Strawberries!!!!

My favorite berry is by far the strawberry!  I love almost anything strawberry and this year I was excited to add some strawberry plants to my garden.  We got the hanging variety and the strawberries are soooo yummy!!!  I made the mistake of letting my boys eat some right off the plant and now they raid the plants ALL the time.  The first time Carter had one, he took a bit, went "mmmmmm" and then had a puzzled look on his face.  He looked at me and said, "Mom, there's something wrong with my strawberry.  It's not white in the middle."  To which I about laughed myself silly and told him that this was how strawberries were supposed to be not like the ones we get in the store in the middle of winter!!!!  Anyway, you didn't stop by for strawberry stories, you came for some fabulous stampin' projects, didn't you?

Last month, my stamp clubs did a super fun strawberry basket project!  The version I'm going to show you today has some extras added from the project that my clubs did courtesy of me finding stuff on my desk while cleaning that I thought would be perfect for this project.

The basket is made from Soft Suede cardstock with a Soft Suede Striped Ribbon handle.  The ribbon was fed through some holes in the sides of the basket and then tied with some Linen Thread.  The paper shreds are Wild Wasabi.  I just cut the cardstock into small strips (1/8"), ran them through the crimper and then crunched them up before putting them in the basket.  I added a tag and some buttons (because they were laying on my desk!).

That Linen Thread is holding the ribbon handle, the tag and the button on the project...I love it, no adhesive or brads or anything required!  So the tag was made with our two tag punches that layer together perfectly...the smaller is Whisper White and the bigger is Real Red.  I stamped the strawberry from one of my favorite new sets (Best of Everything).  It was colored with Garden Green and Real Red Stampin' Write markers to get the dual color image.  Then I stamped "friend" with Soft Suede...the "friend" is from the Fabulous Phrases set...love that set!

I learned how to make the basket at Convention this summer.  You can come to Convention with me next year...just join my team and you can come on the BEST girls road trip ever next July!!!!  Contact me for more information!

Ok, so, you start by cutting one of the Facy Favors with your Big Shot.  I then cut the fancy edge off the top and cut from the top down to the score line along the bottom every inch (be careful not to cut through that bottom score line!).  I also cut two 1x12 strips of cardstock.

I chose to cut everything at 1" because it was easy...but you could to it at 1/2" intervals or for a fun look, don't cut all your strips the same (it also looks super cute!).  Or, you could weave different colors into your basket...or even try weaving ribbon into it!  Oooh, the wheels are turning now, aren't they?!?!?!?

Once you've done the cutting, you just weave, trim any ends you need to and glue the ends down. 

Now, you just assemble the box/basket like normal...crease all the score lines, adhere the ends together and fold up the bottom.  You can then add a handle if you so desire.  Your handle could be ribbon like I used, or you could use cardstock.

On to the strawberries!  There are tutorials for these ALL over the web...this is my take on it.  I used the Flower Folds die, but you could use the Island Floral Die or the Flower Fusion Sizzlit for tiny strawberries! 

Cut out a flower and score it between all the petals as shown in the picture below.

Do you see the hearts that the petals make?  The next step is to cut one of the hearts out like this...

After I did this, I ran the flower through my Big Shot again with the Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder.  Then I glued it into a cone shape by overlapping two of the petals and punched holes in the top of each petal.

You can see that I also curled the tops of the petals a bit (with my finger).  To finish it off, I wove a piece of Garden Green Grosgrain ribbon through the holes and through a 5 Petal Flower that I punched from Garden Green cardstock to complete the berry.  Before closing it up, you could definitely put a little treat inside (like a Hershey Kiss or one of those strawberry hard candies).

Cute, eh?

Each of my club girls got to do 3 strawberries for their baskets.  Mine did have 3...but one got eaten...by a dog...'nuff said!

Have an inspired day!