Creative Tour display - and washi tape bird

I was very honoured this summer to be asked to create some projects for Stampin’ Up!’s Creative Tour, which ended last night. The projects have had to be kept firmly under wraps while the tour was in progress but now I can show you at last.

I was asked to showcase two products from the Autumn/Winter catalogue; the Season of Style Washi Tape and the Expressions Thinlits Dies. In the beginning it was a bit of a challenge but I soon got into the groove and I think it make me think outside of the box a little, too! It helped that the colours of the washi tape are my most favourite Christmas colours – I do love to keep things traditional with red and green.

Above is (almost) the full set (I accidentally missed one off the photo) – I’ll be showing you the projects in more detail over the coming days.

Today you can take a closer look at one of my favourite projects – my little Christmas robin. I got the idea from a magazine but then went my own way. Here’s how to make him:

1. Take some newspaper and screw into two balls, one larger than the other. Make a long triangular shape, too (for the tail).
2. Bind it all together with masking tape. If you’re making your bird from DSP instead of washi tape, you could use Sellotape but washi tape is semi-transparent, so I wanted to hide the newsprint.
3. I made a black cardstock beak with quite big flaps, taping it down using masking tape.
4. Next I stuck washi tape all over the bird. I wasn’t sure whether to go random or aim for a pattern, and in the end settled on a red breast (the temptation was too much to resist) and some green “wings”.
5. The legs are made from wire. I won’t pretend this was easy – in fact I had to call on my husband for help. It might be easier if you have softer wire, but he just found this in the garage for me. The feet are so big so that the bird stands up easily.
6. To “install”, I poked them into the newspaper to make the holes, then removed them and covered them in Crystal Effects before re-inserting.
7. The eyes are Basic Black candy dots – big thanks to fellow demonstrator Michelle Bryant for coming to the rescue with those!
8. Finally I made a tiny envelope for his beak – not sure how well this has lasted on the Creative Tour; it was looking a little limp by last Wednesday, so by Convention I’m sure it will be very droopy!

Hope you like him!

Stamps: Wishing You

Cardstock: Basic Black, Very Vanilla

Ink: Cherry Cobbler

Accessories: Season of Style washi tape, Neutrals Candy Dots, Crystal Effects

Other: Newspaper, masking tape, wire… patience!