Pinwheel Embellishments

And here we are, finally, the pinwheel embellishments. These are really easy to make and look quite fancy on the front of your cards and other creations. You will find that after you making a few you can knock out a whole bunch of them very quickly and keep them for future projects.

Finished pinwheels, unattached.

Materials

·         Two pieces of coordinating patterned paper (approximately  3" x 3" of each design)

·         Plain cardstock to match your paper (approximately 3" x 6")

Equipment

·         Paper Trimmer 

·         Adhesive

·         Grid Paper 

Instructions

1.     Cut your patterned paper. You need 4 pieces of each design cut to 1¼" square (8 squares in all).

2.     Cut two pieces of plain cardstock 2⅝" square.

3.     Use the Grid Paper to place one plain cardstock square as a diamond, lining up the points with the bold lines. Apply a small square of adhesive in the centre of the second piece and position it squarely on the diamond, creating an 8-point star. Make sure your adhesive doesn't go to the edges or your pinwheel will stick to the Grid Paper. If you plan on making a few pinwheels, you might want to make some pencil marks around the corners of the top square (on the grid paper) so that it's easier to line them up.

4.     Take one of the small paper squares and place a small piece of adhesive on the back. Position it onto one point of the star, leaving a small border. Then place a square of the other patterned paper onto the next point, overlapping the first piece.

5.     Continue alternating squares until you reach the last piece. This piece will need to be placed partially under the first piece to complete the pattern. You will have to lift the first up to get the last one in place (that's why you only want a small amount of adhesive on this one). You can go back and add more adhesive  to all of the squares if you want but it probably isn't necessary.

6.     Finish off with a brad, button, bling or whatever in the centre of the pinwheel, then place it on your card or gift box. You could even stamp a sentiment onto a small label and place it in the middle of the pinwheel.

Examples

You can just place  the pinwheel onto the front of the card with some coordinating DSP in the background

Add some ribbon for contrast

Add a sentiment on a label

Stamp directly onto the cardstock

      As I've mentioned previously, I made some of these to place on the front of the Small Gift Boxes (see last week's blog). The boxes are only 3" x 3", so I had to make the pinwheels a little smaller. To do this, I made the squares 1" x 1", and the backing cardstock pieces were 2⅛" square. You can basically make them any size you want! Just choose the size of your squares, then double the squares' measurement and add ⅛" for the backing cardstock.

      Here are some of the smaller ones on the gift boxes.

You can position the pinwheels so that the points are straight up and down, as on the two on the right, or turn them just a little as on the two on the left.

So, I hope you think that these were worth waiting for! Until next time, happy crafting.

Small Gift Boxes

Hi folks. Thanks for waiting so patiently. Life is returning to normal now following my surgery and then a 10-day trip to Melbourne to visit with relatives (including my 89-year-old mother) and to attend Stampin' Up!'s OnStage Local. OnStage was a great day.

Anyway, more about those later. Today I want to tell you all about the small gift boxes that I've been making. I had an order from a friend (who sells hand-made jewellery at markets) for 50 Christmas boxes and I didn't think I was going to get them done in time (my friend is in Melbourne so I was taking them over when I went). But I managed to get them made and now I will show you how it's done. These are some that I made earlier this year, some using retired product.

Some floral gift boxes.

Some more of the ones I made earlier.

Equipment 

      Paper Trimmer

      Bone Folder 

      Small Scissors 

      Strong adhesive 

      Punches or Framelits/Thinlits Dies (NB A Big Shot is required for dies) 

     

Materials

          Plain cardstock 12” x 12” (for the box and drawer) 

          Patterned paper (for the front of the card)

          Plain cardstock in a light colour (for the inside of the card)

          Embellishments, as desired

      Glimmer/Foil Paper (optional)

      Ribbon (optional)

      Washi Tape (optional)

       

Method

1. Cut cardstock 3" x 12"; score at 3", 4”, 7”, 8” and 11” and fold all inwards, using the Bone Folder to ensure a crisp fold. This piece will form the box and card.

Score on the red lines

2. Cut another piece of cardstock 4⅞” x 4⅞” and score 1” in from all four edges. Fold all inwards again. This piece is for the drawer.

Again, score on the red lines

3. Using the drawer piece, cut opposite sides to make tabs, as marked in blue in the diagram below left. Then cut and remove the bits in blue in the diagram below right to taper the four tabs.

         

Cut on the blue lines

Cut the Vs and remove the blue pieces

4. Fold the sides up and tuck the four tabs inside the drawer. Adhere them with Fast Fuse. Punch out a circle (the pictured one is 1¾"), fold it in half and attach it to the front of the drawer.

I usually use the same DSP for the circle as the one on the front of the box

5. Using the larger piece of cardstock, adhere the first 1” tab to the other 1” area to form a box with a card front as shown below.

6. Cut a piece of DSP 2¾” x 2¾” for the front of the card, and a piece of plain cardstock for the inside of the card. Decorate the front and inside of the card as desired.  You may find it easier to adhere these front panel and the inside panel before your form the box. Just fold the box so you know where to place the panels. The drawer is great for small gift items like jewellery or a treat, like lollies.

These two boxes show how they look closed and open.
Use a strip of DSP or Washi Tape as a highlight inside.

8. OPTIONAL: Cut a piece of ribbon about 20" long and glue it to the top of the box prior to adhering the plain cardstock. This allows you to tie a bow in the front of the drawer.

Place the centre of the ribbon at the centre of the BACK of the drawer

These are some that I made a couple of years ago, with bows

Here are the ones I made this year for my friend, 

Close ups of some of the Christmas ones I made.

I used the Starburst Punch for the large circular backgrounds, and other punches for the focal piece. On some I used the Pinwheels that I'd made earlier.

So, that's it. They look a little tricky at first, but once you get the hang of them they are quite quick to put together. To make the 50 boxes I cut out all of the cardstock and patterned paper first, then punched out the pieces I thought I'd use, matched to the paper if possible, and then put them all together in a production line. 

The pinwheel tutorial will follow soon. Thanks for reading.

Are you still watching?

Hi folks. I am not able to publish anything just now. The wireless thing on my laptop has died so I cannot got online with it. And all of my photos are on my laptop. I could copy photos to a USB drive and take them to work (where I'm typing this), but it's all too hard this week (it's been a busy week, let me tell you). PLUS I'm heading to Adelaide today for the weekend, then onto Melbourne for a week. So you'll all just have to wait, I'm afraid. Sorry!