Under the Big Top Circus Parade Float

Hi everyone! LuAnn here with the parade float I created for The Digichick’s Homecoming Celebration a few weeks ago. But first, a little background on why you are (and will be) seeing parade floats here on The Hybrid Chick.

A few weeks ago, The Digichick hosted a Homecoming Celebration where we honored our Designers – both Current and those Alumni who have moved on. For this Celebration, we challenged our Hybrid Chicks to create parade floats to represent each Designer. We had two “rules” for this – each parade float was to be created using only designs from the assigned designer and the Chicks had to use one or more items from the Hybrid category at The Digichick Shop. We challenged the team to get out those rubber stamps, inks, dies, Silhouette machines, punches, impression plates, copics, cardstock, buttons, ribbon, tinsel, shiny stuff, etc. to use to create their parade float. The sky was the limit!

And boy, did they ever rise to the challenge! We even had some of the site Creative Team and current Designers join in on the fun of creating a parade float! You can view the entire parade over in the forums. And to add to the fun, our Designers tossed “candy” (store coupons) from their floats. Some of the coupons are still valid.

When we started planning our parade, I knew creating a parade float representing some of the Designers was going to be a challenge – like Charm Box Studios and Lifescapes Templates – because neither Designer had papers or other digital items available. I also knew at the planning phase of the parade that I wanted to create the Charm Box Studios’ float.

Because of the rules above, I had to get very creative with only plain cardstock, punches, dies, etc. So, I started with Charm Box Studios’ Whimsical Frames 1. note – the whimsical frames (once sold under Charm Box Studios) have been moved to Michelle Batton’s shop.

The frame in the middle of the top row reminded me of a circus cage so I started with that one. I needed something to form the cage so I went browsing through the shop and found that Kelleigh Ratzlaff’s Gable Box cutting files and template (without the top piece) would make a great base for my cage.

After opening Kelleigh’s template in Photoshop, I erased half of the template as shown below:

I then resized the template to make it full page so that my cage (box) would be a nice size.

Note: you can use this same technique to make a larger sized gable box to hold bigger gifts!

I didn’t need to “gable” part of the box but I did needs something to form a top to my cage so I squared off the top pieces of the gable box by extending the cut lines of my template. See the red lines in the photo above. I didn’t worry about erasing the lines of the gable box because I planned to print the template and trace it onto cardstock.

At this time, I opened the Charm Box Studios’ whimsical frame and sized it so that it was slightly smaller than the larger side of the box. I changed the color of the frame to red in the photo below to show how I sized it for the box.

Next, I printed the modified gable box and then the frame on regular computer paper to use as my pattern. After cutting out the paper pattern templates, I traced the patterns on to the cardstock I chose for the cage base and the frame around the cage. The decorative trim was adhered to the inner edge of the frame using Beacon Adhesives zip dry glue. I used a sharpie to draw the detail around the edge of the frame. Peel and stick stars were added for some extra sparkle.

After cutting out the cardstock version of the modified box and the frame, I centered a cardsock frame on each of the longer sides of the box and then cut the opening the long side of the box.

The twine “bars” of the cage were hot glued in place on the inside of the box before I finished assembling the box – except for the top which we still need open.

The wheels for my float were created using my Nestabilities Circle dies.

The stars in the center were created by printing out a simple star template from the shapes in my program. I then cut it out and traced around it on the blue cardstock. After cutting out the stars, I used my scor-pal to create score lines from each point of the star to the opposite side of the star. I had a total of 5 score lines.

Next came the folding of the score lines which are mountain and valley folds to create the 3D effect. A Robin’s Nest Dew Drop was hot glued to the center of each star. The wheels were adhered to the cage.

To create the lion, I again reached for my Nestibilities circle dies for the body, the head and the ears. The mane was created using my Stampin’ Up! scallop circle punch. His feet are created by die cutting an oval shape and then cutting in half. The tail was cut from a scrap piece of card stock and the end of the tail is a brown, die cut leaf from My Favorite Things.

Add some wiggly eyes,a heart shaped piece of red felt, a tan, oval piece of felt with a notch cut out and some twine to create the lion’s face.

I folded a piece of the same yellow cardstock into an “L” shape and adhered it to the back of the lion so that he would stand up in my cage. The bottom piece of the “L” is adhered to a green piece of cardstock adhered to the bottom of the gable box.

Two shades of green cardstock were die cut using The Cat’s Pajamas’ grass die and then adhere on the inside of the cage. After inserting the lion and floor in the cage, I closed the top of the box.

I created the CBS (Charm Box Studios) flags using Girl Boy Girl Designs’ Party Flag [hybrid templates].

I printed out Jen’s template on computer paper. After cutting out my template, I traced it on to the red cardstock. I used a white gel pen to draw some detail on the flags and stamped the intials CBS using Paper Smooches Alphadot Stamps and a white ink pad. The flags were then folded and adhered around cut down wooden skewers. These were then hot glued in place behind the “frame” of the cage.

And that’s how I created my circus themed parade float!

Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for more of the fantastically creative paper crafted parade floats created by the team! You will be amazed at the creativity!!

Under the Big Top Circus Parade Float

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