Waltzingmouse Stamps Customer Blog Hop (AKA - My very first blog hop!)

Welcome! This is my very first blog hop and I'm super excited! I hope this is just the beginning for me! :) (Ok, I'm a bit excited right now! :D ) You should have come here from Julee's blog and if you've just stumbled on my blog today, you'll want to start from the beginning at the Waltzingmouse Stamps blog. Because I'm across the pond from Waltzingmouse Stamps and still lusting after a set from Claire's awesome collection, (my next set of stamps will be from Waltzingmouse Stamps though! Right, hubby?) I am very happy to be sharing with you Waltzingmouse Stamps' first digital templates. I hear that digital stamps may be next! Yay!

On to the project! I used the super cute Spring Basket Template both ways (tall and short) to make a basket and a "vase" for Easter. I let the hubster pick out the colors and I'm sure by the time he reads this he'll already know why! (Hi, honey!)
For both of these, I used whitecore pastel cardstock from DCWV and did all of my decorative trimming with a scallop blade in my Fiskars rotary trimmer.  For the handle on the short basket I used a blue piece with an "inverse scallop" on top of a normal scalloped yellow piece. For this project, I started with 12 x 12 paper and trimmed it to 11 x 8.5. I used the trimmings to make my handles. Each handle is 1 inch wide and 10-12 inches long. I should also mention that I broke the rules a little and folded over the liner so that the little basket had a flat edge with contrasting scallops on the outside panels. (This involved a teensy bit of trimming and some engineering with the handle.) Apparently, I can't follow a template any better than I can follow a sketch which is how my tall basket turned into a short vase.
I feel inclined to share how I made my basket into a vase. So, here's what you need to do - put your basket completely together except for the liner. (We'll get to that later.) Take a very sharp craft knife and cut across the base of the "basket" piece (you should end up with 6 flaps where you had a solid basket. Using sticky dots or glue glue each of the flaps to the inside of the "shaft". Attach the handle. Next, you can either glue in the liner and do the same cutting process or you can cut it into 6 pieces before gluing it into the basket and the shaft. Next, you need to decide if you will be using fresh flowers or silk flowers. If you are using fresh flowers you can cut a sandwich baggie in half (so that it's short) to wrap the stems in (to protect the paper) and then place them into the vase. Voila!
Thanks for joining me on this magical hop adventure. Next, up is Tamara and don't forget that you can always check out what's going on at the Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog!