Fun Flower Purse…

Happy Saturday to you! I hope you are enjoying a fine, relaxing day. I sure did, because I holed up in my crafty corner to create a fun flower purse!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love reading blogs? I am always excited in the morning, when I sit down (before every one else gets up), and I read the oodles of blogs I have subscribed to in my Reader. I never know what I will find and where bloggers will take me.

I found out about this fantastic purse via Becky Roberts’, Inking Idaho blog. Just one line (at the very end of the post) that led me to this post on Kathy Orta’s Paper Phenomenon blog. I knew I liked the whole idea, but I didn’t know what a cut file for the Cricut was. Turns out you need the Design Studio to use the cut file (which I guess is all the info for the pieces). But, Kathy offered a tutorial without the cut file and I snatched it up!

Here’s the result…

It took the better part of the afternoon, but I think the end result was definitely worth the effort! LOL

I followed Kathy’s very well written and thorough tutorial (which includes the templates needed to create the purse). She used the George & Basic Shapes cartridge and Accent Essentials. I own the George one, but not the other because I have the original Cricut and the AE cartridge comes with the Expressions machine (the big daddy of the Cricut family). So, I used the Walk In My Garden cartridge to cut the majority of the flowers you see. How’s that for a leap? LOL I also used Martha Stewart’s leaf punch and the hydrangea trio punch. There’s another little flower punch in there, too. I think it’s an EK Success one.

I added a bit of texture by running some pieces through a Cuttlebug embossing folder and sponging some ink on the Honey cardstock. And you can hopefully see the bling from the Crystal Stickles and rhinestones.

The colors are all CTMH, Colonial White, Orange, Hydrangea, Watermelon and Honey with Clover Meadow for the leaves.

And if you can believe it, I sponged ink (not extremely carefully) on all the flowers and leaves and used a large embossing stylus to give them a bit of dimension by rolling the ball part  in the center of the flowers.

I think that explains what I used. If you’d like to make a purse for yourself, click over to Kathy’s blog and pick up a tutorial for yourself. Thanks for the inspiration, Kathy! This was fun!

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you have a great weekend!

Jeanne