Chrysanthemum Covered Cigar Box

This is a project I designed back in 2015 and was asked to re-post it.  It is one of my very favorite projects.  I love creating beautiful flowers with Susan's Garden Notes flower die sets.

This is an old wood cigar box which I thought would be perfect to decorate with with Susan's Garden Notes Chrysanthemums and Susan's Garden Woodland Leaves.  You can pick up cigar boxes, for very little money, at most any cigar store.  These boxes make great gift boxes for birthdays or the holidays.

Here is how I transformed this box into a gorgeous box anyone would love to receive. First cover the cigar logo which is usually on the top of the box.   I created a square to cover the center of the top of the box.  (I wanted to keep as much of the wood showing as possible, so I only covered the logo.)  It was matted with a piece of black card stock, then a smaller rust mat.  I used a piece of textured off-white card stock for the next layer; this layer was sponged around the edges with Old Paper and Tea Dye Distress Inks.  Next a frame of burgundy card stock was cut and attached over the outside edge of the off-white layer using dimensional tape under it, to give it some dimension.  On top of the burgundy frame, I added one of the ECD peel off line stickers.  Once all these layers were attached to each other, the frame was attached, with 10mm Double Sided Tape, to the cigar box.

 Using the Chrysanthemum die, die cut chrysanthemums using different colors of card stock. There are a total of 13 flowers on this box top.  I used burgundy colored card stock, bright yellow card stock and the rest were die cut using white card stock and were shaded with Susan's PanPastels.

For complete instruction on how to create Susan's Garden Note Chrysanthemum, you can watch Susan's YouTube Video at this LINK.  Susan has 15 new videos on Susan's Garden Club playlist on YouTube that will be very helpful in creating your projects with her dies.

 Using Susan's  Garden Woodland Leaves,  die cut a lot of leaves using some white card stock and some Kraft card stock.  The different card stock gives a variety of shades.

All the leaves were first shaped, using Susan's Flower Tool Kit.   Working on a Teflon Craft Mat, all the leaves were colored using a variety of colors from Susan's PanPastels; yellows, greens, orange, rust, bright red and dark red.  The PanPastels blend beautifully creating such beautiful fall colors.  Use a sponge to add the colors which makes it easy to quickly color.  There will be PanPastel dust on your craft mat, so don't forget to pick this dust up with the sponge and blend it over some of the leaves.  

Layer Woodland Leaves down the left side and across the bottom of the top of the box.  Attach the Chrysanthemums with dimensional glue dots.  Add as many Elizabeth Craft Designs Curvy Leaves as you like for fillers;  they were die cut using white card stock then sponged with green PanPastel then a little rust around the edges, then  shaped with Susan's Flower Tool Kit.  There are also branches from Susan's CountryScapes Wood 1 die set that were die cut using dark brown card stock, then glued under the leaves.  There is one Elizabeth Craft Designs Berry Branch tucked in that was colored with the wine (dark red) PanPastel.

A box decorated with Susan's Garden dies would be a beautiful gift in itself, or you could add a little surprise inside too.  Do you have something you could recycle and make beautiful?

Below are the Links to products used from Elizabeth Craft Designs.