had the eggs cut out I used my Spica Pens to add a little glitter to the eggs and then adhered them to the front of my basket. I hope you enjoyed seeing my basket and will check out the awesome products used from Cutters Creek. And remember if something is ever out of stock just contact Kim through the Customer Service link and ask if she can order it for you. She is great about special ordering so never hesitate to ask. I hope you all of a great rest of your week. I would love to know what you think of my basket.

Ecstasy Craft Cards

I have another sneak peak for you of some of the awesome holiday Ecstasy Craft items that Kim will be adding to the store very, very, soon!!!

These are called Reddy Die-Cuts. As you can see I got 4 cards from one package. As you can see they come with a background paper to build your image on. Building the image is easy as 1,2,3. All of the punch out items are numbered in the order that you layer them. It took me just about an hour to make all 4 cards which is fast for me. The individual card toppers measured just under 4" so I cut 4 white card stock card bases at 4 1/4" X 8 1/2" and scored and folded them to make four 4 1/4" square cards and rounded the corners. These will fit in a standard size A2 envelope so you won't have to pay extra postage to mail a square card.

On this little guy I added some Frosted Lace Stickles between the snowline and the sky and also on the 4 larger snowflakes. (sorry it doesn't show up better in the photo).

On this one I again added some Frosted Lace Stickles to the snowline and I also added some Stardust Stickles to the stars by the moon.

For this one I added some Ultra Fine White Flower Soft to the snow along the top of the fence and also to some of the snow on the tree limbs.

On this one I again added some Stardust Stickles to the fireworks in the sky. Check out the dimension you get with these wonderful little layered images.These were quick and easy to make and are beautiful as is without any additions. It is a fun and quick way to make some cards to give as gifts or to mail to family and friends.

There are some great new Flower Soft products that have been added to the store just in time for your holiday crafting so be sure to check them out. Also be sure to check the  new CHA 2012 Release section of the store to find out the latest and greatest additions including these wonderful Ecstasy Craft items.

Ho Ho Ho Garland

For my Cutters Creek Design Team Blog post, I have a garland or banner that I made to decorate my office at work. All of the colors and patterned paper were printing and cut on my Imagine using the Snow Angel Imagine Cartridge and the Mr Frosty Patterned Imagine Cartridge. The stocking is cut at 5" using the Simply Charmed Cartridge. This picture was taken with my cell phone at work hanging on my white board in my office.

Here is a close up of one of the stockings. I adhered all the layers with some Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive. The letters were added with some ASI Kool Tac Clear Foam Pads. I cut the patches for the toe and heel of the stocking out of white card stock as well as the top cuff. I used my Xyron to add some adhesive to the top of each of these white pieces and then covered them with Ultra Fine White Flower Soft. Finally I used my Crop-a-Dile to punch a hole at the top of each stocking. I ran someDoodlebug Twine through the holes to hang my stockings. Below are close ups of the other stockings.

Thanks for visiting.