Each member of the design team was given a chipboard strut from Collections to play with for this product challenge. I must say, I am amazed at the different projects everyone made – each is something different and unusual. Here’s Rachael up first:

“I had seen a Christmas tree project on one of my recent blog trawling adventures… and thus was born the idea for my strut project.  Quite simply, I cut a large triangle from cardstock and decorated it with strips of christmas paper which I used a edge punch on.  I added circles (baubles) of more christmas paper, some diecut stickers, glitter, leaf garland and stick on gems.  To finish I added a BasicGrey sticker snowflake to the top of the tree and cut out my photos in circles to which I added bought holly.  I finised it off with a leftover journal tag from my kit last month.It was easy then to attach the entire triangle to the strut and have a freestanding decoration for the ‘mantle’ (top of our wine rack!).”

And now here’s Julie:

“When we were first given the Strut to use as a product showcase I was totally at a loss as to what to do with it. All I did know was that I didn’t want to use it as it for what it is intended for I wanted to have it out on show some how. So it sat on my tile fire for a month or so and I’d walk past it everyday and think just what was I going to do and in the end I decided to turn it into a house.

I chopped up some scrap cardboard and started to make my bricks. I mixed up some texture paste with some paint to give my bricks some colour and then covered then with it and stuck them on my house. To finish it of I added a few flower sprays a small picket fence and a coloured Picnic of Daisies image.

Now it is still sitting on my tile fire but Asher has claimed it as a play prop for some of her toys.”

Here’s what Nicole did with her strut:

“I decided to make a desktop calendar with my strut. I attached it to the back of a chipboard album and it works perfectly as the strut can be folded back to flush with the cover so it’s portable, but then it opens out easily again to pop the calendar upright on a desk.

The cover and January to June are on the fronts and as you flip each month over there is another month on the back so when you make it through the first 6 months you just turn the whole thing around and start flipping through the second half of the year.”

 December is on the reverse of the cover:

 And as for me, I thought I’d tip the strut on its side and make a decoration for the table in my entry hall:

Here’s the strut at work, holding it all up:

I used some of the beautiful Jenni Bowlin papers from the December A la Tarte. I made the bushes by punching and cutting shapes out with scissors. The alpha stickers are Scenic Route and came from the June A la Tarte.

So, if you have a spare dollar, why not add one of these handy struts to your next order? Yep – that’s all they cost – one whole dollar!