Fun Fridays - Bags, Boxes, Books and Chocolate!!

Hi!  I'm Charlene, one of the new DT members for Posh Designs Scrapbook Store.  I'm so thrilled to be bringing you, what I call...Fun Fridays - Books, Bags, Boxes, and Chocolate!  I'm hoping to bring you a variety of projects that will spark your imagination for use in your home and gift giving. 

Some of you may know me as the creator of the Chocolate Book on SCS, but you've never seen it like this...come to think of it, neither have I!  This is my very first attempt at Vintage Shabby Chic. 

I wasn't sure what I had on hand to achieve what I had in my head since I've never done this style before, so the first thing I did was study the Posh Designs Gallery.  There are some super talented creators there! You're really missing some great eye candy if you haven't visited PDSS forum yet!  Then I went digging through my stash.  Here are some of the items I assembled initially.  You'll notice that there are a few things that didn't get used and a few that aren't pictured because I dug them out as I began to put my book together.  Do you create like that?

Here are a few of the "Must Haves":  The inside template for the book pages (tell you about that in a minute),  1/8" Scor-Tape or Redline tape, your choice of Designer papers (I used K&Co. Classic K, and Webster's Pages Lullaby Lane/Life's Portrait combo pack), embellishments and Chocolate!  I've found that Hershey bars fit the best without too much bulk.  The rest is up to your imagination. 

One of the first things I did was take a length of sheer ivory ribbon and heat it up with my heat gun.  This made the ribbon crinkle and melt just a bit.  Perfect! 

Next,  I used Spellbinders Heart dies to cut a few hearts from some recycled chipboard.  I placed the hearts just as they were inside a small box, gave them a spritz of spray adhesive, then sprinkled on Martha Stewart Crystal glitter. Another quick spritz of adhesive and they got a bit Martha Stewart Smoky Quartz glitter as well. 

I finished off the edges with a bit of sponging using Tim Holtz Tea Dye Distress ink. 

I gave the sheer glittered butterfly a spritz of adhesive and sprinkled it with the Smoky Quartz only.  It came with some glitter already on it but it was just a bit too white for my design.

Do you see the flower above the butterfly and below the ribbon?  I so wanted to use a flower but my rose was too big, the small Prima roses I have were too small, so like Goldilocks, I went looking for one that was "just right".  I found a medium sized rather plain looking white paper flower in my stash.   Not too exciting, right?  I put it in my cardboard box (found that idea on the Posh forum!) then grabbed my bottle of Sugar Cookie Glimmer Mist and gave it a couple of good sprays.  After I dried it with my heat gun, I folded it up, tied the base with twine, clipped off the point, added a glue dot then tucked it under the butterfly.  It added some dimension, filled the space and added a bit of soft color.

You can see how I gave the butterfly and the heart some "lift" with buttons that I stuck on with glue dots.  The flower was able to be tucked under the butterfly this way.

Here are some photos of the inside of the book:  The insert page is held by a strip of 1/8" Scor-Tape that I ran down the inside of the "spine". 

I covered the front of each chocolate bar to make it a bit more elegant. 

Table of contents

Inside pages          

Back page for Greeting or sentiment

If you'd like to make your own Chocolate book, I have a tutorial and templates PDF files (Rules of Chocolate & Birthday Rules of Chocolate) for the inside pages that you can print out.

Thanks for visiting with us on the Posh Designs Scrapbook Store blog!  See you next Fun Friday!

Charlene