Sunday, March 10, 2024

Thank Ewe!

As much as I'd like to make my thank you cards, I always seem to need them "right now" so I end up buying them instead. For this particular instance however, I knew ahead of time I would be needing  a thank you card so I had a bit of time to put this together.

I tried to keep things simple by making use of my dies instead of the Silhouette to cut most of the elements for this card. The dies used to cut the paper pieced lambs, flowers, leaves and tufts of grass were all included in Marianne Designs Eline's Lamb die set.

Inside, I used the mechanism from Karen Burniston's Twist Flower Pop Up die to animate the lamb so she would pop forward and appear to leap as the card is opened. Couldn't resist attaching a punny sentiment "Thank Ewe" to the lamb with acetate strips so it too twists and pops forward. I used Di font and Make the Cut design program to create the cut file for the the sentiment and shadow. Kept the background very easy and simple, using Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Borders for the grass and tree die from Karen Burniston Tiny Trees Pop Up. I added a matted blank panel on the right side where I could write a personal message. Very happy that this card didn't take too long at all to put together... what I really need to do is make several of these to put away for the next time I need a thank you card "now".

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Crafty Treasures from Special Friends

Couldn't go on without sharing some of the crafty goodness I received from special friends this month.
 
This handmade calendar and card came in the mail recently from my sweet friend, Lynn.


I think this die cut "maneki neko" (lucky cat) is so adorable with his stylized "fu" (for good fortune) character on his tummy and shiny gold bell and baker's twine collar. I really liked how Lynn rolled the ends of a piece of cardstock to create a scroll, stamped with Chinese characters "gan xie" (for gratitude) for lucky cat to hold up.  The neatest thing about this lucky cat is that he can be lifted from the card front to sit upright on his mat, using his little tail as an easel stand!

Lynn also sent along this super cute Valentine easel desk calendar featuring  a stamped, colored, and fussy cut image of my all time favorite Pooh bear. 

My amazingly creative friend Lorna made this pair of kawaii Valentine treat holders.

Reminiscent of  the silk rose truffle holders seen at fancy weddings, Lorna cut and folded the petals of this fabulous rose from red cardstock to create this sweet rose candy holder. Look carefully and you'll see Hershey kisses and Dove chocolate hearts tucked in the center of the rose. Little Mocha Bear standing on the petals with his bouquet of roses just doubles the cuteness of this treat holder!

Lorna also pieced together this irresistible pink "maneki neko" (lucky cat) as a Valentine treat holder. I wasn't even aware that different colored lucky cats represent different things. Pink lucky cats represent romance and brings love; perfect for Valentines Day!

My dear crafty friend Kris put together this sweet heart shaped basket perfect for a fellow crafter (like me!). This sturdy and roomy basket has room enough for a lot of treats. I love that Kris filled it with crafters' favorites... diamond glaze and chocolates! The template for this cute basket was designed by Kim of Crafting Cheerfully.
Hope you enjoyed seeing crafty projects from friends and hope they may have inspired  your creative juices as much as they did for me.


Monday, February 19, 2024

We PIKA - CHOOSE You, Valentine!

We recently learned that our granddaughter had started watching the Pokemon anime series and has become quite a fan of little Pikachu. Well, you know this gramma loves a theme, so I grabbed the Pikachu theme and ran with it for Valentines Day.

I found a svg cut file template for this cute Pikachu domed candy holder by Mirachefamira Studio on Etsy which I thought our granddaughter would enjoy. I used half of a clear plastic ball ornament for the domed candy holder. The base of the original template is a circle, but since this was for Valentines Day, I glued it onto a heart shaped base.

The original template included a fancy notched rotating window underneath to access the candies in the dome but I decided to switch it to the simpler hexagonal petal envelope closure that I am more familiar working with.

I also preferred that the petal style envelope gave me a place to add a fun card enclosure. Access to candies is inside the envelope behind the card. I created a simple "Pokeball" card in the shape of a heart with our sentiment inside. This included a clipart of another Pokemon named "Evee", which happens to be the nickname we lovingly call our granddaughter by.

This personalized hinged box decorated with another paper pieced Pokeball held a surprise pop up Valentine inside. When the hinged lid of the box is lifted . . .

little Pikachu pops up inside!
"We Pika-Choose YOU to be our Valentine!"

Inspired by several creative members on the Karen Burniston Pop Up Peeps Facebook group, I wanted to try recreating Pikachu too, using Karen Burniston's Mini Ball Pop Up dies and stacking two of them on top of each other. These rubber band activated pop up balls have been used to create so many different fun creatures and characters!

After adding on Pikachu's ears, face, arms, feet and tail, I had him hold two glittered hearts and secured him to a glittered heart shaped base with a brad so he could swivel around. If you look closely at the previous photo you may be able to see that I added two pieces of  the printed cardstock on the right and left inside the box to create a channel where Pikachu's heart shaped base could be slid into. Not certain if this creature resembles Pikachu enough or not but I had lots of fun putting him together!

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

You're a True Gem, Valentine!

 

Happy Valentines Day! These are the boxes filled with cookies I made to share with my "Gal-entines" this year.

I fell in love with these unique 3-D heart shaped boxes I saw online after Valentines Day last year and promised myself to make them for the following year...so here they are!

There are several slightly different shaped versions of 3-D Heart Box templates by different designers available; this one I chose to use is by Nilmara Quintela on Etsy. I thought the beveled edges on the box cover reminded me of a heart shaped gem so I created insets for each beveled panel in Make the Cut Design program, cut them from pink and red glittered cardstock, and glued them to the top to make the boxes shimmer like a gemstone. I used silver foil board and Waffle Flower's "Love Word" die to cut the script word love.

Inside, I filled the boxes with hubby's favorite buttery Lace Cookies. The boxes were quite roomy inside because of the beveled top and I was able fit six cookies in each box.

Last, I added my heart shaped computer generated sentiment to the bottom of the boxes. Thank you for dropping by today! I have a few more Valentines Day themed projects to share but will wait till I know our granddaughter has received them.

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Happy New Year of the Dragon

Kung Hei Fat Choy!  I'm finally back after my holiday break. Today marks the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year, and this year we celebrate the Year of the Dragon.

I baked batches of almond cookies to share with family and friends and created these boxes to put them in. 

The design of my cookie boxes was inspired by the four-sided lantern style boxes often seen used as favors at weddings. After looking at several illustrations of  templates for these wedding favor boxes online, I tried to design something similar in Make the Cut Design Studio by welding together a few basic shapes. I then sized my box to be large enough to hold half a dozen or more cookies and added legs to the bottom of it to make it look like an Asian style lantern.

Two sides of the box were decorated using a free dragon image from Vecteezy.  A stencil cut of the image was created in Make the Cut and pieced together using gold foil board and red pearlescent text weight paper. On the alternate sides I used Spellbinders Destination China: Chinese Coin Window die to cut a  frame from gold foil board. The Chinese character for "dragon" was traced in Make the Cut to create the layered stencil image in the center.

I also put together several of these fun "laisee" or Chinese lucky red envelopes decorated with a whimsical paper pieced dragon, inspired by Tsuki-san on Pixta Japan  The dragon's head was adhered to the flap of the envelopes separately from the dragon's body so recipients could lift the dragon's head up to open the envelope.

I  was excited to use my new Chinese character "Fu" (for good fortune) wax stamp to make wax seals to add to the envelopes. I tried the double layered wax technique for the first time to get the gold wax border around the red wax and colored the "Fu" character using a Marvy DecoColor gold metallic paint pen.

I also want to share these super cute Year of the Dragon lucky money bag treat holders that I received from my dear friend, Lorna. Lorna very cleverly origami folded Chinese red envelopes into the shape of a Chinese Lucky Bag, and decorated it with an adorable paper pieced Hello Kitty dressed in a dragon costume.

I also received this fun Year of the Dragon Chinese New Year pop up card in the mail this week from my crafty friend, Bev. I love the lantern design digital paperon the front of the card. The sentiment "Gong Xi Fa Cai" is Mandarin whereas "Kung Hei Fat Choy" is the Cantonese pronounciation of the same greeting, meaning "Wishing you prosperity".

For the pop up feature inside, Bev used the mechanism from Karen Burniston's "Rocket Pop Up" die. As the card is opened the dragon inside pops forward and slides to the right... so fun! Happy New Year!
(P.S. I will be slowly adding back dated posts of  my 2023 Christmas projects so you may scroll backward to older posts if you're interested.)

Monday, January 1, 2024

Celebrate the Year of the Dragon

 Happy New Year! This is the first of  my back dated holiday projects posts. 2024 is the Lunar Year of the Dragon and today I'm sharing the card and calendar we sent to family and friends to celebrate the New Year.

I decided to keep the front of the card clean and simple, using plain white cardstock and an old embossing folder from Crafts-Too to add a subtle bamboo with butterfly and dragonfly textured background. 

I used Spellbinders "Sealed Twine" die and gold foil board for the cording and adhered a wax seal. The wax seal was created using Craspire's "Dragon" wax seal stamp purchased on Amazon. I used a Marvy Uchida DecoColor Metallic Paint Pen to highlight the image of the dragon. The "Happy New Year" fishtail banner below it was foiled and cut using Spellbinders "Christmas Sentiments" and "Hexi-Gems Sentiments" hot foil plates and dies.


I enclosed a Year of the Dragon calendar magnet inside each card. The sentiment on the top was computer generated and the clip art of the cute pair of dragons on it comes from the Pixta Japan site.

This year's lunar year calendar magnet could very well be one of the most detailed ones I've created over the years. Of the twelve animals in the Chinese Lunar Zodiac, the dragon is the only mythical creature and probably most revered. Wanting my dragon to be special, I used lots of pearlescent cardstock: three shades of green, two shades of blue as well as red, gold and cream. I started working on these in late summer and finally finished 40 of them in December thanks to a sweet and crafty friend who helped with the assembling.

Our daughter and her family visited for  a week after Christmas so I was able to get a photo to quickly print and add to the back of our cards before sending them out. 

I have a few more New Year of the Dragon crafty goodness I want to share!

Every year I look forward to seeing the daruma lunar year treat holders created by my dear friend Lorna. This year's daruma dragon and "suzu" ceramic bell dragon treat holders are so kawaii! The adorable paper pieced dragons were packaged together with yummy rice crackers and mochi.

I think my mom has been making these fun plastic canvas Chinese Lunar Year animal magnets every year for as long as I have been making my calendar magnets. I guess it's a fun tradition that we share them together with family at our annual New Years family reuinion. 
Thanks for stopping by. I will continue to slowly back post a few of my crafty Christmas from 2023 in the weeks to follow. If interested, you can scroll back to see them.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Christmas Tree Lanterns

I put together these Christmas tree lanterns or luminaries to be used as gift card holders to give to friends and family this holiday season. 

The original svg template for the tree and star for this project was designed by Makamo Creations. I sized the template to as large as I could cut from a 12 x 12 sheet of Diamond Bazzill Bling cardstock and glued vellum panels inside.  I should mention that I also added a few extra star cuts on each panel of the tree to maximize the lantern glow. Once cut, the tree itself was very easy to fold and assemble; the gold star on top: not so much. Since I knew I would be needing a place to include a giftcard, I added a tree trunk and a square box as a base for the tree to stand.

The 3D star tree topper was probably the most challenging part of this entire project for me. The gold metallic foil board I chose to use was not very pliable and although I watched in amazement how the designer assembled the star using a hot glue gun in the tutorial, I knew there was no way my fingers would be able to stand the heat. Instead I opted to use Beacon 3 in 1 adhesive because I knew I'd be able to wipe off most of the excess glue mess with Un-du adhesive remover. I also glued several  flatback crystal gemstones in two sizes to each tree to give the tree some sparkle.

I made a cylinder from cardstock and attached it over a circle I had cut in the bottom of the tree for a tree trunk. This trunk was then glued  directly over a circle I had cut on the top of a square box for the base of my lantern. Gold foil board and glitter cardstock cut with Photoplay's "Merry Christmas" die was used for a glittery shadowed greeting and adhered to the front panel of the base.

Here's a view inside the box base with the flap lid open. Adding the cylindrical trunk and box created a place to easily access the on/off switch to the flameless candle for the lantern as well as a place where I could enclose a gift card.


These are the enclosure cards I made to hold the gift cards I placed in the base box of the Christmas tree lanterns. The front of the card is a piece of white cardstock hot foiled with Papertrey Ink's "Cascading Dots" plate which was layered on top red and green metallic foil board. Spellbinder's "Sealed Twine" die was used to cut the faux twine border from gold foil board and I added red and green  Merry Christmas wax seals. I used a Marvy Uchida DecoColor gold paint pen to color the impression on the seals.

This is what the Christmas tree lantern looks like with the flameless candle turned on. 


After wrapping thirteen Christmas tree lanterns in cellophane and gold ribbon, these tags were tied on.  I used the foiled cardstock left over from making the gift card enclosures, matted on gold foil board. Simon Hurley's "Joyful Christmas Sentiments" plates and dies were used to foil and die cut the sentiments. Inside, the tags included instructions to each recipient on where they would find the on/off switch to the lantern as well as their gift card.