When the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog issued us with a die cut theme, I was ready to go with my punches and scissors a-blazin'! I adore all of the clever products out there that allow us to be Cut Masters!
Though it is sweltering in my little neck of the woods right now, I still found a use for snowflakes! I decided to make a crown out of a hand-cut snowflake and embellished it with die cut and punched shapes.
A huge kudos goes out to my mom who taught me when I was old enough to hold pointy scissors how to cut a proper snowflake. That's really where this project starts, so here's my way of cutting snowflakes:
Start with a square piece of paper and fold it in half diagonally.
Fold it in half again so your square will be pyramid-shaped.
Fold your pyramid into thirds, like a pokey ice cream cone.
When you fold it in thirds, you can turn it over and see a straight line. All of your snowflake cuts must stay BELOW this straight line!
Now whip out your scissors and start cutting in from both sides. You have to leave a little of the fold lines on the sides intact (don't cut the folded sides completely away) or your snowflake won't have any connecting points when you open it. The more delicate you want your snowflake to be, the more you should cut out. Here's what mine looks like after cutting it:
And now for the fun part! Open your snowflake and see how it turned out!
There you go! Hopefully the perfect snowflake. I spread mine out for this picture, but if you're going to make it into a crown, leave it folded in half. Then all you need to do is glue it to a plastic headband base, like so (here's a side view):
And here is is from the back:
For this demo, I used simple white paper and didn't cover my headband, but the real magic comes when you use patterned paper and glam it up. A key note to remember, however, is to use lightweight patterned paper so you can manage to cut through all those folded layers.
For my crown, I used some patterned paper from My Mind's Eye and Pink Paislee and then went to town with die cuts and punches. The hydrangeas and butterflies are from Martha Stewart and the flowers on both sides of the butterfly are from Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals die set. I also employed the Fiskars AdvantEdge Punch for some of my edges.
All in all, this was another great challenge from Simon Says Stamp that I thoroughly enjoyed! Here's a list of the supplies I used that you can buy at their mighty fine online shop:
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |
If you, too, are a crafty soul who loves to shop for the latest and greatest, why not enter one of Simon's Monday challenges? You could win a whopping $50 to the Simon Says Stamp online store!
