A Sweet Suite- Featuring a Candy Wrapper Diagram

Hello friends, how sweet of you to stop by!

     Today I would like to share with you a number of things, not the least of which is a diagram for making your very own paper candy wrappers in any size you like! This means you can easily wrap up pens or pencils, long rolls of sweets, or just about anything you want! Stampin' Up! does sell a candy wrapper die, which I do love, and find extremely useful when making large quantities of candy wrappers because it cuts and scores all at once. But obviously you really only have one choice of size unless you fold the paper in half when you put it through the Big Shot and do funny things with it that way, but it will mean that you end up with creases in your paper. That's not a big deal if you're going to cover up the centre bit anyway, but for nice clean lines, less headache and the ability to choose my own width, I prefer to use my new best friend: Simply Scored.

     I LOVE this tool! Not only can I add dimension to my crafts by using it to create borders and other emphasising lines, but I love how I can easily make many kinds of packaging, including but not limited to, CANDY WRAPPERS! But first...

     On a post from a few days ago, I shared with you a candy wrapper that I had made using the simple formula. I had made an envelope using Simply Scored and because of the way I wanted the paper to look on the envelope, I ended up with oddly-shaped scrap pieces of the paper. I took the new Blossom punch to them, and punched out some blossoms. I layered these with other punched out bits of paper and then had several blossoms in Island Indigo, Whisper White, and Blushing Bride. After making the first candy wrapper with one of them, I decided to try to make a whole suite of items that coordinated with it.

The card:

     I loved making this card! I got to use a few punches that haven't seen any action in a while, and some new techniques and other products.  Also, I find Island Indigo a difficult colour to use, as I have trouble finding things with which it can coordinate, but in this instance I feel I've found a winning combination.

     I used: Mixed Bunch stamp set, Just Perfect Alphabet stamp set, Blossom punch, 1-3/4" Scallop Circle punch, Small Heart punch, Boho Blossoms punch, Itty Bitty Shapes (the scallop circle one) punch, 3/4" Circle punch, Scallop Trim Border punch, Scallop Trim Corner punch, 1/16" Handheld punch, Little Leaves Sizzlits Die, In-Color glimmer brads, In-Color designer printed brads, and Baker's Twine. The paper is Sweet Shop Designer Series Paper (DSP)- the Island Indigo one with the hearts-, Nursery Nest DSP- the Blushing Bride one with the lines and dots- Whisper White, Island Indigo, Blushing Bride, and Pear Pizazz. For ink I used Island Indigo and Blushing Bride.

     On the post before this one you may have already seen the first candy wrapper but here it is again:

     The recipe for this is essentially some combination of the supplies mentioned above, and the sentiment is from the new Sweet Cake stamp set. Also not mentioned above is the Scallop Oval Punch. I love how punching out the scallop oval in white and then daubing the edges with a different colour makes it look so different and so nice compared to leaving it just plain Whisper White!

     The next one I made is this:

     I used a masking technique to create the background for this. It was so easy because the stamp coordinates with the new Blossom punch! After stamping with Island Indigo a few times, I simply punched a few coordinating blossoms out of sticky notes so I could simply stick them onto the existing images, and then stamped in the gaps with Blushing Bride. That way the images don't overlap and it looks really cool! I also added a rhinestone in the centre of the flower here and coloured the petals and under the rhinestone with my Island Indigo marker.

     Although this candy wrapper is smaller than the first, the size difference is not dramatic enough to notice right offhand. To demonstrate that candy wrappers can truly be virtually any size, I made a little bitty one!

     The flower I created here was done using the Boho Blossoms punch and the Itty Bitty Shapes scallop circle punch. I added some Crystal Effects behind the rhinestone, and behind the flower is a strip of Whisper White punched out with the Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch.

     Now that I've shown you several examples of sizes, perhaps you would like to see the diagram?

          (Please pardon the writing, as writing with my finger on a touch-screen device does not usually work out as well as with a pen in my hand.)

     Just to explain a few things: "n" can be any dimension. To determine what you want "n" to be, think of what you want to wrap. Do you want to fill the thing with loads of sweets? Do you want it to be just big enough to put in a pen? Once you determine the width of the thing you want to wrap, you can then determine the size of paper you need to start. 

     I recommend using SU plain or textured coloured cardstock as Whisper White and Very Vanilla are a bit too thin for this type of packaging, as is DSP. Using anything besides the heavier card puts the paper at risk of breaking at the seams, simply because of the nature of this type of packaging.

     Okay, so you've found the width of the thing you want to wrap. You can make "n" slightly shorter than that, as the width of the item being wrapped is actually going to be the same length as one of the diagonal lines you see in the diagram, which is longer than "n". You could get all complicated with the Pythagorean Theorem and figure out an exact measurement, but that's just a bit too geeky so we'll just say that "n" can be slightly shorter than the width you require.

     Once you've decided what you want "n" to be, multiply that by 4 and add 1cm,and that will be the width of your paper (if positioned as shown). "n" + "n" + [however long you want the wrapper to be] = the length of the paper you need.

     When you have the paper cut to your required dimensions, and it is positioned as shown, score vertically at every "n", which should leave you with your 1cm at the end. Turn 90 degrees and score in from one side at "n" and rotate to the other end and score at "n" again.

     You can now score the diagonal lines. They should match up perfectly with the diagonal plate as they are all 45 degree angles, but since I don't have the diagonal plate as of yet I did it the more tedious but still effective way of placing a sticky note so it diagonally reaches the corners of each of the squares I've created, and lining that sticky note up with my scoreboard so that when I score vertically downward, I am putting in the diagonal lines I need. When I line the sticky note up the first time, I can score 4 diagonal lines at once, perhaps shifting the paper a little if need be.

     This is the part where the Simply Scored Diagonal Plate would really come in handy, because if I had to do any more than just a few of these wrappers, I would get very bored of having to mess with the sticky note each time. It is much faster and easier to line the paper itself up with the 90 degree angle on the scoreboard and have a perfect 45 degree angle to follow.

     Once all the lines are scored, I fold along the vertical lines and, while still folded, cut little notches out to form the little diamond and triangle shapes. Then simply fold along all the rest of the lines, adhere the seam edge to the beginning edge with some Sticky Strip or similarly strong adhesive, and fill and close!

     For detailed directions on how to close the candy wrapper, there is a wealth of information out there via a simple search on a search engine. Basically you gather the centres of all the end sides together, pinch and twist. I think it takes a bit of practice, the first time I used my Candy Wrapper Die I was stumped for a while when I tried to close it!

     So there we have it, a sweet suite using scraps (everything apart from the Island Indigo used to make the larger candy wrappers was from the scrap bin) ready to be given to someone who deserves a little gratitude in the form of chocolate and other goodies.

     Give it a try! If you've finally decided that Simply Scored is a must-have for you too, get in touch with me via any one of the ways listed under the "Contact Me" tab and I'll be happy to help!

Thanks very much for reading, please feel free to share this blog with your friends,

and Happy Crafting!