Lucky Shamrock Horseshoe Purses

This week in the Silhouette Design Store, I have a few new purse designs just in time for St. Patrick's Day. They are adorned with shamrocks and horseshoes, and have lots of fun little details. They could be the perfect party favor for a St. Patrick's day event. Fill with treats, making them the perfect gift bag for your favorite leprechaun.

This is similar to another shamrock purse I did for Silhouette a few years back. However, the two purses are not quite the same. This one is new and improved. It has wider sides to fill it with more goodies, and a new and improved horseshoe themed handle, and updated buckles and purse flap.  You could call them your lucky purses!

I'll post a link to the files in the Silhouette store as soon as they are available. 

Both purses go together in a similar fashion. I will demonstrate just the one with the horseshoe flap, as that has an extra step. Here's how to assemble them:

First step, choose your papers and plan your cutting mats in the Silhouette Cameo software. When you open the file in the Studio software, it will be layered on a 12x12 mat. You can resize your file to use the maximum space on a 12x12 sheet of card stock. To see how it fits, you will need to ungroup your file, then arrange the color coded groups onto the live cutting area. The light green pieces are your two largest pieces. Determine how much you can enlarge your file by how you can arrange that on a 12x12. Make sure everything is selected when you enlarge. Once you have it the size you want, cut each color group separately, until you have cut all the parts. For more information on how to use your Silhouette Studio software, visit the Silhouette 101 blog. (Click on the Tutorials tab.) That is where you'll find a wealth of information about all the latest tricks and tips for the most recent software updates.

Once everything is cut, glue your decorative pieces to the front and back side of the purse. Make sure to use a good paper glue like Tombow Mono adhesive. A good paper glue won't warp your paper. I like to buy mine in bulk for obvious reasons.





Assemble the Horseshoe handles by folding the little brown tabs around the buckle pieces. Attach them with brads, as shown below.

We will attach these to the main purse later, as it's easier to do that step last. That way they aren't in the way when you get to the fancy glueing part.





Find the brown flap and attach the decorative horseshoe element. Then fold as shown, and attach the flap to the back side of the purse. You may want to align the flap with the little flap insert on the front of the purse to be sure that everything lines up.





Now you will glue the side pieces onto the front and back of the purse as shown above. Then you can attach the decorative brads through the little pre cut holes. I love precut brad holes! Makes assembling a project so much easier. I've shown you pictures of the front and back so you know what this will look like.



You will want to fold the gussets on the side before we get to the fancy gluing part of the project. Fold the center part inward, and the curved fold lines outward, so it's accordion style. You do not need to fold along the horizontal fold line at the top. Please note, your side gussets may have slightly different fold lines, as I adjusted it in the final design for ease of movement.



Now we will glue the tabs along the curve of the front of the purse. This can be tricky if you've never glued tabs along a curve before. Here are some hints to make this part go smoother. Only use a small amount of glue on each tab. Use your hands on both sides of the side piece. One to hold down the tabs as you glue, the other to guide the side piece along the curve of the purse. You may have to push and slide the tabs as you go, and they will start sticking as your glue dries. Good paper glue, really makes this part much easier. If you are frustrated with too much movement while you are gluing the tabs, you can use scotch tape to temporarily hold it down. (see below)

You will continue to glue the tabs until you have attached all four sides with the front and the back of the purse.

In the final step, attach the horseshoe handle to the purse using the brown tabs and brads to fasten. I love this new design, because the flap now has a tab to insert into a slot on the main purse. 

Circle Handle Purse design and Circle Pouches

This design can be found here. Silhouette Design ID 308288.

This design can be found here. Silhouette Design ID 308319.

This week in the Silhouette design store I'm releasing a few new versions of my circle handle purse. One mimics the look of tooled leather, another features a fall spray of foliage. You can follow along the directions of my original circle handle purse and here, and just add the "tooled-leather" look layer. I do recommend attaching this layer with a fine tipped paper glue such as Tombow Mono liquid adhesive. Another great way to attach this detailed layer would be to use adhesive backed paper.

Links to these designs will appear as soon as they are loaded into the Silhouette design store.

This design can be found here. Silhouette Design ID 308289.

These new circle pouch designs are simple to make and only require glue to attach the contrasting background that highlights the front design. You can easily assemble multiples of these and are recommended as party favors because of their simple assembly. Just simple fold and interlock tabs! Fill them with small gifts such a scented bars soap, hand sanitizers, little chocolate boxes, bags of candy or more.

This Design can be found here. Silhouette Design ID 308291.

Spring Treat Purse Bags by Pinky

Hey there SW friends, 

It's Pinky today and I am so excited about these new Purse Files from Samantha!

I decided since it is spring and Easter is also approaching, 

I wanted to make my girlfriends gift "purses" with candy in them.

Because I am super rad like that~ 

I fell in love with this Purse With A Circle Handle and knew

I wanted to make my "baskets" out of them. 

Now you can see I stitched mine on the tooling....when I say I...

I mean I bribed a friend to do it! 

I drug her to a really boring event and put a needle in her hand...

then bought her pizza- so thank you Melissa Cook, you all

can appreciate what a great job she did!

The perforations are perfect to stitch with needle and thread. 

 After the front and back were stitched, I folded all the edges over and

covered them with strong adhesive. 

 Then I also covered the sides with adhesive for extra sturdy 

sticking since I was going to put candy in it. 

 You can find Samantha's awesome tutorial HERE.

I attached the sides. 

 Then followed the same ideas with the adhesive for the button flap. 

 I pressed inside with my fingers making sure everything was adhered. 

 Then I attached the circle handles and added this bow.

Now there are flowers but I loved the bow so much, I just

couldn't put anything else on it.

 Except a strand of pearls around the handles. 

After it was completed I filled it with lace and candy- 

Now who doesn't love lacy and candy!

I hope you enjoyed my project today- 

I used the following products:

Samantha Walker Paris Girl Papers, 

Samantha Walker Purse With A Circle Handle Cut File,

Xyron Adhesive, Ribbon. 

Guest Designer Monica Edwards

Monica Edwards is with us today sharing a couple boxes she created!

***

Hi everyone I am super excited to share some projects I made for Samantha Walker's blog.  I used the Handle Tuck Box and Purses files.  I decorated it using Echo Park stickers.  Here I tried to get an top view of the box.  These are super handy for little gift boxes for Valentines, birthdays you name it!!

 Front view of the boxes

 This is the Samantha Walker purse cut file.  I decorated the front with a ric rac flower I made.  I attached the flower to the buckle on the purse for added weight.  Just too cute isn't it and these are just a few I mean few of the many amazing files Samantha Walker has available!

Hope everyone enjoyed my projects and always thanks for stopping by!

You can see more of Monica's work by visiting her blog!

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A Little Fabric Purse by Mandi Miles

Hi! Mandi Miles here.  I didn't really have any plans in mind when I got Samantha's purse cut file and started working on a project. I cut and assembled a quick paper version which my girlie promptly grabbed and destroyed in her play. She then proceeded crying for another purse. Hmm... the last thing I wanted to do was cut loads of paper purses that would last 5 minutes. Tops. I mean, the girl is three. So, fabric. It would have to be fabric. And tough. I had picked up some Heat-n-Bond a while back and was wanting to try cutting fabric anyway [I'm still learning how to use this cutter of mine :)], perfect. I love it when I have the supplies on hand!

Here's a bit of a tutorial:

1. Heat-n-Bond. It worked beautifully with the Silhouette Cameo, and I love that I can pick it up at Wal-mart or the local craft/fabric store.  I used the Heat-n-Bond Ultra because I knew I wouldn't be sewing. If you'll be sewing you'll need the Heat-n-Bond Light. Just follow the directions on the package for whatever interfacing you'll be using and prepare two 12 x 12 coordinating blocks of fabric. 

2. I always do a test cut and I realized that, as with most projects I've done, the settings indicated on the Cameo didn't quite cut it. So, for those of you with a Cameo, the settings I used are Speed: 5, Thickness: 33, Blade: 6, and then check cutting mat and double cut. I always do a double cut. It takes longer, but the end results are always better. Cut the first block using the pattern as is. Cut the second block to mirror the first. On the Cameo you do this by going to Object > Transform > Flip Horizontally.

3. With wrong sides together [the ones with the interfacing] use an iron on the settings indicated for the interfacing and line them up nicely and press the two cut purses together. 

4. Assemble the purse. I used my handy dandy glue gun to hold it together. Fabric glue may work as well, but I like the glue gun because I don't have to hold the pieces together forever while it dries.

And that's it. Embellish as desired. I made a flower using Samantha's Spiral Flowers cut file. I also had to make a fabric covered button for the center because I just may be the only crafter on earth who can't make spiral flowers...

My girlie loves this. She wants more. 

To see more of Mandi's work, visit her blog PurdueAvenue.com!

New This Week! May 7,2012!

Happy Monday!

New this week at Samantha Walker's Silhouette die cut store! 

Please note, designs may not be up in the store at the beginning of the week, but they have been uploaded to the queue.  Watch for them as the queue rolls out the new designs!