Dusting off those punches!

Electronic cutting machines have certainly taken the craft industry by storm over recent years but that doesn't mean we can't dust off the old hand held punch to create fun designs on our projects. It just takes a crazy idea to reinvent the wheel, a leaf punch and some seriously cute Doodlebug Swiss Dots paper in dreamy shades of pastel.

Introducing my (dust free) leaf punch and using the bold side of the new Swiss Dots patterned paper I punched a whole pile of leaves in six different shades. Let me just say, I had a desk full of leaves and a very sore hand when finished.

I wanted to have one side of the leaf more prominent than the other so I cut little slits along the edge that would overlap each leaf.

I cut a circle template to use as a guide and began by adhering each leaf starting from the outer most edge and working my way into the middle of the wheel.

At first I thought it was going to take an eternity, however it actually came together quite quickly once I had worked out a system.

I was really pleased with the finished piece and to be honest a little nervous to move onto the next step of embellishing because I had planned on adding some hand stitching and I knew that I couldn't make a mistake as I truly didn't want to redo all that work... my sore hand would never forgive me.

Fortunately everything went smoothly as I added more layers of embellishments finishing with the journaling using Doodlebug rub-ons and a scatter of sprinkles that match the Swiss Dots paper perfectly.

Ingredients:

5052: cupcake swiss dot petite prints CS

5060: bumblebee swiss dot petite prints CS 

5065: pistachio swiss dot petite prints CS

5067: bubble blue swiss dot petite prints CS

5070: lilac swiss dot petite prints CS

5048: sweet things this & that sticker

4541: lilac glitter sprinkles

4537: bumblebee glitter sprinkles

4533: cupcake glitter sprinkles

4015: beetle black sprinkles

I hope today's post has given you some ideas on using the new Doodlebug Swiss Dots patterned paper and also some inspiration for dusting off your old punches again.
Thanks for stopping by - Melinda