Easter Greetings ~ Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge

Hello everyone...

Hope you've all had a wonderful weekend and ready for the start of a new week.

Today, is the start of a brand new challenge over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog and this week's challenge is "NO RULES"!! Yes, there are no rules and you can create anything you like and we would love it if you would join in with this week's challenge and the whole team can't wait to see what you make.

...and this, is what I made. An Easter box which is full of chocolate from the Easter Bunny!! As always, I hope you love what I've made.

Now let's begin and tell you how I made it...

To start with I created a drawer box using a heavyweight card stock. The outside of the box is approximately 15.5 x 12cm in size and 2.5cm deep. The actual drawer that fits inside, is made slightly smaller so that it slides in and out easily. I then attached pieces of greyboard to the top and the bottom, cut slightly larger than the finished box, so that this would make it substantial before giving the entire box and the drawer a coat of gesso and then, a coat of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Nougat paint.

Once the box was dry, I aged the edges with Walnut Stain Distress ink. Now comes the fun bit, I need to start decorating it and for this I used the stunning Sweet Sentiments paper pad from Graphic 45. I cut pieces of the paper to cover each of the three sides on the outside of the box and a piece for the top and attached all the paper with Mod Podge. I then covered the inside and the front of the drawer with more paper from the pad. 

Once all my box was covered, I then gave it a coat of Mod Podge to seal it. So that I could open the drawer easily, I attached a Idea-ology drawer pull onto the front covered section and added a Chit Chat sticker label.

Now to decorate the top and for this, I used the Sizzix Easter Elements die from Tim Holtz to die cut two pieces of chipboard, which I then glued together to make one complete and very substantial bunny. I painted the bunny with an Espresso Brown paint dabber and then tied a piece of vintage ribbon around his neck.

I then needed to create a little garden for him to sit in and for this I used the Tapered Fringe die to die cut green Bazzill card which I quilled and shaped to give me five individual sprigs of grass. I added some Walnut Stain ink to the ends of the grass before moving onto the flowers. 

The flowers are all created using Tim's Mini Tattered Florals die and coloured with Distress Inks before being layered together and then shaped to make these dimensional blooms. I used an old snowflake die from my stash to create the stamens in the centre and then added an enamel dot to each. 

I then arranged the grass and flowers onto the top of my box, placing the bunny in the centre and adding some cheesecloth which I dyed using Peeled Paint Distress Stain.

I used the Mini Movers and Shapers Butterfly die to die cut some of the papers from the Sweet Sentiments pad, layered the die cuts together to create dimensional butterflies and then added pearls down the centre of each. I then attached them to coils of wire so that it would give the appearance of them in flight and attached them onto my box, placing them amongst the foliage, together with an Easter message cut from the pad, attached with a Memo Pin. As a finishing touch, I used oval pearls, which looked like small Easter eggs and attached these in each of the four corners of the box.

Finally, I added a stand for the whole box to sit on and made this with a cardboard tube which started life as the inside of the kitchen towel. I covered the tube with paper from the pad and then attached it to the centre on the bottom of my box.

Last but by no means least, you need to now fill that drawer with chocolates!!!

So, I really hope you've loved what I've created for Easter and for more great ideas and inspiration, then you need to look no further than the blog to see all the wonderful creations from my very talented Design Team members and every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. Good luck....

Products used:

Tim Holtz Sizzix Easter Elements Die

Tim Holtz Sizzix Mini Tattered Florals Die

Tim Holtz Sizzix Mini Butterflies Die

Tim Holtz Sizzix Tapered Fringe Die

Distress Stain ~ Peeled Paint

Distress Inks ~ Walnut Stain, Shaded Lilac, Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade

Ranger Adirondack Paint Dabber Espresso Brown

Easter Grass Green Bazzill Card

Graphic 45 ~ Sweet Sentiments 8" x 8" Paper Pad

PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Paint ~ Nougat

Idea-Ology ~ Memo Pins, Label Pulls, Seasonal Chit Chat Stickers

MME ~ Heirloom Enamel Dots

Mod Podge

Seam binding, greyboard, chipboard, cheesecloth, pearls and cardstock from my own stash

Thank you so much for all your visits today and I'll see you all very soon!!

Bye for now...love Emma xx