Big News!

Here's the exciting news I mentioned in last night's post. I've been invited to join the design team at Clear & Simple Stamps. They have such fun, fresh images! I'm so excited to get the chance to work with them. I really like their "Simple Darlings" sets and their great sentiment collections, too.

So far, I've worked with one set--Gourmet Darling. Considering that I don't cook, that's kind of funny, isn't it? I guess it's fitting, then, that one of the projects I created for the Clear & Simple Stamps gallery is a take-out menu box. I've seen these in expensive specialty gift stores and always wanted one for my own collection of menus, but I've never been willing to spend the money for one, so this was a great way to create one for myself.

I bought an unfinished wood box at a craft store and painted the sides with acrylic paint. After the paint dried, I attached a piece of patterned paper using some Mod Podge both on the wood box and over top of the paper. I also used the Mod Podge to attach the twill tape to the box--I just brushed some Mod Podge where I wanted to place the ribbon and used some more to seal it in place.

I stamped the girl image and one of the sentiments from Gourmet Darling on a piece of white paper and colored it with Copic markers. After matting the image on coordinating solid pieces of cardstock, I used more Mod Podge to adhere the stamped image panel. The image stayed pretty crisp, but the sentiment (stamped in dye ink) blurred just the tiniest bit. I added a few layers of velvet flowers for interest at the top of the stamped image. Finally--something in my kitchen that might actually get used!!

Materials Used:

Gourmet Darling stamp set (Clear & Simple Stamps); Graphite Black ink (Brilliance); Bravo Burgundy Classic ink, Bravo Burgundy cardstock (Stampin' Up!); Aqua Mist cardstock, Aqua Mist twill (Papertrey Ink); white cardstock (Georgia Pacific); velvet flowers (Prima); brad (Making Memories); Mod Podge; acrylic paint; foam brush; wood box