A Scented Strawberry Surprise: May Arts Swap

Strawberries that in gardens grow
    Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
    Spring from the woodland vine.
  No need for bowl or silver spoon,
    Sugar or spice or cream,
Has the wild berry plucked in June
    Beside the trickling stream.

~Robert Graves

 Just as the banner says, three great companies swapped projects and we are having one majorly awesome blog hop of inspiration to show you featuring May Arts Ribbon, Little Yellow Bicycle and Xyron.

My grandmother just loves strawberries so I made up a little gift for her. Let's start with the outside first...

I recycled some fruit packaging and to start, topped off the gift with a banner of Striped Grosgrain and Red Chevron Twill as a base. I used the Xyron Cheetah Runner and Adhesive to secure the loops in place and the ribbon to each other. I created the tag with LYB's Poppy Collection's tag and sticker sheets, then tied a bow with May Arts' Red Burlap String (SM14) and secured it with LYB's cork pin.

The gift rests in a regular and coffee stained coffee filter and crimped strips of LYB's double sided paper.

Then to the gift! I started with an egg-shaped foam ball, sawed off the one end to make the strawberry shape, and painted it red and then squirted it with strawberry scent (I had some from the local bath and body shop.) I allowed everything to dry, and then ran adhesive from the Xyron Cheetah Runner around the egg. For extra stability, I then selectively placed a Xyron Adhesive Dot in the bottom, and then began wrapping May Arts Red Burlap String around.

When I reached the flattened end of the strawberry, I secured the burlap string with another Xyron Adhesive Dot and then arranged May Art's Faux Suede Leaves in Green (XL16) around the top, securing with hot glue. I used Forest Green Burlap String (SM15) to make a holder, and then also embellished with a large, loopy bow of the same string.

Finally, I added a few stick pins to the strawberry and topped the ends with black enamel accents.

I think my grandma will really like this...she can hang it in her kitchen for a pleasant, fragrant air freshener, or even keep it for the holidays to hang on her tree.

It was a pure joy to work with the three products! Of course, there are prizes up for grabs too! May Arts will be giving away three spools during the week (just post a comment along the way) and a grand prize will be posted on Friday: LYB - Vintage Summer Collection, Xyron - 5" Creative Station, May Arts - Two Spools of Ribbon.

I hope you enjoy the hop, here's a complete listing...

Monday
Virginia Fynes
Sandy Allnock
Leah Farrar-White

Tuesday
Lalo IK
Karen Baker
 
Wednesday
Jenifer Cowles
Jen Shears
Gini Williams Cagle

Thursday
Erin Thiem
Emily Lanham
 
Friday
DeeDee Catron
Charlene Driggs 
Candy Rosenberg