It used to be that when Stampin’ Up! changed from one catalogue to the next all the bundles retired. That meant that even if the individual items remained available, you could no longer buy them together at a discount. A couple of years ago that changed and Stampin’ Up! began carrying over a few of the most popular bundles. I always try to keep on top of these but inevitably some slip by me. That’s what happened with the Sweet Strawberry Bundle. I made today’s strawberry patch gift tag, but it was only when I double-checked the 2021/22 Annual Catalogue I saw the bundle offer was still current. It just goes to show that even though you think you know the catalogue, it never hurts to give it another look.

STRAWBERRY PIECES

My gift tag actually started out as a pile of pieces created while I was distracted by the Sweet Strawberry Stamp Set. It’s been a while since I’ve used it and saw it while I was putting away some other stamps. So I grabbed some strips of Basic White Card and decided to play a little.

The Sweet Strawberry Stamp Set is designed to be used with the two-step stamping technique. So for almost all the images there’s an outline stamp and a separate solid stamp to fill in the colour. Today I picked the separate leaves and stems along with Shaded Spruce ink for the outline and Old Olive ink for the solid parts. The strawberries would have a Merry Merlot outline and Poppy Parade for the solid colour. Then all I had to do was stamp.

One of the things I love about this set is that the solid stamps are ‘Distinktive’. This means that when they’re stamped you get variation in the areas of colour. Personally I find that it’s easier to stamp the solid part first and then add the outline around. With the stamps being made from see-through photopolymer, it’s actually much easier than it sounds.

Once I had two strawberries, two separate strawberry stems, and three separate leaves I just needed to cut them out. This was simple too as I’d stamped them onto strips of card so I could line them up in the coordinating Strawberry Builder Punch.

JUST FOR YOU

It was only then that I decided to turn the pile of pieces into a gift tag. So I used my Paper Trimmer to cut and score a 3″ x 6″ piece of Basic White Card. Then I folded the card along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder.

To turn the mini card into a tag I just needed to add a hole at the back. For this I opened up the card and placed it into the Detailed Trio Punch. Then, I set the crease to the right of the centre line marked on the punch and punched the oval hole. With that done I threaded some Linen Thread through the hole and tied it in a simple knot.

For my sentiment I went back to the Sweet Strawberry Stamp Set and chose “just for you”. Then using Shaded Spruce ink I stamped it in the top right corner on the tag front. This allowed me to see the space I had left to arrange my stamped and punched pieces.

First I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to fix two of the leaves leaves onto the tag. Next I glued the stems to the top of the strawberries. Then with more liquid glue I added one of the strawberries to the tag front. Finally, using Stampin’ Dimensionals I added the remaining strawberry and the last leaf. With that my sweet tag was complete.

One of the things I love about the Sweet Strawberry Stamp Set is the sentiments and the two fonts used. They’re elegant without being fussy, and I’m glad I reminded myself of that. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the sentiments when a stamp set has a lot of image images. What do you think?

For another project using the Sweet Strawberry Stamp Set see my earlier blog post Strawberry punch is back in stock.

PRODUCT LIST

BUNDLE BONUS – As I mentioned, the Sweet Strawberry Stamp Set and Strawberry Builder Punch is still available to buy using a single bundle item number. This will save you 10% off the cost of buying the two items separately. I’ve included both options below so you can explore this further if you wish.