Happy Hinamatsuri!

Yesterday (March 3rd) was Hinamatsuri, or Girls Day when we celebrate the girls in our families and send wishes for their good health and well being. This is the Girls Day card I made to send to our granddaughter this year for her first Hinamatsuri.

Paper pieced Hinamatsuri prince and princess dolls, lanterns and screen were created in Make the Cut design program from coloring book images found on Pinterest. I wanted to keep the card style simple so I chose to make a Joy Fold type card. I used washi paper for the base card panel and embossed the left front panel using Darice Cherry Blossom embossing folder. Sakura punches from Carl and Punch Bunch were used for the blossoms on the inside flap.

The older girls in our lives got these Cherry Blossom boxes filled with homemade mochi.

I used Currency Gold cardstock to make lidded boxes, then made sleeves with light pink cardstock with a cherry blossom center to slide them into. Darice Cherry Blossom embossing folder was used to add texture and stickles for a little bit of sparkle.

To create the sleeves, I used an image of a cherry blossom, adding a curved cutting line to the center of the blossom. The flower was then welded onto a half circle shape in Make the Cut design program and I did a print and cut onto pink cardstock. Two were cut for each sleeve and adhered onto the ends of a retangular piece of cardstock to complete the sleeve.
See how the flowers on each side slip into each other to close the sleeve? Honestly, I thought this would be such a neat box but...BLEEEEP!!!  Design FAIL!!!  Problem was with the box in place, the ends of the sleeve barely reached to be able to slide into each other. I tried to remedy it by increasing the length on both slides but that caused it to be too loose. I ended up having to assemble the sleeve first, then slide the box into it. Looks the same, but still not the same, if you know what I mean!

I put my mochi into small plastic bento containers wrapped in Japanese textured paper and put them into the gold boxes. Sigh... still disappointed that the boxes didn't turn out quite like I had imagined. Lol, a paper engineer I am not!

Okay, in contrast to my poorly engineered box, now feast your eyes on this AHH...MAZING Girls Day treat box put together by my dear friend, Lorna! So super kawaii, right? Lorna created this adorable stand up kokeshi...with pink hair...just like those wildly popular Kimi Kokeshis...and placed her on a cherry blossom. Then she adhered this to a plastic flower shaped treat container...just so clever beyond words! Definitely gonna have to CASE this one!