Raspberry Sweets

Hi all!

Thank you all SO much for the wonderful and sweet comments you have left on my "Half a Million Reasons to Celebrate" post. They have made me laugh, smile and even tear up a little (I AM a sentimental sap ya know?). You still have time to enter if you have not done so already. I will be drawing the winner for the package of sticky stuff worth over $40 on Wednesday at approx noon. :)

As you may have noticed, I usually stamp in a "series". I have some patterned paper or certain colors out on my desk and I use them... and use them... and use them some more. After all, WHY would I go through all the effort of pulling out the paper, stamps, ink, matching ribbon, brads and everything else only to make ONE thing. It is more efficient to stamp in a series. LOL WHY am I bringing this up? Well it leads me to this week's disclaimer:

I apologize in advance for bombarding you with creations in pink, black and white. I am attempting to get a head start on making Valentine goodies for friends and family and this is what called my name. LOL The next several posts will be using the same color combo. :) I stamped for HOURS yesterday and made lots of goodies and treats and they are all pink, black and white. :)

The "Bittersweet" pink and brown series went on for NINE posts. LOL We'll see how long this one will last. :) LOL

OK, now that my thank yous and disclaimer are out of the way, let me explain this project for you. :)

I used Lauren's Take Along Tote for this project. In my LAST post, I used it as a card/notebook holder. In this post, it carries CANDY! I am a MAJOR sweet-a-holic! If it contains sugar, I more than likely LOVE it. :) Chocolate, non-chocolate, powdery, sour, sweet... I don't discriminate! Bring it on! :)

The sides of the tote are covered with patterned paper. I attached handles that came from a die that I have instead of punching a hole in the side. The pockets are dressed up with some stamped card stock and a chipboard flower. To make the flower, I painted the chipboard with white craft paint (using a sponge dauber to avoid paint brush bristle streaks) and then stamped on the chipboard with Raspberry ink using a background stamp. This was an annoying process because I didn't want to stamp the dots until the flower was assembled (so they would be evenly spaced dots), but couldn't really assemble it prior to sticking it on the paper, SO I stuck it on the paper and then stamped. I thought since it was dimensional on the paper, that the ink would not get on the card stock. WRONG! Grrrrrrrr! So, then I have this panel all stamped with chipboard attached and have random pink dots on the card stock. I have a rule to myself that I should first attempt to salvage the project, so I decided to adhere the "Sweets" panel over the majority of the dots. That covered up the majority of them. Then, I added three brads on the lower left, which took care of one random dot there. There are 2 more spots on the panel that are driving me crazy, but I decided to let it go. :) Did you find them? Upper left hand corner of the panel? OOPS! Please ignore those. :) The opposite pocket was decorated in a similar way, but that flower was whole, so I didn't have any dot issues on that side. The inner pocket was covered with paper and I attached a bow for decoration. The outer pockets are stuffed with Fun Dip and the inner pocket is filled with Pixie Sticks. YUM YUM! I closed the tote with a tiny clip from SU.

This should make a sweet gift for a sweet someone. :)

Fact: 95% of the time, I stamp first and decide who to send it to afterward. I rarely have someone in mind when stamping.

Stamps: SU, CHF

Ink: Raspberry Fizz, white craft

Paper: Raspberry Fizz, True Black, white, Raspberry Fizz Mix (patterned paper)

Accessories: My Timeless Template, Nestabilities, small clip (SU), chipboard flowers (SU), white craft paint, sponge dauber, silver brads, die, sticky dots, red line tape, red line dimensionals, score pal, ribbon