Easter Banner with Guest Designer Arin!

Hello it is Arin Flynn here and am I excited to share my first project as a 2014 Samantha Walker Creative Team Guest Designer. I decided that I wanted to show how simple you can make a cute and bright spring banner just using one cut, some laser cut wooden pennants, linen, and a few other embellishments. This little guy was turned out just in time to greet Mr. Cottontail!

 

 Let's "hop" right into how I did this. (A full supply list will be included at the end of this post). Heading over to the Silhouette Store, I found this cute Samantha Walker Bunny cut file. Once downloaded into my Silhouette software, I ungrouped the shape and moved the detailed layer off the page just keeping the silhouette of the bunny. I measured my wooden pennants and set the dimensions of my bunny.

Using a sturdy white cardstock, I cut ONE, yest I said it, ONLY ONE cut. This will be the template to trace onto the linen fabric. Can it get any easier than that?

 

 Once all the bunnies I wanted to add some character to each little guy and ran it through my Cuttlebug Embosser using Swiss Dot. It really gave it great shape and texture. Then I ran each bunny through my Xyon 5 inch Creative Station (any adhesive of choice will work) and set aside.

Using the smaller wooden pennants as a template, I traced, cut and added faux stitching to the linen fabric.

I ran the linen pennants through my Xyron 5 inch Creative Station (any adhesive of choice will work) and placed them onto the wooden pennants. Using hot glue I added some buttons and some fabric letters I had on hand.

Using some scrapbook paper I had on hand, I traced the larger of the wooden pennants, cut and set onto the base using my tape gun (any adhesive of choice will work) and inked the edges.

 

 Once all the bases and smaller pennants were done, I added the bunnies, the button tails with bows made of baker's twine and hot glued them to the bottoms of each bunny. I then used a large gauge needle and ran baker's twine through the tops of each pennants stringing them together and using the pre-punched holes at the guide.

 

 This project was not only super simple and easy to do, but there is something therapeutic about just simply tracing and cutting and with this bunny cut from Samantha Walker, it could not have been any easier. 

Supply List:

Bunny Cut form Samantha Walker
White Cardstock (Recollections)
Laser Cut Wooden Pennants (Pick Your Plum)
Linen Fabric Sheets (DCWV)
Cuttlebug Embosser and Swiss Dot Embossing Folder
Baker's Twine (Hemptique)
Scrapbook Paper (Recollections)
Fabric Letters
Buttons
Stamp Ink (Close to My Heart/Slate)
Xyron Mega Runner
Xyron 5 inch Creative Station
White Gel Pen (Uniball)
Hot glue
Scissors
Pencil

Easter Card Tutorial by Christine

Happy April Fool's Day!  Christine joining you today with a 
post full of tips and ideas and that is no joke! 

From the first time I saw Samantha's Bubbles of Love Valentine Card #54121, I loved it. One of my favorite things about these cuts is that often times you can modify them to make them work for other seasons. Today I am going to show you how I modified it slightly to turn it into an Easter card!

The original card has circles but I thought those circles could easily be stretched to look like Easter eggs!  So I did just that!

I have some tall 8 inch envelopes so I stretched mine to be really tall.  It would work just as well shorter!

After cutting I used pieces from the Cool Summer line from Carta Bella to back certain eggs.  I used mostly solid or monochromatic patterns to do the eggs and then cut apart pieces from the chevorn patterned paper to decorate the big eggs.

I filled in most of the rest of eggs with glitter.  This helped me to remember why I don't love glitter ;).

I decided to cover up the heart and put my title in that spot.  Initially I cut my title just in yellow using Samantha's "Happy Easter Phrase Title" #39476.  But with just the yellow it didn't stand out enough.  So I decided to create a shadow to use on it.

To do that I clicked on the title and then clicked on the Offset button.  I then chose "offset" and lowered the offset button to a distance I was happy with.  

I then ungrouped them and cut the shadow in white.  Once I glued those together I popped the title up with foam adhesive and it was perfect!

Hope you have a great day and don't get fooled by too many people!

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. 

Signs of Spring - Flower Tutorial with Nicole

Here in Utah there are signs of spring everywhere!  The daffodils in my neighbors yard are in full bloom, the grass is turning green, and best of all the days are starting to warm up.  I've been bringing the spring into my crafting as well.

I wanted to make a card with some daffodils and chose Samantha's flower 5 to create a daffodil looking flower.  I opened it up and placed several of the base and the centers on my mat in Silhouette Studio.  I then brought in just the grass from the Easter Bunny file.  

I placed all my cardstock on the mat and hit cut.  I slowed down my machine just a touch from the textured cardstock setting since the cuts on the flower centers are tiny.  The Cameo is amazing and cut them out perfectly!

I then added a little texture to my petals and flower center by curling them up.  The centers are so tiny that I used the end of a colored pencil to help.  

I then took orange chalk ink to ink the edges. 

 I assembled all my flowers with small dots of glue.  

Here is my finished card.  I just love the added dimension these small flowers create.   

 Supplies Cut files:  Flower 5 and Easter Bunny (links below); Pattern Paper: Carta Bella; Stamps: JustRite; Vellum: Darice; ink: Martha Stewart (chalk ink) and Tsuikeniko; cardstock:  Bazzill; embroidery floss: DMC

Hope you are starting to see the signs of Spring wherever you are, Happy Crafting!

Introducing Guest Designer Rochelle Washington!

Good morning!  

Today we would like to introduce you to this years

first Guest Designer, Rochelle Washington!  

Hello everyone!  First, I'd like to thank Samantha and Jamie for allowing me to guest here today!  I was sooo excited when I found out!  Today I'd like to share a couple of projects with you that I created for Easter!  

I'm a minimalist.  I like clean and simple projects with a unique flair.  So, last year, when I came across this little 3D Meal Box, I KNEW I had to use it!

I had not even had my Silhouette SD for six months when they released the Portrait so, I've had to learn how to adapt the items that are scaled larger to something that could fit my regular sized cutting mats.  

All I did was rotate the image about 80 degrees and shrink it a little so that it would fit in the space of my Silhouette Portrait Mat.

I knew I wanted to add a bunny image.  It just so happens that Samantha Walker has an image for that (I wanted to say "has an app for that" but, that didn't really fit! LOL!).  I used "Bunny Easter Banner" to create my bunny image.  I colored the insides of the ears and tummy and added little pearl accents for the eyes.  

I had to scale the image down to fit my little box, and I decided not to use the banner and some of the other accent pieces that came with this file. That's the great thing about multi piece files...you can choose which parts you want to use and it's like having little bonuses for the price of one file.  

I simply ungrouped the image and deleted what I didn't want, and re-grouped the image in case I needed to make any more adjustments. Grouping allows you to move everything at once without having to select all the little parts.

Here is how the boxes turned out!

I put jelly beans on the inside for my son's teachers at school!  

The last project I created was a little treat bag for my son to give to his former teacher.  She was really great in helping me potty train him!  I need to give her SEVERAL gifts for that! :)  I used the "Bag Topper Bow" for my treat bag.  I colored the little bow and added a button and some bling for embellishment.  Its adorbs I think!  I had to resize this as well to fit the width of my glassine baggy.

Here is how it turned out:

Silhouette Shapes used:

3D Meal Box

Bag Topper Bow

Bunny Easter Banner

Other Supplies:

Glassine Bag

Markers

Twine

Pearl Accents

Purple Bling

It has been a pleasure guesting with you all today!  

Have a happy Easter!

-Rochelle

A big "Thank You" to Rochelle for sharing her projects with us today!  

Be sure to stop by Rochelle's blog to see more of her fabulous creations!  

Egg Carton Card Tutorial by Jamie Cripps

Have you purchased Egg Carton Card from the Silhouette store?  

This card goes together quickly and is a lot of fun!

Here is what the finished card looks like closed...

And here it is opened!  Soo cute, right!?

The little eggs easily slide in and out of their slots so you can add little messages to the back...or clues to find Easter baskets!  :)

Here is the tutorial:

 1.  Cut out the pieces provided in the cut file.  You can "ungroup" the items and move them around so you can cut with different colors of cardstock if you'd like.

 2.  Fold the card base and the card wrap on the provided score lines.

 3.  Ink around the edges of your egg pieces (optional).

 4.  Ink around the edges of your four egg carton pieces (the card base, the slotted piece, the extra egg hole piece, and the back/bottom card base piece).

 5.  Lay your card base flat and then adhere the extra egg hole piece along the top portion of the card making sure the egg holes line up as shown.

 6.  Turn your card back over then adhere the slotted piece, matching up the slot lines as shown.

 7.  Begin inserting your egg pieces.

 8.  Your card should look similar to this image now.

 9.  Turn your card over.  You will see the backs of your egg pieces.  Take the back/bottom card base piece and place adhesive around the edges (do not adhere the middle so you will be able to remove the eggs).  

10.  Adhere the backing on to the card base as shown.

11.  Turn your card back over to the front and close the carton lid.

12.  Place adhesive on the 1/2" piece of the card wrap (shown by the small arrow in the photo).

13.  Bring the other side of the card wrap around and adhere as shown.

14.  Slide the card wrap around the Egg Carton Card to complete the card!

We would love to see what you do with this cut file!

Be sure to link us up in the comment section on this post 

or send a photo to social.samanthawalker@gmail.com

Thanks for joining us today!

Jamie

New This Week! March 18, 2013!

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!