Atten-shun!

Have I got your attention now?  Good!

Just a quick short post to show a birthday card I

made recently for a little boy.

I used the 'Toy Soldier' Sizzix Bigz die from the

Tim Holtz/Alterations range.

I cut the pieces from felt and distressed it slightly 

with distress inks.

The background is cut from a roll of wrapping paper,

mounted onto a piece of card and distressed with

some white acrylic paint.

The black border is just a black felt tip edging.

I must admit when I saw this wrapping paper

a couple of years ago now, 

I bought it with the sole intention of using it with this die -

and hey I did!  Better late than never :)

OK, you can stand easy now ....

and thanks for looking of course!

 

The Toy Soldier

As I mentioned yesterday this is my current favourite

Sizzix/Alterations Bigz Die called

'Toy Soldier'.

I think I like it so much because it reminds me of

the fairytale 'The Tinder Box' by Hans Christian Anderson.

Not that the soldier in the story was a toy one, and having

just re-read the story as an adult it's a little bit unsavoury - lol.

I thought the soldier was a good guy, but he cut off the witch's

head when she wouldn't tell him why the tinder box was so special -

oh well, never mind, I still love this Bigz Die.

I decided to make some bunting with it and it

became advent present number 19 for my swap partner Victoria.

I cut the soldiers from felt and card,

 painted their legs, boots and faces

and grunged them up with some pencil.

I stitched them with military looking buttons onto some navy ribbon.

Following the tutorial on YouTube

'How to make a box from a single sheet of card'

I did just that and decorated it with some

old sheet music and another of the soldiers.

This is probably my favourite of all the gifts I made

and I think I'll be using the die over and over again.

.... shame I'm now dis-illusioned about that soldier in

The Tinder Box story though -

 next I'll find out that Father Christmas doesn't really exist!!!!

Thanks for looking :)