I haven’t made any handbag cards for a while. I was asked to make a card for a 40th birthday, for a lady that likes pink! That was my only clue, so I thought I’d make a handbag, but do things a little differently than I have in the past. I decided to hunt out some nice bright papers and have two different patterns together.

On a good old root through all my paper stash I discovered a set of birthday papers from Papermania. It’s a lovely bright bold set of 12 x 12 papers in a variety of designs and text.

It was great fun looking through the set of papers and choosing which ones to use together for the main ‘bag’ and the flap. I love the birthday paper, and had just enough to make the bag and the lining.

I wanted to do something different rather than just adding gems to this one, and I found my little flower punch.  using a trick I saw on Create and Craft, I shaped each flower to give it some shape.  I then added a flat flower to the base to look like older open petals or leaves.  I used topsy-turvy cardstock for the flowers and the insert message space.  It makes lovely flowers that hold their shape quite well.  I thought adding them to the inside as well would break up the stark lines.  To finish the flowers I added some multi-colour gems.  I then used an x-cut die set to make the large flower ‘button’ from all the papers I’d used in the card.  To finish I made a small spring from topsy-turvy cardstock and  added a final little flower and some adhesive numbers.

I might be making some more of these from the other papers in the set.  It’s so lovely to use. As always, your comments are gratefully received. I’d love to know what you think of this.

Happy crafting
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