April Showers...Altered Trading Block

Rain, Rain Go Away...I'll make an ATB today!

Artist Trading Blocks. Have you seen them around?  There are so many GORGEOUS blocks at The Artists on the Block. These little blocks are crazy addictive to make. No right. No wrong. Just create! Today I would like to share this Artist Trading Block that I made with Sizzix dies from Eileen Hull. I used the Blocks/Cubes 3-D die from Eileen's collection.You can visit Eileen's blog here. Be sure to leave her some love, as she just broke her ankle this past week. OUCH!

If you follow my blog, you may have noticed that I don't use a lot of flowers.But for this project, I knew that I'd need a flower die. I used the Eileen Hull Sizzix Flower 3-D Wrapped die.

Here's how I made the umbrella...

I cut the "flower" from BasicGrey Fresh Cut paper with my Sizzix. Then I gently scored the scallops as shown. I inked the edges and glued the ends together. I added the handle by wrapping washi tape around a small piece of floral wire. (The wire makes the handle easy to form) And then I added a bead to top it all off. Viola!

The little stamped boys were stamped with a stamp from 100 Proof Press. I added the buttons to the photo to show scale.  Sometimes its easy to forget how tiny these are. Don't forget to check out the Artist On the Block for more inspiration!