Design Team: Denise O'Connor Week 9

Denise O'Connor's Starry Chirstmas 

Hello eCrafters! each week we get closer and closer to the holidays, and our design team keeps giving us inspiration for Christmas! Today, Denise O'Connor has created a little goodie container to surprise her closest family and friends! And the best part?! Denise will share, where she got her recipe for this yummy Zucchini Bread!

I am back with some eCrafty goodness today!  This week the Design Team was challenged to make another Christmas project using our wonderful Pink by Design Stamps and incorporate a sky element into the project, such as stars, clouds, sun, moon, planets, etc.  Continuing on with my personal challenge to make every project this month a food gift, I am incorporating one of my favorite ways to give food gifts.  This is so quick and easy to do and really makes a simple food gift special!

For this project, I started with a simple aluminum pan that you can find at any grocery store.  The ones that I got came 3 in a package, so while my Zucchini Bread was baking in 2 of the pans I used the third one to create my wrap.  These pans came with clear lids, so I attached the lid and took some measurements.  I used a flexible sewing tape measure to get my measurements.

All the way around, my measurement came in at 14 1/4” so I knew that I would have to paper piece the wrap.  I then proceeded to take some measurements of the sides and where I would need to score to get a nice clean fit.  Then I started to create the wrap.  I knew that I needed a panel on the top that measured 3 1/2” wide and then added 1/2” so that I would have something to attach to the rest of my wrap on each side.  I decided to use my computer to print my sentiment directly on this panel.  To do this I used Microsoft Publisher and set up a 8 1/2”x11” page document and used the Layout Guides to see the finish area.  This will also be where I want to cut this paper after it is done printing.

I printed my sentiment onto Papertrey Ink Soft Stone cardstock and used Lettering Delights Deck the Halls font for the sentiment.  Once I had it printed out I was ready to add my elements onto it.  The first thing that I did was use my eCraft to cut a large 7” circle out of Papertrey Ink Aqua Mist cardstock and then used my Xacto knife to cut a sliver off of it to create the ground on which my Polar Bears will stand.  These Polar Bears from the Pink by Design stamp set Beary Merry Christmas are just so cute that I had to use them again!

The next thing that I did was create the mat for my Polar Bears.  I actually did a video on how to do this that you can find HERE.  You will need Make the Cut and a scanner to do this.  Once I had my mat cut out, I used my Stamp a Ma Jig to line it up the stamp onto the mat.  Sometimes I skip this step and just eyeball it, but I made a small shadow on this mat and did not want to chance it.

The Stamp a ma jig really makes this easy to do.  To make sure that my mat did not move around on me, I used a little removable adhesive from 3L Adhesives to adhere it to my craft mat.  I then went to coloring in my bears with some Copics. 

Nothing too fancy here, since I just needed a little color on the scarves and the sign.  The Copic colors that I used are RV34, BG11, BG13, BG18, T1 and T4.

Next step was to create my sky element.  Wouldn’t you know that the very day that I was figuring out what to do, eCraftCentral.com came out with THIS star?  It was just perfect for my project, and so I cut it out of American Crafts white glitter paper.  To add a little more pizazz to the star, I used my white Signo gel pen to add some lines to reflect the shining star.  Since my cardstock is a very light gray color, the white shows up very nicely.

  

I used some Foam Squares from 3L Adhesives to adhere my star and the Polar Bears and then created the rest of my wrap.  I used Papertrey Ink Smokey Shadow for the rest of the wrap and Papertrey Ink Autumn Rose for the side accent pieces which were punched with a Martha Stewart border punch.

 

I also added some Crafty Power Tape from 3L Adhesives onto the accent pieces and added some Martha Stewart crystal fine glitter to add a little more shimmer.  As you can see in the picture above, my entire wrap was created before my bread was done!  I let my bread cool overnight and the next morning, I simply put the rest of it together.

Oh and in case you are wondering, the Zucchini Bread recipe that I used was from Paula Deen!  Can you tell that I love her recipes? 

Are you following us on the eCraft by Craftwell blog?  If not, you really should be!!  Debi, Lisa and Raven have some more amazing projects this week and let’s not forget about our Friday video tutorials!  I’ll be back next Monday with another project for you and this is definitely a project you will not want to miss! 

How adorable are those polar bears?! Thank you Denise and Pink by Design Stamps! Now, go check out the recipe, and start cookin'!

Denise O'Connor

www.PurplePaperParadise.com