Thursday 24 September 2015

Purple Basket

Yesterday I made a little basket to put all the purple goodies in to give to our neighbour. I found the instructions for making this basket via Pinterest, which directed me to this blog. I decided to alter it somewhat – making it twice as large (a 12 x 12 in sheet rather than 6 x 6 in, and even so, it comes out quite small) and also to make a single handle rather than the two in this design. I am grateful to Rachel Ricks for her template.

22 Basket with Gifts

Here is my piece of purple 12 x 12 card, scored and cut as per the instructions.

01 Scoring and Cutting the Basket

I cut several strips and panels to embellish the outside of the box. I made a bit of a booboo over this (more later) because I didn’t fully visualise how it was going to work!

I began by embossing these panels, using one of Tim Holtz’s embossing folders, “Damask,” and my Cuttlebug.

02 Embossing the Panels

After this, I inked the raised embossing with Seedless Preserves distress ink, using my brayer.

03 Inking the Embossing

I wasn’t happy with the result as the background was too pale, so I inked it with Dusty Concord distress ink, which looked a lot better. I did most of the inking on this project using Inkylicious Ink Dusters.

04 Inking the Background

Turning to what would be the inside of the box, I thought the plain purple card was far too boring, so I smooshed a background using Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves distress inks, rubbing the ink pads on my craft sheet and spritzing it with water.

05 Smooshed Background for Basket Inside

I felt it needed something extra so I decided to put my new Brushos to use, and sprinkled on some purple, and spritzed it with water. I am not sure whether this was a component part of the purple or whether the crystals had got contaminated with another colour, but some little gold flecks appeared which I really liked! Unfortunately the photo doesn’t do this justice – it looks really rich in real life.

06 Brusho on Basket Inside

This is a set of butterfly stamps I got a few months ago.

07 Butterfly Stamps

I heat-embossed these on the inside of the basket, using gold embossing powder.

08 Gold Embossed Butterflies on Basket Inside

Returning to the panels for the outside, I heat-embossed the raised embossed surface of the panels, applying Versamark with my brayer and embossing with clear embossing powder.

09 Clear Embossing the Panels

After this I added more Seedless Preserves distress ink to darken the background still further.

10 Inking over Clear Embossing on Panels

The final touch was to add some Treasure Gold gilding wax very sparingly over the embossed surface. Just the effect I was after!

11 Treasure Gold on Embossing

It was at this point that I realised that I had not made any panels for the ends of the basket. I tried to remember what I had done, and they didn’t look the same at all! What I should have done was to look at the photos I’d already taken but I didn’t think of that… chemo brain… Anyway, I quite liked the result even if the panels did come out lighter than the rest – let’s call it “contrast” lol!!

12 Side Panels

I also realised that I should have cut the strips into short lengths to cover only the cut strips of the template, and not to have a piece going across what turned out to be the ends of the basket, so I cut off the embossed parts and disposed of the middle part. I stuck them down with my ATG glue gun. I had cut them 1/8 in smaller all round (apart from where they joined the fold) to give a matted appearance. The pale square in the centre is the bottom of the outside of the basket.

13 Basket Ready for Assembly

The next step was to assemble the box. If you look at Rachel Ricks’ blog you can see how it all comes together.

I glued the strips to each other in turn, and to the triangular flap underneath, trimming off the excess to give a nice neat edge.

Here is the basket being assembled. I used Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive which is a good strong wet glue. When I make this project in the future, I shall use this to attach the panels too, because as I flexed the strips to assemble the box, some of them started to come away at the edges and I had to squirt some of the adhesive between the layers to secure them.

14 Assembling the Basket

I punched two pairs of circles to cover the join where the strips all came together, and also to cover the backs of the brads to attach the handle.

15 Punched Circles

The larger circles were cut with a 2 1/2 in scalloped circle punch and the smaller ones with a plain 2 in circle punch. I embossed and inked these as before.

I folded each circle in half before sticking them together, and then stuck half the circle to the outside of the basket on each side.

16 The Circles on the Basket

To make the handle, because my Cuttlebug embossing folders are not long enough, I placed the narrower (1 in wide, 11 3/4 in long) strip onto the opened embossing folder and hand embossed it with a ball embossing tool. I could probably have folded it in half and embossed it in the normal way because the fold wouldn’t have shown once it was stuck down to to the other piece, or embossed each end in turn, but it looks OK. This narrower strip was cut from the same pale mauve cardstock that I used for the panels.

The wider piece was 1 1/4 in wide and 12 in long, cut from the same purple cardstock as the basket. I rounded all the corners with a corner rounder punch and stuck the two layers together with Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive, curving the handle as I went, so that the two layers would stick together in the correct curve without any separation or buckling. I chose two decorative brads to attach the handle to the basket.

17 Handle and Brads

I made a hole on each side through the half circle and all the layers, and discovered that it was much too thick for the brad to go through and its ends be spread apart to attach it. I therefore got my craft knife and carefully trimmed away some of the layers until I was satisfied that the brad could be attached securely.

18 Trimming Away Excess

Once this was done, I threaded the brads through the ends of the handle and attached the handle to the basket. The final step was to fold down the other half circles and glue them in place, hiding the trimmed away layers and the brad backs.

19 The Basket Complete

This finished the basket apart from a few little embellishments to go on the handle.

I punched three butterflies with my Stampin’ Up butterfly punch from some of the altered purple paper stuck to a layer of card, and chose the Tim Holtz Bitty Grunge set of background stamps to heat emboss them in gold.

20 Making the Butterflies

Here are the completed butterflies. I had inked them on the backs with Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves distress inks, rubbing the butterflies directly across the ink pads.

21 Embossed Butterflies

I made a bow from purple ribbon, using my bow maker, and stuck this to a cream and gold bow I already had in my stash. The final touch was to add a little “made with love” heart charm in gold. All the embellishments were attached to the handle of the basket with Pinflair gel glue and left to dry overnight.

Here is a detail of the embellishments.

24 Detail of Embellishments

The completed basket with the gifts inside.

22 Basket with Gifts

23 Looking Dwon into the Basket

Today I made the lavender bag to go in the little box, and picked some lavender from the garden to make a nice little spray to go in the basket. I was hoping to make a small notebook with some of the purple paper I have left, but unfortunately there was no time.

15 Lavender Sachet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This afternoon we went across to see our neighbour and she absolutely loved her little basket full of goodies – she said her favourite colour was purple and she loves butterflies – both of which I knew! So nice to hit the spot and shed a little happiness – she’s had some hard knocks recently.

I am delighted that this little basket is just large enough to take the square card I made, and the other bits and pieces too. It makes a nice presentation of a collection of small gifts, and it’s definitely a project I shall be doing again. Thank you again, Rachel, for your lovely design. I hope you approve of what I have done with it!

6 comments:

  1. Wow, Shoshi! You're on a roll! That basket is just incredible! So beautiful! Your neighbour will be delighted, no doubt. So glad to hear thet the last two rounds of chemo are likely to be less invasive. You're really in the home stretch now, just keep going! I've rewatched your teabag zentangle video - I completely forgot about it - but I'm so glad I've stumbled upon it again! So inspirational! Hope to see you next Wednesday if you're doing WOYWW! xx

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  2. Oh how gorgeous!! LOVE it Shoshi.I would be thrilled if it was my gift, so your neighbour must have too! I think I will have to try this basket too some time.Love all the embossing, paint etc.makes it look Very Special.

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  3. Beautiful! I'm so glad you enjoyed my tutorial and blog! - Rachel Ricks

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  4. This is the most gorgeous little basket - I love it and what is so maddening is that I have that same Tim Holtz set of stamps I have never managed to get them to look that good - you have great flair and style, and an ability to use your resources to show them at their best! I am sure your neighbour will be absolutely thrilled with it. Good luck with your next lot of chemo,
    Diana xx

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  5. Gorgeous Shoshi, clever you. I'm in love with this project xXx

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  6. Extraordinary work! I find it amazing how you put all the pieces together to create it. Thank you for sharing this.

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