Easter celebration boxes...

Alpha Stamps has a new monthly kit out today and I helped design it :) Since Easter is on April 1st (April Fools Day, lol) this year, March's kit is Easter themed. Some of the things in the kit are gorgeous papers from Bo Bunny, an adorable Happy Easter collage sheet from Catnip Designs (me), and a sweet shadowbox with an egg shaped cover. Here's a photo of the box I made using the kit along with some other goodies...

Isn't it sweet? There are three other shadowboxes and lids available, in the Easter theme, that get progressively larger in size. I, of course, had to make one of each...

I used paper from the new Jubilee 6x6 pad for this cute bunny box. In the box is a nest I built with eggs from the kit nestled inside it.

This adorable chick box has a vintage bunny girl ornament holding a fuzzy yellow chick and Easter basket inside.

*Note: It's a good idea to reinforce that little piece of die-cut chipboard between the chicks legs. I just glued a small piece of toothpick to the back of mine.

 This chocolate bunny box is my favorite! I made an Easter tree decorated with vintage colored eggs, a vintage basket and vintage look bunnies that are available at Alpha Stamps :)

Look how cute that bunny is...

And, yes, I did add Easter grass and colored eggs to that tiny basket!

Here's a photo of the whole group...

I bet you're wondering what that thing in the middle is, am I right?

Here's a closer look...

I love the the shutters we recently got in from Prima so I had to incorporate them into my Easter group. Amazingly, the rabbit cover from the Easter Covers for Mini Shadowboxes set fits inside the shutters perfectly. How cool is that :)
Now, I wanna share a little tutorial with you on making your shadowboxes deeper than they actually are. Although the depths range from 7/8" to around 1 1/2" and may be just fine to accommodate a paper collage or thinner multi-media vignette, I chose to use fatter items to create my vignettes. This made me scramble to create more space! Here's how I did it...

 Build your shadowbox and ink or paint any areas that may peek through the paper you cover the box with.

 Cover your box with paper inside and out.

 Paint your box cover on both sides as well as the edges. Notice I removed the tabs used to make this a removable cover.

 Paper your cover and cut out the egg shaped window with a craft knife. Then carefully fold the edges of the cover around the shadowbox to ensure a proper fit.

 Cut up a small cork, dowel or piece of balsa wool into four equally sized pieces. Mine are 1/4".

 Create a cute vignette inside the shadowbox. Hot glue the four pieces of cork/wood to the corners of the shadowbox so they don't stick out beyond the outer edges.

Lay the cover over the cork/wood pieces and fold the edges down into place.

Holding the cover in place, as shown above, lift up one flap and run a strip of hot glue along the shadowbox edge. Press the flap down until the glue cools. Repeat until all four sides are permanently glued down. That's all there is to it.
So who's ready to start making some cute Easter boxes?? Come on! You know you want to!
You can find my complete supply list at this link. 

"24 Carrot Farms" a miniature farm stand...

A while back, at Alpha Stamps, we got these cool wooden boxes, from Maya Road, in. Leslie put them on the website but they didn't really sell very well. I thought that was kind of a shame because they were really awesome. Leslie told me to take one home and see what I could do with it. After a bit of pondering, and some supply gathering, I turned that box into a sweet little farm stand.

Just look at those tiny apples! Don't they look delicious?

I used paper from two new 6"x6" paper pads to cover the box and table. The adorable carrot print is from Echo Park's Homegrown pad. I love it! And all that beautiful wood grain, on the floor (which was the lid of the box) and on the outside of the stand, comes from Bo Bunny's Heritage pad.

 The box is just over 7" tall so I had to be creative with the use of my 6" paper. I think it adds a nice touch to have some of the wood grain going in a different direction.

 While I was creating my little stand, I decided to design a couple of collage sheets to use on it. One of the collage sheets has all of the signs, bags, and boxes for a farm stand called 24 Carrot Farms. There's even an awning to fold and glue together. Speaking of awnings, did you notice that handsome crow standing right above the awning?

The other collage sheet I designed has tons of produce crate labels as well as can and jar labels. You can see them in use in the photo below on the tops of two crates and on some bottles and cans.

Me being the crazy cat lady I am, I just couldn't help myself and added a couple of cats and a grape stealing rat to my scene. One of the cats is asleep in a stack of towels. The other is lounging next to the peaches :)

The rat is so tiny he's hard to see, but he's making off with a big bunch of grapes over by the pumpkins, lol. He's had to drag his sweet booty (grapes) all through the straw on the floor to make his escape.

Looking back on the beginning of this post, I have to say I'm quite pleased with what I was able to do with the box I took home. I really like the way my little farm stand turned out and I hope you've enjoyed the tour I've given you of it. If you'd like to build your own tiny little farm stand here's a link to my supply list.
Thanks for dropping by and enjoy your day!

Valentine Candy Boxes

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are getting ready to start 2015 off with a bang!

Since I'm always running a bit behind I have vowed to be more timely with my art endeavors in 2015. Sooooo... I've already started making my valentines! Little heart shaped candy boxes with lots of flowers and glitter...

 (My secret for getting the chipboard heart to stand up is an 1/8 inch dowel cut into a two inch piece and glued to the the heart. Then you poke a hole in the lid of your box, push the dowel through and glue into place. Looks kinda icky with all of that glue so I will glue a flower or two over it.)

(You can't even see the dowel on the back because I hid it with flowers!)

If you would like to make some of these sweet candy box valentines, head on over to Alpha Stamps where you can find the supplies I used on sale!