Art in Entertaining by Cindy Rippe: Sizzix Triple Play Blog Hop Week 2

Welcome to week 2 of 7 for the Sizzix Triple Play Blog Hop! I really enjoyed all the creative uses for Eileen Hull's Pop Up House from last week. This week we're using Karen Burniston's Sizzix Bigz XL Die - Cube, Twist 3-D (Pop-Up) - #656739.

I've been deep into research for 2011- 2012 color trends and have the Black and White color scheme on the brain so when I opened the kit for the Twist Cube this is what I saw as a finished project!

The box was sent already cut out of Black cardstock from Die Cuts with a View. It takes two 12 X 12" pieces to cut out the pieces for the box using the Sizzix Big Shot Pro die cutting machine.

I chose to use my finished design as a gift box. There is an opening in the back that's perfect to fit a party favor in. Once you decorate and put the box together it twists easily to fold down flat. Wouldn't it be cute to put inside of a greeting card or scrapbook? Here's a PDF with the instructions for assembling the box.

After a practice assembly, with removable Glue Dots, I designed a branch of leaves and transferred it to the top and side pieces with white transfer paper. I used a fine liner brush to paint the design with DecoArt Americana Warm White acrylic paint. For me, this was like sketching with a brush. I started by pulling a curved line from the base of the stem to the top leaf. Next, I pulled smooth strokes for the vein lines and jagged strokes for the outside edge of the leaves.

I painted very fine lines to create shading from the outside edge of the leaf first and then pulling out from the vein lines. You can see on this close up that the finished design has a sketchy look and it's not really hard to do. You could create a similar design using a paint pen or rubber stamps if you'd like. All that's left to do is to assemble the painted box, add a little name tag, tuck a gift in the back and you're finished!