Mother’s Day is coming up and I’ve put together a pretty manicure gift set for a mom—or for any amazing woman who could use a little pampering! I love putting gifts together in fun packaging and of course they must coordinate! But that’s easy to do by just making sure you use all the same elements for each item.

Do you have a few of the Mini Egg Cartons

(item 142776) left over? Don’t let them go to waste. They are great gift holders for treats any time of the year. I decided to use them to hold little mini nail polishes. They fit perfectly!

I used some of the items from the Eastern Palace Premier Bundle

(item 147207)—which are available to customers now from the new 2017–2018 annual catalog (item 146113). I decorated the outside of the carton with an Eastern Palace Specialty Designer Series Paper (item 144147) belly band. This gold paper is to die for. (I will be using it up quickly!) A 2″ x 12″ strip of this paper just fits around the carton—with a little wiggle room to take the belly band on and off. I used a small piece of Very Vanilla Cardstock (item 101650) to adhere the ends of the Designer Series Paper together. This way the Designer Series Paper can touch and you don’t have to overlap the paper to adhere it. You also don’t have to worry about the seam because that will be covered by the medallion.

Then I added two medallions to the belly band using the new Eastern Medallions Thinlits Dies (item 143725). The large medallion was die cut in Basic Black Cardstock (item 121045) and the smaller one uses the polka dot Designer Series Paper from the Eastern Palace Specialty Designer Series Paper.To make the larger medallion you will need to use one of the large Layering Circle Framelits Dies (item 141705) to cut it into a circle shape as shown below.

The medallion is decorated with flowers from the Jar of Love Stamp Set (item 141587). I stamped the flowers in Sweet Sugarplum (item 141395), Pink Pirouette (item 126956), and Tranquil Tide (item 144085) ink on Whisper White Cardstock (item 100730). First I stamped off the image once on scrap paper which gives you the lighter color on the flowers. (For the Tranquil Tide flower, I stamped off twice on scrap paper before stamping on Whisper White Cardstock.) The leaves were stamped in Lemon Lime Twist ink (item 144086). This is already my new favorite color! I love this time of year when you can experiment mixing the old and new colors. The rest of the egg carton is decorated with a Basic Black Solid Baker’s Twine (item 141682) bow and a gold tassel from the Mini Tassels Assortment (item 144154).

Also, included in this gift set is a Glassine Gift Bag (item 141700) filled with a nail file, lotion, and manicure set. I die cut two additional medallions with the Gold Foil Sheets (item 132622) and Basic Black Cardstock. I stamped and die cut another flower and a couple of leaves. I found the best way to adhere the leaves and flowers is to put Mini Glue Dots (item 103683) on the back of each one and arrange them how you like.

Finally, you can’t give a gift like this without a pretty card. (Mom or any other woman deserves one, after all!) I decided to use one of the sentiments from the All Things Thanks Stamp Set (item 143089) as the focal point of the card. I stamped the sentiment with Basic Black Archival ink (item 140931) on a die cut Whisper White Cardstock circle. I used another piece of the polka dot Designer Series Paper and a strip of the gorgeous gold Designer Series Paper from the Eastern Palace Specialty Designer Series Paper for the card background. I mounted this on Basic Black Cardstock and Whisper White Thick Cardstock (item 140272). Then I stamped and die cut more flowers using the same technique that I employed for the egg carton and glassine bag. The two-step stamping with this set along with the coordinating dies makes creating multiples of an image quick and easy. The final touches for this card were another Basic Black Solid Baker’s Twine bow and gold sequins from the Metallics Sequin Assortment (item 138390).

I hope you can see how using the same elements across all these projects makes everything look coordinated—and that this inspires you to make coordinating gift sets!

Jennifer Sootkoos
2017 Artisan Design Team