Crafts by Carolyn - Projects

"Secrets" Purse
				Calv from the forum has put together this tutorial to make a papercrafted "secrets" purse, check out his blog, for more great ideas and inspiration. The inspiration for this particular theme came from a fantastic scrap booking LO I recently saw over on Toni's fantastic blog. Amongst Toni's many stunning LO's, her "Secrets" LO featuring her two daughters whispering to each other, reminded me so much of my two. Like any little girls, they love their secrets, and any little cute pockets to keep things in.
You will need Piece of thin card 8 X 5 inches - covered with 2 pieces of patterned paper the same size - I have used the "Wings" patterned paper from the Angelique Collection by Prima. You can have them both the same or one for the inside and one for the outside Various embellishments, lace, ribbon - whatever takes your fancy you can see what I have used here
Place the card with the inside facing you and mark and score at the following points moving from the left - 3 inches - ¼ inch - 3 inches - ¼ inch - 1½ inches (seen here in the pic)
Now you need to give the front some decoration. All I have done here is used some lace, eyelets, distressed an inked the edges, added some fibres, a bloom with a fabric rose, and finally the word "Secrets". As you can see, I have used a simple Velcro dot for the closure.

You need to construct a pocket, or maybe use an envelope or organza bag. For this pocket, cut yourself a strip of card 8 inches by 3 ½ inches. The top inch is for the pocket lid, and you can see that I have left ½ inch flaps on either side. The dotted lines are score lines which will be folded. Score the flaps and then cover with paper if you have plain card.
Fold this pocket over in half, gluing the tabs inside to make the pocket. I have used a border punch on the flap, and some fibres and a ribbon and brad closure to pretty it up.
Add some more decoration if you wish. My eldest loves music, so I made a simple LO involving a handmade miniature wooden recorder, and a scroll of music. Instead of this, you could think about having a few journalling pages there, or a notebook to write the secrets on. Just make sure that the inside is not too bulky or it will not close. If you do envisage a bulky load inside, I suggest you increase the distance between the fold scorelines.