One of my cardmaking friends lost her husband to cancer recently. He was career military. I wanted to make a flower basket for the card with a nod to his military career, so I did the colors of red, white and blue with some flag bunting on the sides of the basket.

I use the following Karen Burniston dies Woven Basket Box Card, Wide Woven Box Card, tag from Tag Book Pop-Up, flowers from the Flowers and Bee and Flower Pot Pop-Up, and With Sympathy sentiment. I also tried the new Small Scenes Bam Box to pop-out the basket when pulled from the envelope.

Please watch the assembly videos for the various dies that are located toward the bottom of each die set’s link page before starting a card.

When assembling the woven basket, I like to make the rims of the basket fold by lining up a metal ruler from pointed edge to pointed edge. This make a straight fold that is more rounded to cover the top edges of the basket.

When making the flowers, I like to use some flower shaping techniques such as using a tool with a round ball on its end to push the center of the flower into foam to create depth. I most often use my fingers to curl the petal tips under. On the large hibiscus-like flower I used the ball tool to shape the undersides of the petals. Many flowers, such as daisies, have two layers of petals.

The arrangement of the flowers always scares me, but I tried to remember my flower arranging class tricks from years ago. Start with the largest flowers first, creating a tall focal point in the center and shorter to the sides. Fill-in with smaller flowers symmetrically and finish with baby’s breath to fill-out the empty spaces.

I cut the “with Sympathy” sentiment from matte gold cardstock and curved the word sympathy to fit the front of the basket. In addition, I cut a white tag from the Tag Book Pop-Up and stamped and heat embossed the tag with “Sending prayers your way” in matte gold embossing powder. A narrow ivory organza ribbon was used to tie the tag on to a basket handle. A personal message can be written on the tag back.

The folded card fits into a catalog 6×9 inch envelope. To mail the card, I fold a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11-inch white cardstock in half to fit inside the envelope and cushion the card in the mail.

Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope this inspires you and makes you smile. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

• Karen Burniston in cahoots with Riley and Company– Small Scenes Bam Box – 1238
• Karen Burniston in cahoots with Riley and Company – Wide Woven Basket Box Card – 1223
• Karen Burniston in cahoots with Riley and Company – With Sympathy – 1138
• Karen Burniston in cahoots with Riley and Company – Woven Basket Box Card – 1080
• Karen Burniston in cahoots with Riley and Company – Flowers and Bee – 1026
• Karen Burniston in cahoots with Riley and Company – Tag Book Pop-Up – 1023
• Karen Burniston in cahoots with Riley and Company – Flower Pot Pop-Up – 1010

Stamps

• Waffle Flower – Clear Stamps – Sweet Sentiments -271296
• Simon Says Stamp! – Clear Stamps – Brushed Flowers – sss202392c

Papers

• Photoplay – 12×12 Double-Sided Paper Collection – Stars and Strips by Michelle Coleman
• Keep It Simple – 6×6 Double-Sided Paper Collection – Back To basics – Ruby Collection
• White Heavyweight Cardstock
• White Catalog 6×9 Inch Envelope

Ink

• Stampin’ Up – Classic Stampin’ Pad – Misty Moonlight
• Simon Says Stamp – Pawsitively Saturated Ink
• VersaMark – Watermark Stamp Pad
• Sharpie – Permanent Maker – Ultra Fine Point – Yellow
• Pigma – Mircon 03 Fine Tip Pen – Black

Embossing Poweder

• Papercraft Society – Embossing Powder – Matte Gold

Adhesives

• Neutral PH Adhesive by LINECO
• Fine-Tip Glue Bottle

Tools

• Die Cutting Machine
• We R Memories – QuickStick
• We R Memories – Scoring Board and Trimmer
• Stamping Platform
• LDRS – Stampendable Stamping Tool
• Stamping Cloth
• Kat Scrappiness – Anti-Static Tool
• Scissors
• Tweezers
• Heat Tool
• Ball Tipped Flower Shaping Tool
• Foam Mat

Miscellaneous

• Ivory Organza Ribbon – 1/4-inch wide