The 2-4-6-8 box: An old friend made easier with Simply Scored

Simply Scored makes short work of that old stand-by, the 2-4-6-8 box:

Spice Cake 2-4-6-8 box

  • Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set
  • Pool Party, Pear Pizazz, More Mustard and Early Espresso card stock
  • Spice Cake Designer Series Paper
  • Spice Cake Designer Buttons
  • Pear Pizazz Classic ink pad
  • Simply Scored
  • Medium Jewelry tag punch
  • Hemp twine
  • Dazzling Diamonds

Those are some humangajangous buttons!!  I’m going to set up my neglected sewing machine and have some fun with buttons and fabric – it’s been a long time since I’ve done any real sewing.  (We’ll see how far that goes!)

Like my crazy haircut fringe?  I’m not sure what posessed me to do that but it was fun.  I just scored a strip of cardstock so that each side would be 1/8 inch shorter than the corresponding Pool Party side.  Then I snipped that goofy fringe and used SNAIL to stick it to the inside of the box.

Spice Cake Box from the top

The 2-4-6-8 box is a simple concept and easy to adapt.  The basic concept is to score a piece of cardstock across the 8 1/2 inch dimension at 2, 4, 6, and 8 inches.  That gives you 4 panels each 2 inches wide and a little tab that’s 1/2 inch wide.  Turn your paper 90 degrees and score 1 to 2 inches from the bottom, snip and fold up the bottom, and you’ve got a simple open-top box.  If you turn your cardstock to the 11 inch direction, you can easily adapt the box to a rectangle.  For example, score at 2, 5, 7 and 10 and trim the last inch to a half inch and you’ve got a 2 inch by 3 inch box.  Clear as mud?  Try it, you’ll see how easy it is.  Or Google 2-4-8 box as there are loads of tutorials out there.  I’m not into re-inventing the wheel by documenting a technique someone else has already covered!

Needless to say, the Simply Scored tool makes this project super simple.  I’m finding myself reaching for it more and more, and I can’t imagine how I lived without it.  It’s like the Big Shot that way – once you’ve used it, you can’t imagine using anything else!

 

Imagining fall color

Fall color in Hawaii…wellll, let’s just say it looks a lot like summer color, spring color, even winter color.  I’ve said it before – we do have seasons.   There’s mango season, whale season…we used to have tourist season but it seems that runs 365 days a year!   There’s a lot to see as our islands have so many micro-climates.  If you were to drive around any of the islands, you would see a great deal of change – rainforest, lava flow, broad agricultural fields, and of course beautiful sandy beaches.   Here on Maui, it doesn’t take that long to drive anywhere to see this variety (although I’ve been known – often – to complain about a 35 or 40 minute drive.  Call me spoiled.)

However, I’ve lived other places in my life, and I’ve certainly experienced seasons.  Each fall, when Stampin’ Up! introduces beautiful autumn-based stamp sets, I take a little trip down memory lane.  This year’s Spice Cake Designer Series Paper and fabrics are beautiful and brought back a lot of really fond memories.  This suite is just my kind of design, and I couldn’t resist the stamps, paper and fabric.

For club this week, I chose the leaf image from Gently Falling that most closely resembled leaves we see here.  It looks like the jatropha in my yard or the wili wili trees that line so many roadsides.  We had to stretch our imaginations a little, but no one seemed to mind:

Spice Cake thanks

  • Gently Falling and Pretty Postage stamp sets
  • Whisper White, More Mustard, Early Espresso, Cajun Craze and Pool Party card stock
  • Early Espresso, Cajun Craze and More Mustard Classic ink pads
  • Spice Cake Designer Series Paper
  • Early Espresso 1/8″ taffeta ribbon
  • 2 1/2 inch circle, Postage stamp, and 1 inch square stamps
  • Stampin’ Dimensionals
  • Dazzling Details

It’s a simple card with a simple layout.  The unexpected brightness of Pool Party in the Spice Cake suite is reminds me of a clear sky on a perfect fall afternoon.  It makes you happy to be outside and grateful for the sunshine.  Little things…I try to be grateful for little things.

Speaking of little things…let me show you a little bit of sparkly detail:

Spice Cake thanks Dazzling Details

Thank you, Stampin’ Up!, for Dazzling Details!!!  Yet another form of sparkle on the Approved List for Mr. Maui Stamper.  I love bling, but it’s not allowed to run free in my house.  I’m okay with a little compromise – I get my sparkle, he gets sparkle-free laundry.

The orange cat hair I can’t do anything about.