“Easy Spring in a Crate” Card Tutorial with Martha Stewart Crafts

Spring is here and all kinds of flowers are blooming out doors and indoors in my own “paper garden”. I’m no pro at actually gardening outside. It’s something I hope to change someday. For me the hot Florida weather is no motivation to be outside much and I really prefer the  air conditioned comfort of my art studio to create blooms for my art projects that I wouldn’t even be able to grow in this hot weather anyway (I know, lame excuse). My hats off to all you brave Florida gardeners!

With all the distressed wood trends out there, I came up with a card set design I called “Spring in a Crate”. I made my own  paper paper with a wood look to it. Then I created a crate  and added all kinds of blooms inside. Check them out here on my website and on the Martha Stewart American Made Market.

I thought I’d come up with a very easy version of this card thanks to a little help form my friends at  Martha Stewart Crafts. It’s no secret I love and use their products on a daily basis in my business,  personal projects , when I blog or have any TV segments to prep for. They are always with me!

Here is a much easier version for you. Without further delay have fun making your own version of spring in a crate! Be sure to share your creations on our ROC Paper Scissors Face book page 

To enter  to win the giveaway for the Martha Stewart Crafts, be sure to post your comment below or an another blog post coming up next Thursday. You have till Saturday May 9th to enter to win!

To make your wooden crate, you start with creating your own wood paper. I used Martha Stewart Craft paint in Vanilla Bean and Rose Gold.

You are going to use  the paint  using water and just a dab of your paint to create this effect. Don’t be shy if it’s too watery at first, you can always go back with a little more paint to give some darker streaks an give it more volume. Brush on your paper from left to right, kinda like this:

Go ahead and so a whole sheet, you can use it for as many cards or other ideas you may get with paper that needs to look like wood.

After adding the Vanilla Bean brushstrokes on all the sheet of paper, I went back and added some Rose Gold. This part is optional. I just thought the hints of metallic paint gave it more volume and texture. This step is totally up to you:

Once you have this dry. You are ready to make your wooden crate.

Use a piece of brown card stock ( aprox 2.5 inches x 1.5 inches) This size totally depends on the size of card you are making so just figure out what works best for your card size and design.

Cut into strips your wooden paper…remember to cut ALONG the grain! and add with a foam adhesive two pieces vertically positioned on both sides of your crate:

Then with some glue stick  prep the surface of your wood to add the horizontal slats:

When you are done adding your horizontal wood slats, it should look like this:

Now you are ready to add your flowers. These are the materials I used to create this card.It was a mixture of Martha Stewart Floral stickers and Martha Stewart paper punches (hydrangea and leaf frond):

I started with the pre-made stickers first and then I added a few small punches flowers (to match the dahlia) and leaves with my paper punches  :

You may have noticed the the large red-pink dahlia sticker didn’t come with the crystal on it. The other stickers were glittery and had the sweetest and tiniest beads  in the center.  So then  then decided I add some onto my  big flower and small punched flowers as well:

 

There you have it!

Any questions feel free to ask and remember to leave a comment on this post below or on next weeks post to enter to win the  Martha Stewart craft items!

Happy Mother’s Day and happy paper crafting!!!

Rosa