Gallop Into the New Year of the Horse

Happy Chinese New Year! I baked several batches of almond cookies and created these boxes to put them in so we could share with our family and friends.
 

My cookie box style was inspired by gift boxes originally designed for cosmetics and fragrance that I've been seeing on several  design packaging websites. I really liked the clean and simple look of this triangular prism shaped box. Using Make the Cut, I created a template for a box 8 inches tall with a base 3 inches in width. 

To decorate the front of the box, I printed a calligraphic design of the Chinese character "fu" for good luck created for the Lunar Year of the Horse onto red cardstock using my laser printer. I used Make the Cut design program to create a shadow layer around the image and cut the image on the Silhouette Cameo using the print and cut feature. Then I ran the cut image together with a sheet of toner activated gold foil through my new Heidi Swapp Minc machine to foil the image. This was the first time for me trying this process of foiling and I must say I was pretty happy with the results.

The cut and foiled image was then mounted onto a square piece of gold foil board which I had dry embossed using Cuttlebug Oriental Weave folder and matted with a larger square of red foil board. After filling the boxes with packages of cookies, I used gold metallic taffeta ribbon to tie a bow onto the handles to keep the box closed. These boxes were simple in style and quick to assemble so that making twenty boxes didn't take as long as I thought it would. Wish I could have made more but ran out of red cardstock and cookies!

This year, instead of the typical red envelopes or "lai si" I make to share with friends and family, I decided to do something different. During Christmas I made a few holiday Hershey kisses gift card holders which I enjoyed making so much that I decided I wanted make a Chinese New Year version to replace the red envelopes I usually make.

I made the box in red and decorated with a gold panel embossed with a Paper Studio Greek Key folder and a paper pieced horse leaping near a string of fire crackers. Then I swapped out the Hershey kisses in the box with strawberry candies wrapped in red foil labeled with the Chinese character "fu" for good fortune, and embellished with a gold organza glittered bow.

               

The back panel is a pocket, just the right size to fit a gift card in. There's also plenty of room behind the panel to add a sentiment. There are lots of video tutorials online to create this fun gift card holder. I watched this video by Kelly Acheson from "A Stamp Above" for the inspiration to create my template.

Thank you for stopping by today. And to close, here's our furbaby, "Polah Beah" bearing wishes for a New Year filled with good fortune and happiness.

Beary Special Valentines

I decided to go with a teddy bear theme for my Valentines Day projects this year.

 

Our Valentines Day card sent to our granddaughter was more of a box instead of a card. I assembled and decorated a box with a sliding drawer using Karen Burniston's "Slider Box" die set. Cut file for the "LOVE" word art was  created in Make the Cut and cut from silver foilboard and red glitter cardstock. I used a Taylored Expressions Little Bits die for the mini teddy bear.

When the drawer to the box is pulled open, a teddy bear pops up from inside!

Sitting teddy bear is actually pieced and glued on to three rubberband activated pop up cubes for this surprise pop up. Cutting file for the teddy bear comes from My Scrap Chick's "Teddy B Valentine Candy Wraps" which had to be edited a little so he would fit onto the three cubes. I added our sentiment in the drawer behind the cubes. Such a silly but fun pop up! The inspiration for this came from a video tutorial by Karen Burniston where she teaches the assembly of a similar pop up box but with an Easter Bunny instead.

For treat holders, I picked up the template for these fun teddy bear boxes from designer Paper Makes Studio on Etsy. I changed teddy bear's face just a little by adding my own eyes, nose and muzzle. I also added gingham bows; bow ties at the neck for the guys and on the ear for girls.

Though not readily noticeable, in the first photo, the two bears on the left are about 3 inches  in diameter while the one on the far right is about 2 inches larger. I made the smaller bears for my younger Valentines who prefer Sour Patch Kids and Ring Pop candies...

...and  the larger bears for my "Gal-entines" who prefer chocolates. I also added a print and cut teddy bear shaped sentiment on the bottom of the larger boxes.

I also used the teddy bear candy wrap template from My Scrap Chick to make candy wrap boxes. I thought this candy wrap was designed to be so cute the way teddy bear's paws and heart are attached to the belly band that keeps the box closed.

The original template by My Scrap Chick for this candy wrap was made to fit a large size candy bar, but I sized mine to be taller and deeper so I could fit my favorite Japanese rolled cookies inside.   

Lunar Year of the Horse Calendars

Happy New Year! These are the Year of the Horse refrigerator magnet calendars I put together for 2026.My paper pieced horse was created from a coloring book image I had on file of an unicorn. In the process of rendering it into a cutting file, I removed its horn to create the horse I needed to use on my calendars. I used Arial Black font to create the numbers, and the blossoms, pine, and bamboo images were cut from older cutting files created in the past. The horse and numbers were layered multiple times with black, gold, and red shadows and adhered with foam tape to create dimension. Magnetic strips backed with foam tape were glued on to the backs of each calendar. And happily, my dear friend Pat helped  once again this year with the assembly so I could get sixty of these done on time.

This year, I purchased the small calendars I used from Gracious Bee Greetings on Etsy. Their prices are reasonable and the quality of their calendars exceeds ones I've used in the past. I will definitely use them as my source from now on.

Here is the top fold card I made which doubled as my New Years/Thank You card sent to friends and family. I used an Asian border image from FreePik and did a little bit of editing to get it to fit nicely onto the top and bottom edges of my card front. In the center, I used my Silhouette to cut a stenciled image of a horse head from a brush stroke image rendered into a cutting file. Gold mirror cardstock was used to mat the front panel so that the gold would show through the stencil cut. This was adhered to a pearlescent gold cardstock base, then finally matted onto a piece of red foil board.

Each calendar was placed into clear cello bags and adhered to the inside of the cards with double stick tape. I added my sentiment matted in red foil board to the top of the card.

I added a photo of our family to the back of the cards and printed up sheets of matching stationery so I could write our thank you notes to include with the cards.

Holiday Gift Tags

Only needed a few gift tags at the last minute for my holiday gift baskets this year so I pulled out my Karen Burniston Poinsettia dies to embellish tags. Flower petals were cut from red foil board and glitter cardstock. I used green foil board for the leaves.  Pearlescent and glitter gold cardstock was used for the flower centers. The tags were cut using Lawn Fawn Stitched Circle Tags die from red cardstock. Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities dies were used to cut the white inner circle.

I made bag tags again this year to help me identify and deliver the correct bags of gifts to the correct families. 

Last year I used paper clips to attach the tags to the bags but I found they slipped off the bags too easily so this year I used ribbon to snuggly tie the tags onto the handles of the bag where they could easily be spotted and read. This year I used a different Doodlebug polar bear print and cut image, adding the family name to each prior to cutting and small holes at the neck to thread the ribbon through. This worked out very well with no errors in gift deliveries again this year. Will definitely continue making these tags every Christmas.

 

Low Poly Polar Bears

Each year at Christmas I try my hardest to come up with a different way to give gift cards as gifts to family and friends. I'm not very good at buying gifts so I generally prefer to give gift cards so everyone can choose what they want. But since giving and getting gift cards sounds pretty boring, I like to make it  interesting by presenting them in some fun way. This year I decided to make polar bear gift card holders.

These 3 dimensional paper polar bears were put together using a modeling technique known as "Low Poly" named for the different polygons that comprise each piece. If you search the term "Low Poly" online you will come across hundreds of beautiful, and intricate 3D paper sculptures. My low poly polar bear is definitely beginner level but still challenging and fun for me to assemble. I purchased the svg template for this bear from Form You Design on Etsy. 

The biggest challenge I faced with this template was that for whatever reason, I was unable to import the svg file into Make the Cut Design program. This meant I had to finally bite the bullet and sit down to learn how to use Silhouette Design Studio. I probably only learned just the bare minimum to be able to import the files and group and ungroup as needed. Most importantly I was able to cut the 21 multiple scored pieces needed to assemble each polar bear.

Polar bear pieces were cut from textured pearlescent cardstock. After cutting, each piece and every scoreline on each piece had to be numbered and meticulously mountain or valley folded. Although assembly of the bears was slow and took time, I found it curiously enjoyable and relaxing. After finishing the assembly of 14 polar bears I thought they all looked  like they were missing a little something so I cut strips of red felt and fringed the ends to make scarves to wrap around their necks and warm them up a bit.

I needed a place to attach the gift cards so I made tapered  hexagonal "glacier" bases for each bear. I used pearlescent blue cardstock for these and added tabs underneath each base to hold a gift card.

The finished size of each polar bear together with the glacier base measured approximately 13 inches in height and 7 inches in width.

The bears were wrapped in cello bags with a silver taffeta bow. I made simple gift tags with a stamped sentiment and die cut glitter snowflake embellished with flatback rhinestones.

And just for fun... a photo of our furbaby "Polah Beah" together with her namesakes. I just couldn't resist taking of picture of them together!

 

Sweet Holiday Treats

This year my  holiday Chex Mix carrier featured a cute snowman from My Scrap Chick. I used "Frosty the Snowman Candy Bar Wrap" file, enlarging it to fit onto the front of my carrier. I swapped the snowflake in the file with one I die cut from glitter cardstock using "Let it Snowflake" die from MFT Die-namics.   
 

The carrier design is a simply a shallow box made to fit the bottom of my bag of Chex mix with two panels as tall glued on to the front and back. Holes are punched at the top to thread a ribbon through so a bow can be tied to keep the carrier closed.

For smaller bags of Chex Mix made for hubby to share with golf club friends, I simply printed up labels with an image of a golfing snowman.

I made several of these Hershey Kisses candy gift card holders which I had been wanting to make for the longest time. I followed the video tutorial by Kelly Acheson on her blog A Stamp Above to create a cutting file for my template. 

The back panel of this candy holder serves as the pocket where you can slide a gift card. Had fun decorating the boxes with a polar bear die cut using Marianne Designs "Eline's Arctic Bear" dies and Merry Christmas greeting cut using an Elizabeth Craft Designs word die. I thought this was a cute and easy way to make giving gift cards not seem so boring.

Arch of Leaves Pop Up Card

As the days begin to get noticeably shorter I'm realizing the holiday season has already begun. I found myself scrambling for ideas for a card to include with our Thanksgiving "care package" that we send to our granddaughter each year. When I came across Jennifer Webster's beautiful fall themed arch pop up card posted on her blog, I knew I wanted to try something similar.                                                         

I kept the front of my card simple by only adhering a sheet of pretty patterned paper with autumn leaves to it. Since this card ended up being quite bulky, I decided to use a belly band to help keep it closed. That meant both the label with my greeting and the paper pieced deer I wanted to put on the front had to be glued on to the belly band.

Inside, I installed the mechanism from  Karen Burniston's  "Arch Pop Up" and added lots of die cut leaves, acorns, and even a couple pumpkins cut using Karen Burniston "Autumn Elements" set. Smaller leaves were cut using very old Carl and Marvy Uchida punches. Marianne Collectable dies were used to die cut and piece together the two deer for this card.

For some additional pop up fun, I glued a rubber band activated Karen Burniston "Small Scenes Bam Box" to the back of the deer so it would pop up to its upright position as the card is opened.

Really had fun putting this arch pop up card together. I ended up adding more leaves to the arch than I initially thought would be needed, which resulted in quite a bulky bulgy card... next time I think I will add at least a quarter inch spine to the center to help the closed card lay flatter. 

Thanks for stopping by to visit today; relax and enjoy Thanksgiving... Christmas holiday madness starts tomorrow!