Trend Alert: Fruit Fun

Studio 5 Contributor Susan Neal helps inspires us.


One of my favorite paper collections is from Doodlebug. These adorable strawberries and cherries are simply irresistible.

http://www.doodlebug.ws/

STRAWBERRY PATCH PURSE

This is a great little project to make this summer with your little girl. She can store all her little treasures in it or take it on the town!

Supplies:

1 Chipboard Purse (Provo Craft)

1 sheet of pattern paper (#2132 berry blue by Doodlebug)

1 pkg of boutique brads (#2111 tutti fruitti)

1 pkg chipboard tags (Maya Road)

1 Tbsp each of White, green and blue paint.

2″ circle punch and 2 ½” scalloped circle punch

White crochet thread and strawberry colored ribbon

Dash of glitter glue

Directions:

1. Paints sides of purse with coordinating blue paint. Paints tags. Let dry thoroughly. Sand lightly.

2. Trace sides of purse onto patterned paper and trim. Adhere and sand edges lightly.

3. Apply rub-ons on tags, thread with white crochet thread and attach boutique brads.

4. Adhere scalloped circle tag to top of cardstock circle tags and adhere to front of bag.

5. Tie tags and ribbon to purse. Enjoy!


If you love to rubber stamp, there are some great fruit designs out there. I love this fruit stamp set by Lizzie Ann Design. It combines patterns, text and basic fruit shapes for a lot of design options. Nothing fancy here! You don’t need it. Creative combinations and colorful ink and you’re good to go.


www.lizzieannedesigns.com


Since fruit lends itself beautifully to simple shapes, I wanted to share a simple die-cutting technique I call negative silhouette.

Simply cut your shape and use the negative shape (the paper with the shape cut out) instead of the positive shape. Layer patterned paper behind the shape and mount on a card or home décor project.

I originally designed this card with the negative silhouette technique
for PaperCrafts Magazine’s Jan 09 issue.

I wondered what my silhouette would look like with patterned paper
instead of stamping and ended up with this simple, elegant card which was perfect for my card classes.

I loved this pear shape so much; I enlarged it and created a home décor piece.

Tip: borrow design elements and/or techniques from cards or scrapbook pages
to create home décor pieces.

This particular shapes comes from the Cricut Home Décor Cartrdige.

www.cricut.com

Here are a few additional fruit projects.

Using just part of a fruit shape is a quirky way to finish off this mini composition book. The apple die-cut is from the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and the apple paper is from Sassafras lass.

Summer is the perfect time to perfect your photography skills. Take pictures of fruit on your trees, after they’ve been harvested, canned or cooked with. Here are some canned peaches I shot last fall.


Susan Neal has a passion for paper and food. Both present an opportunity to be creative and make other people happy. She has spent the last 20 years sharing that passion with students and customers alike.
Susan was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. She has lived in Utah for 13 years and is now a U.S. citizen. She has been married to Steve for the last 27 years and is the mother of 5 children and one daughter-in-law.

She has authored 4 decorative painting books and designed hundreds of projects for several scrapbooking and paper crafting magazines and publications. She has also started several successful retail businesses.

Besides her free-lance design work, Susan is currently a PC Pro for PaperCrafts Magazine, serves on their editorial board and teaches throughout the country at Creative Keepsakes conventions. After years of creating jobs for herself in the craft industry, she has found her niche in paper; “the perfect, inexpensive, creative medium.”

After two years on Studio 5 representing PaperCrafts magazine, Susanis a regular paper crafting and cooking contributor.

Susan is also teaching her own series of card-making classes at eight of the local Roberts Arts & Crafts stores. To learn more about Susan please visit her blog, www.sueneal.blogspot.com.

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