Today’s a big day. It’s the final day of the Designer Series Paper (DSP) sale and your last chance to get selected 12″ x 12″ paper at 15% off. It’s also the day before the new Mini Catalogue goes live and the second part of the 2021 Sale-A-Bration promotion begins. Today’s final sneak peek project uses some of the DSP that’s on sale to create a faux wood gift box. For the decoration I pulled out the new Nature’s Harvest Stamp Set and coordinating Harvest Dies.

WHEAT STALKS

My project started a while ago as I was playing with the new Harvest Dies. Among the set I found a lovely die for three wheat stalks so I used it to cut some Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper.

Using Water Painters I coloured the heads of the stalks with a light wash of Bumblebee ink, and the stems with Pear Pizzazz ink.

TIP – to paint with ink I press on the lids of my closed ink pads so some ink from the foam is transferred to the inside of the lid. Then once I can add water to the ink as needed and use the inside of the lid as my palette. When I’m done I wipe the lid clean, or just close it up ready for next time.

After the painted ink had dried I went back and added more ink to build up the colour. After a couple of sessions I was happy with the effect and left the paper to dry thoroughly.

WOODEN BOX

It was only at this point that I realised that I hadn’t actually decided what my wheat stalk and sentiment were going to decorate. So from my stash I found a Mini Paper Pumpkin Box. The box is plain white and in the past I’ve coloured them with ink or added panels of DSP. Today I decided to try something altogether more challenging, I would transform the box completely.

As I was looking through the In Good Taste DSP pack I came across a sheet with a really dark wood design. This would contrast well against the wheat stalk and sentiment so I decided to give it a go.

First I folded the box along all the pre-scored lines. Then I covered the centre panels of the box with Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) and placed the box onto the DSP. Then I pressed really firmly to ensure the panels were well stuck. Finally I went round each of the remaining sections of the box in turn, covered them with liquid glue and fixed them to the DSP. While the glue was still wet I gently folded the various flaps in so that the DSP could move a little. Once one section was done I moved onto the next. This way when I came to assemble the box there wouldn’t be any stress on the paper. With everything attached I let the box dry for a couple of minutes.

When I went back to the box I needed to trim off the excess DSP. This was simply a case of using my Paper Snips and following the edges of the box. Once the trimming was done I folded in the flaps to assemble the box as normal.

Now my box was ready to decorate.

NATURE’S HARVEST

I began to think about the sentiment and chose “Good luck” from the new Nature’s Harvest Stamp Set. Then using Early Espresso ink I stamped it onto some Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper.

To cut out the sentiment I chose the #2 rounded top die from the Tailor Made Tags Dies (counting from the smallest up). I also used the same die to cut some Bumblebee Card then tied the two tags loosely together with Crumb Cake twine from the Baker’s Twine Essentials Pack.

To decorate the box I first fixed the wheat stems to the lid using liquid glue. Then with some Stampin’ Dimensionals I layered the two tag pieces so the Bumblebee one peeked out from under the stamped one. Finally, using more Stampin’ Dimensionals I added the tags to the box and my project was complete.

I love how today’s project turned out. I think the Harvest Dies will go well with the Meadow Dies I bought from the Annual Catalogue too. I may have to go explore that option next.

Meanwhile here’s your final sneak peek at the products, first the Harvest Dies…

and now the coordinating Nature’s Harvest Stamp Set.

PRODUCT LIST

BUNDLE BONUS – I bought the Nature’s Harvest Stamp Set and coordinating Harvest Dies using a single ‘bundle’ item number. This meant I saved 10% off the cost of buying the two items separately. I’ve included a link to this bundle below in case you want to explore this option.

GET THE BUNDLE FOR FREE! – Join Stampin’ Up! now and you can add the Nature’s Harvest bundle to your Starter kit as an extra FREE item. Check out my Join Stampin’ Up! page for all the details or see page 19 of the Sale-A-Bration Brochure. This offer ends on September 30th, 2021.