When you’re an avid papercrafter like me you get used to having all your tools and materials close at hand. It’s only when you can’t get to everything you appreciate how fortunate you are. When I first saw the “plot twist!” sentiment I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I mean it practically screamed “bookmark”. So the minute I got my hands on the Lighthearted Lines Stamp Set that’s what I sat down to make. Little did I realise that I’d have to be very creative if I wanted to get it finished.

SETTING THE SCENE

Although my bookmark was going to be simple I did want it to be dramatic. So I thought carefully about the background. I found exactly what I wanted in the Beauty Of The Earth 12″ x 12″ Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack.

The large sheet of watercoloured trees in shades of blue reminded me of my garden during a blizzard. It was exactly the kind of scene you’d imagine in a book just before something major happens. All I had to do was cut a piece of this amazing paper at 2″ x 5-1/2″.

Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I attached it to a 2″ x 5-1/2″ strip of Basic White Card. Now the scene was set I could move on to chapter 2…

PLOT TWIST!

Next I pulled out the “plot twist!” sentiment from the Lighthearted Lines Stamp Set. It was actually a little too wide for the bookmark, but that wasn’t a huge problem. I just used Night of Navy ink and stamped it diagonally across a 2″ x 2-1/2″ piece of Basic White Card. If anything, the angle made the sentiment appear more dramatic.

With that done I could have simply used my Paper Trimmer to cut the sentiment at an angle, but that would have been a bit too neat and tidy. So instead I decided to hold it in my left hand and tear off the excess card towards me. This made the paper edges quite ragged and textured which I thought would add to the overall feel of the bookmark.

The only problem was that the edges were a bit too white against the DSP. So using a Blending Brush I added a light layer of Night of Navy ink over the torn edges. That was much better, and I used liquid glue to attach the sentiment to the DSP layer. All I needed now was to add a hole at the top for my twine and I was done…

FINAL CHAPTER

And it was at this point I realised that I didn’t have access to any of my tag topper punches. I could have used the Tailor Made Tag Dies to create an extended tag, but I’ve done that a couple of times quite recently. No, I’d have to be more creative than that…

Looking at the various dies and punches I had to hand I eventually settled on the Playful Alphabet Dies. One die stood out among the rest, it cut two tiny circles, presumably to allow for punctuation or accents on foreign words. But whatever it’s intended purpose I had a new role for this die.

First I placed my bookmark onto the cutting plate of my Mini Stampin’ Emboss Machine. Then I put the die at the top so just one hole would be cut from the card, and ran it through the machine. Perfect!

To finish I cut three 6″ pieces of Night of Navy twine from the Well Suited Twine Combo Pack. After folding the three pieces in half I threaded the loops through the hole at the top of the bookmark. Then I passed the ends through the loops and pulled to secure the twine in place. With that my “plot twist” bookmark was complete.

You know I never really paid much attention to stamp sets with large sentiments, but Lighthearted Lines is one I’m glad I didn’t overlook. I’ve several more projects already in mind for this set so I hope you’ll pop back to see them.

If you missed my first project from Lighthearted Lines you’ll find it in my blog post A little lighthearted Sunday banter.

PRODUCT LIST

RETIRING PRODUCT – The Well Suited Twine Combo Pack is retiring and is now only available while stocks last. For the full list of retiring products and discounts available on selected items from June 1st, see the Last Chance list.