Spring Fling

I am not a girl with favorites, but I have to admit that Spring is one of my absolute favorite seasons. There is nothing better than seeing the tulips pushing their way out of the ground. It is then that I know that winter is finally saying goodbye. One of my particular favorites, are these beautiful purple tulips that continue to multiply year after year. I used to have a single tulip, but nature is working her magic and they continue to spread.

I was so thrilled to be able to work them into my design today. Nichole asked us to create a project with our favorite thing about Spring as our inspiration. My inspiration actually came from one of my past issues of Martha Stewart Living. I spied these gorgeous boxes using real flowers and knew that I wanted to try something similar. You will definitely want to check out the rest of the Spring Fling projects that the other girls have made: Lisa Johnson,Michelle Wooderson,

Becky Oehlers ,Heather Nichols, Lauren Meader. I started out with one of Papertrey ink's trendy tubes. I removed the lid and turned it upside down and used an eyelet hole punch and hammered a hole into the lid. Once I was finished with the lid, I filled the tube 3/4 full of water.

You can see from the photo how nicely the tulip fits inside the hole.

Once that is done, you can decorate your box as desired. For my box, I used the same template that I shared the other day. You can check it out at the bottom of this post. I started out making the base from Plum Pudding cardstock. I added some polka dot basics and friends til the end pattern paper. I really like the color combination. I never would have put these all together unless I had made this project. I used one of papertrey ink's must have sets "Boards and Beams". I Love all of the beautiful and useful sentiments that are included as well as all of the fun accents you can add to the houses. My space was limited, so I opted for a few topiaries and a stone path. The very top of the home is attached with foam squares so that the home will come up, but the path and topiaries will stay put. I added a tag using the "Welcome home" sentiment. I thought it was fun to add a little bit of *home* with this little gift. In order to get the blooms inside the box and down into the tube, I made a slightly larger hole in the top of the box so that the stems would fit in nicely. The directions from Martha Stewart are a little different.

You may be wondering how all of this works together. Here are the steps I used;

step one: prepare tube and add water.

step two: create box
step three: place tube in box, add candies to anchor it in place.

step four: place stems through the lid and carefully replace the lid, lowering the stems into the tube.

Wouldn't these be fun to make for party favors or place settings? I can't wait to try more! Thanks for fluttering by!

Stamps: Boards and Beams
Ink: Palette Noir, Copic and Prismacolor Markers
Paper: Plum Pudding, White, Friends til the end and bitty polka dot basics pattern paper
Accessories: Trendy Tube, Aqua Mist Buttons, Sponge, fresh flowers, eyelet hole punch, mat and hammer, water, linen thread, plum pudding satin ribbon