Snooks and Boo Paper Crafting Templates

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Reported by: Melissa Norris

Greetings readers! Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend! This week is brought to you by a fabulous company called Snooks and Boo. Haven't heard of Snooks and Boo, well don't worry, after you see what the Craft Critique team has come up with, you're not only going to see some great projects, but running to get some S&B templates.

Snooks and Boo is a family company started by Christi Riley. We met her and her husband at CHA where they were showcasing their fabulous papercrafting templates. The company, named after her childrens' nicknames, features 3 templates to make easy and beautiful papercraft creations.

Today, I will be using the Perfect Pillow Puff Template, but stay tuned the rest of the week for samples of the other templates available.

Upon receiving this template, I knew it was something that I would get lots of use out of, and that it would last me a long time. The template is made of durable, heavy plastic, but not too heavy that it's stiff or hard to use. The template is sized to fit on an 8.5" by 11" sheet of cardstock and the finished product comes out approximately 3.5" x 6".

Ok, I have a couple of tips for you for using this template. The first thing I did was read the instructions. The areas for scoring are punched out of the template, but they are wider than the score mark that you need to make. It is marked in the instructions, but just in case I ever lose those, I took a permanant marker, and marked the sides of holes that I need to score on. This way I will always know what to do.

Normally, I would make score marks with my bone folder, but I found this to me too large and it pushed my template around, making my lines move. So here's what I did. First, I took my mechanical pencil and traced the entire template, including score lines (don't worry as this is on the inside of the pillow). Then I removed the template, and pushed the lead back into my pencil. Now I have the perfect scoring tool, I don't get any pencil marks, but I have a small, very easy to use scoring tool. So now, you just fold the straight lines with your bone folder and you're ready to decorate (and all decorating needs to be done before the puff is assembled).

The first pillow puff I made is for my daughter's upcoming 2nd Birthday Party. These puffs are the perfect size to be used for goodie bags. I started off by stamping the turquoise base with flower stamps, then sewed a coral band in the middle. After I did the decorating for the main base I assembled the puff using Terrifically Tacky Tape to hold it all together. After assembly, I added the organdy ribbon and cord. The Spongebob is actually a playing card that I found for $2 at WalMart and trimmed out and glued to the puff. Perfect for her Spongebob birthday. Super easy and super fast!

I wanted to make the 2nd puff to put a gift card in for a friend's birthday. After reading around on the S&B website, they had a tip for making a smaller puff. First, you trace the top half of the template along with the sides. Then, adjust to whatever size you please by moving the template up, then finish tracing the bottom of the template. Easy peasy!

This puff was similarly decorated using patterned cardstock, sewing, organdy and chipboard. Being that the pillow puffs are 3D items, they are perfect for using up some of those embellishments that may not normally get used or you worry about getting smooshed, like chipboard, flowers, and fancy ribbons.

Overall, I highly recommend these templates. They are the perfect size for small gifts and goodie bags, they are easy and quick to make, and most importantly fun to decorate! And remember to check back the rest of this week to see the other templates Snooks & Boo has to offer!