Shine without the time - -

Recently bought the small Sunflower Bag Topper die set from Scrapdivadesigns.com and I made 6 of these bag toppers using printed card stock from my stash. My projects were inspired by Carol Hurlock on YouTube. Here is a photo of the bag toppers I made:

For all my bag toppers I used solid #110 weight card stock as the base. Then I die cut printed card stock for the front of the bag toppers. I used the small Sunflower die and die cut my flower pieces. As Carol had suggested in her video I die cut two of the small flowers and two of the larger flowers from white card stock for each sunflower. Using the inks she suggested I inked the flower petals on the pieces using distress inks: Mustard Seed, Fossilized Amber, and Spiced Marmalade and a dauber:

I also layered the flowers as she suggested:

For the center of the flowers I die cut the grid piece using brown card stock and then the backing and circle frame I die cut those using gold foil card stock. Set all the flowers aside.  Die cut two base pieces of the bag topper die and used tear and tape to put the front and back bag topper pieces together. Die cut one piece of the bag topper die using printed card stock. Glue the printed card stock to the front of the bag topper piece. Set these aside. 

Went through the leaf dies I have in the stash and found one I could use to make the leaves for the sunflower. I die cut those out and sponged the edges of the leaves using green ink and a dauber. I used liquid glue and put the leaves onto the front of the bag topper. Used hot glue and put the finished sunflowers onto the bag topper. 

Went through my die stash and found the word "fall" in a die set from Fun Stampers Journey "Snapshot Frames":

Another crafter on YouTube had a video on card making tips and she talked about saving time adding shine to a card without having to heat emboss it -- so I gave this tip a try -- clear packing tape.... took a scrap piece of coloured card stock and put a piece of clear packing tape over it:

After I put the tape onto the card stock I went over the tape using an old gift card to be sure the tape stuck to the card stock well. Once that was done I put the die on the taped piece and die cut that:

The die cut through the tape and card stock with one pass through the machine. I also die cut the word from two pieces of scrap card stock and used liquid glue to put the die cut pieces together for layering. To put this shiny word on my sunflower piece I used Glossy Accents:

This photo shows the shine of these packing tape die cut words:

Very easy technique to add shine to die cut words.  I also wanted to add a pumpkin to my bag toppers so I pulled out some clothespins from my stash and used liquid glue to add washi tape to the front of the clothespin. Set that aside to dry. Used a small oval punch and punched out three ovals using scrap card stock. Sponged the edges of the ovals. Used tear and tape to stack these ovals into a pumpkin shape. Added a die cut stem to the top and a die cut leaf cluster to the top of the pumpkin using liquid glue. Used tear and tape to put the pumpkin on the clothespin:

And the finished bag toppers again:

Thanks to Carol Hurlock for sharing the assembly tips of the Sunflower Bag Topper die set. When I sponged my flower petals with the inks I put the darker ink, Spice Marmalade, on the end of the petals that are attached to the inner circle so the inks are darker in the center of the flower and get lighter on the tips of the petals:

Easy project to put together and happy I bought this set! Good project for Fall or Thanksgiving holiday projects.