Cosmo Cricket Early Bird + Nestabilities + a Bird Cage stamp + American Crafts Packaging = CUTENESS!

No, for real! Check this out!



Am I right? Of course, I'm right. I always am when it comes to matters of cuteness! I just know these things! You must learn to trust me. Really, you must.

So...here is what I did...



I took an empty American Crafts Greenhouse embellishments container (*shock!* Yes...it is possible to actually use a full container of embellishments...it's okay...I was shocked at first, too!)

I created a cute decorative band to wrap around it from Cosmo Cricket Early Bird paper and added some way stinking adorable pom-pom trim for some fun and flair.

Then, I used my Nestabilities scalloped circle dies to the red cardstock and the Cosmo Cricket Early Bird paper to create the flowers. You guys know how much I love pop dots, so, of course, I used those for dimension on the flowers. LOVE IT! Then I reached for some classic 'flower center' type stamps to make the centers.

That's when I got stuck. I found an interesting snowflake and stamped it, cut it out, and hated it. Then I found a fun flower that I punched with a circle punch after stamping....and hated it. Hmmm.....

Then I grabbed my funky pointy star thingy punch (I SWEAR that's what the package said! HA!) from EK Success and punched a piece of kraft cardstock scrap to see if that color would work and I figured I'd find a stamp after determining the color match. Well, would you GUESS what happened next?! Nope! You wouldn't! Why? Because it was just an amazing stroke of creative brilliance sent from above, that's why. The scrap that I had used just happened to have Hero Arts birdcage images stamped on the other side. Well....it just so happened that the piece I punched looked AWESOME with part of the cage stamped on it! So...that's what I did! I punched out a portion the bird cage image for the center of each flower and then topped them with the button! I love it! And even better - I TOTALLY love it when that happens!!!



I stuffed the little acrylic container with some brown felt and then created the stems from some freebie pencils that I had around. I just wrapped them with floral tape to get the right look and then tied ribbon around a few of them to finish it off! Now I have this WAY stinking adorable little paper flower bouquet and it is making me quite happy.



AND....even better...I totally got to upcycle, and that ALWAYS thrills the heck out of me. Basically, this was overall, a wicked crazy fun project! What do you think?