for a long time I have been looking for a lilac die that I could use to make things for my mother because the lilac is her favorite. So when I saw this Sheena Douglass set on HSN I had to order it and give it a try.

I have never used perfect partners or companions stamps and dies before so off to the crafter's companion web site i went because there are no instructions included. 

I have a bigshot so to cut out the images the web site said I should build my sandwich as follows to cut.    1) multi purpose platform ( all tabs)

          2) cutting mat

          3) die

          4) card stock 

          5) cutting mat 

The first thing I noticed is that if I am only doing one layer of paper the die gets stuck in the cutting plate. I can cut up to 3 layers of card stock to prevent this from happening and that will make things go much faster too. I cut 3 different shades of purple for my first branch. I then inked the lighter shade on the edges and cupped the flowers up with the a ball shaping tool and glued them onto the branch. I found that my wax pen works great for picking up those little flowers.

I then made a twisted easel card

this is just a 10inch by 5 in card scored at 5inches the diagonally from top corner to middle corner

 
          fold on score lines

I cut out 2 scalloped circles 1 @ 5.5 and one at 5inches
and a triangle 6.5 x 4.5 and a 4.5 inch square

I painted all the smaller pieces and outlined the larger ones with black marker, added a butterfly from crafter's companion butterfly dimensional set which I painted with metallic acrylics, added my lilacs and this is what I ended up with 

                closed

It was a lot of fun and I like the way it came out. I will be doing more of these for sure.