Pie Box die fun!- Tutorial - Christmas Trees and Pumpkin Pie - And, Die Storage Option

Hold onto your hats -it's going to be a picture laden blog post - but there's a tutorial so it'll be worth it! (hopefully! lol)

So, let's talk about the awesome pie box die - first it's one piece and all you have to do is cut two and you're good to go! I cut an 8.5" X 11" piece of cardstock in half, layer the two pieces on top of each other (layer both with the color side up), put it the cuttlebug with the die and cut two at one time. It worked great! On the second layer, the score lines aren't as prominent but they're good enough to see in good light to fold.

A Muse Studio cardstock has color on one side and is white or cream on the other. It's AWESOME for card making. And, it works great for die cutting projects as well. There is a trick though to getting a nice look from single-sided cardstock because sometimes it cracks. So, how do you keep it from cracking? First, you fold the cardstock color to color on the score lines (see above).

Then, you fold it on the same score lines to the white side. See above for the two steps -color to color on left. White to white on right.

Now it's time to add your adhesive and get ready to assemble your triangle box. You can either use red-line tape (my classes call it scary tape and devil tape - lol) or

you can use Tombow Mono Multi. I love this glue and as you can see - I make a mess of the bottle. Good stuff! :) I actually use the red-line tape on the point of the box and then use mono multi on the sides as I like to have a little more flexibility on getting the side flaps in the right spot. The glue gives that extra time and ability to adjust the cardstock. Scary tape is awesome but when you put it on, you'd better have your cardstock in just the right spot as when it's down - it's down!

So, now it's time to assemble the box - we've folded all the scores and we have adhesive on the point.

The first and very important step on assembly is to make sure the point is lined up. If the point of the triangle is off - the whole box will be off. That sounds hard (and the way I did it the first time was hard - because that's how I roll and it's why I changed majors from engineering to education but that's a story for another day...lol).

Put the color sides of the two die cuts face down on the table and line up the flaps on the point. You're going to be gluing color to color. The photo below is a little blurry but hopefully you can see what I mean.

After you put the points together, the box naturally folds closed. 

Here's what it looks like from the top side view. 

See why lining up the point is so important?!

After adhering the side flaps (glue or adhesive on the color side of the cardstock) to the side panels, you're ready to fill it and decorate it. 

I stamped and die cut a bunch of Flaky Friends snowmen to decorate the fun pile of pie boxes. I'm not going to make them pie pieces (though they could be). They're going to be mini tree treat boxes! 

Aren't they cute?

And, hey -why not see what they look like as a perky snowman pie! How cute is that?!! What a great classroom treat that would be! Or, fill them up and take them to the teacher's lounge or to the work break room to share!

We made pumpkin pie boxes in my class this month. Turkey Day is such a fun set. The silver-edge organdy ribbon holds the box closed once you have your treats inside!

Here's the sample Chistmas tree box beside the pumpkin pie. I want to make one into a giant candy corn but haven't done that yet. I bet there are other awesome ideas besides those. 

You can pick up the pie box die ($29.99 plus tax and shipping) in my webstore: www.amusestudio/com/seleise (click on shop online in the top menu and then click on stamps and then go to the October collection in the side bar and you can see all the goodies)

I want to spend a brief moment talking about Totally Tiffany storage items. I don't have any affiliation to the company -just like the products. My sister gave me these two storage boxes last Christmas. I have re-inkers and splash and glitter and embossing powder in the one on the right. The one on the left holds my embossing buddy, red line tape, personalized stamps, washi, ribbon and other bits and pieces. 

I use several of the bags (not pictured) to hold copics and glitters and splashes and more. They're awesome to take to crops. 

My newest purchase that I'm totally in love with is the Die-Namic Die Storage. It's a plastic case that holds five sleeves of louvered die storage. 

Look at how easy it is to see the dies inside!

The louvered pockets are in sleeves so you can store a bunch of dies and if they come loose from the little pocket, they will be contained in the pocket in the container - pretty cool! I haven't had too many come loose but for those that are, I think I'm going to put a bit of double-sided tape in the pocket to hold the die in place. Look at how awesome the border dies and bow dies look in those louvered pockets!! I'm a visual stamper - need to see it to remember to use it so this is a perfect storage system for me!

Here's a close-up of the word dies - the little pockets are perfect for them!

See all those awesome word dies from A Muse Studio! - now I might remember to use them more often! And, the best part of all this is that all of these dies would normally take up 4 or 5 magnetic folders but this system is soooo much lighter than the magnetic folders because you just have the weight of the dies - not the magnets too. I've been using those folders and will continue using them for the nested dies as most of those move around too much in these pockets. But, I will move all my alphabets and numbers and tiny dies to these pockets and when I take them to a crop, I won't break my back carrying all the magnetic folders. :) It's amazing how many dies these five pockets hold.

I picked up the majority of my Totally Tiffany items at JoAnns. Again - no affiliation to anything but A Muse Studio - just wanted to share. :) (and the JoAnns coupons work on these awesome storage items!).

7Have a wonderfully creative day!

Harvest Your Blessings - Fall Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

On this final day of the Fall Coffee Lovers Blog Hop, I'm popping back in with some Thanksgiving coffee cards with the Turkey Day stamp set (being released October 1st) watercolored with peerless watercolors on kraft and on die cuts from Mocha Me Happy and Word Art cut from our new watercolor paper.

These are so fun! I used some card bases and parts left over from other cards and got to playing. Above is probably my favorite because I just love the watercolored leaves and how the layers of colors turned out on the cup. A little wink of stella gives the leaves a little shimmer.

How about a happy little turkey coffee cup? I probably should have cut the cup topper but didn't want to cover the watercoloring. :)

A window card - I kind of blew out the kraft cardstock color with the lighting and am thinking I should have done something to the card front but still kind of fun. :)

Gobble 'til you wobble! *snort* That's hilarious! Love this watercolor latte cup with the watercolor turkey on top.

The final card has a border of Haunted Mansion Background with a layer of melon petite hexagon beside it. The latte mugs from Word art look so pretty and another one of those awesome little leaves adorns the top!

I haven't had much time to hop by the other blogs but what I have seen has been AMAZING! I hope you'll take time to play (you've got until 11:55 p.m. pacific time to link up a project!): http://coffeelovingcardmakers.com/2016/09/2016-fall-coffee-lovers-blog-hop/ 

Shimmer Splash Background Thanksgiving Cards

Shimmery, splashy backgrounds! That's what I'm talking about!! These backgrounds (which were hard to photograph because of their shimmeriness but trust me - are really cool in real life *wink*) were made with a combination of papaya, poppy and blackberry splash and Peerless metallic transparent watercolor in copper. How awesome is that?!!!!

I spritzed some splash onto a craft sheet and drizzled some copper into it and then spritzed it with water. I blended it a little with the waterbrush and then smushed some Bristol watercolor paper into the shimmery puddles. I kept going until I ran out of that lovely, shimmery mix. :) I let the pieces dry and then stamped leaves in poppy, blackberry and currant. I made the background pretty dark so the leaves are subtle and just add to the visual interest of the background. I flicked some blackberry splash on the background to give some cool dotted texture too. Isn't that pretty?! I was inspired to create this background by Lyn who made a lovely shimmery background for our fall swap.

Since the outside had a lot going on, I kept the inside simple with a few leaves in blackberry.

The sentiment on the outside of the card is from our retired Essential Sentiments stamp set and is edged with latte pearls on fern cardstock. The watercolor paper is layered on nutmeg which is layered on a fern base.

I highly recommend playing around with splash and shimmers. It's fun! It's messy! It's beautiful! Each piece is a unique piece of art. So cool!

Splash and Peerless (and all the other supplies) are available in my webstore which is open 24-7: www.amusestudio.com/seleise

Have a wonderfully creative day!

Give Thanks!

My apologies for the sporadic posts. It is craft fair season and it's also conference season at work. It's crazy! But, I plan to make up for it... eventually. :) So, on to crafty fun. Here's one of the holiday sets that I love - Give Thanks Girl. It's fun to color, the turkey can be masked off for a variety of other holidays and birthdays and such and it's just retro sweet! I made this card for a consultant swap. It's always so fun to see what everyone comes up with for the swaps. There were so many great cards! I might have to share all the swaps in another post.

This card makes me think that it's time to start preparing for the Thanksgiving feast.  I'm making crockpot corn and probably a cheeseball and pecan pie for my contributions to the family dinner. What about you? Do you get assignments from your mom or does one person do it all? I personally like our family potlucks as you get introduced to new recipes and that's always great. :)

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Have a wonderfully creative day!!