Understand Blue Invents the Pinecone - Tutorial!

I invented the pinecone.

It's true. Again, Al Gore - Internet. Thomas Edison - Light Bulb. ME - THE PINECONE!!

I'm so excited about this. I've been on a punch tear lately, and I thought of this when I was punching out the little cats at Maker Faire. That new large oval punch is soooo perfect for a pinecone shape, that when the scallop border punch idea popped into my head I almost screamed and scared the pancake juggler that was standing at my booth.

Instead, I'm sure my face just contorted in a way that made him sure of his decision never to return to Austin.

Here's what I did.

1) Attempted to put several scalloped strips together and then punch. Hideous idea. Catastrophic failure. Almost busted my beloved wide oval punch.

2) Figured out how to successively punch the pieces, but then assembled them with dimensionals between the layers and added glitter and now it looks like a fat piney drag queen. Trust me - a picture of this hideous thing would just offend you. I tell you these things so that you know that there are no stampers that sit down like Cinderella and birds bring them ribbon and everything is perfect. Sometimes our trash cans are filled with little pinecone drag queens.

3) Finally, distressed each piece with my bone folder, pressed the edges of each piece into my white craft pad, assembled them with Snail Adhesive and had the pinecone I imagined, and not Priscilla Queen of the Desert.. (anyone? That was a fabulous movie if you haven't seen it.)

Then, you ask, how did I get that magical copper stripe? Well, here's how it happened. The little shoe organizer I have hanging inside my closet door that has ribbon and sponges and all sorts of things that don't really go anywhere else sometimes ejects random products in protest over being so full. It ejected some copper foil tape I bought at Hobby Lobby 8 million years ago the other day and was kind of in the back of my mind for a few days, in addition to resting on my floor.

Then, wiping away a tear as I used some of my hoarded copper cord and brads, I assembled the card with a cuttlebugged strip of Kraft Cardstock and some of the delicious Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware, also hoarded.. The center of the loops of cord are secured with more copper tape.

I had that DD Pinecones set way back in the past, and I used to love it - I always added white to the edges for snow, and just really could never get enough of how it looked - so three dimensional and nice. So this is a little homage to pinecones past. And, to Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

Hope you enjoy it and can use it!