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.

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.

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!

Kokeshi Platform Pop Up

I have another milestone birthday card to share today, put together for a dear friend who recently celebrated her 70th birthday. I was running late and was a little short on time so I decided I would try to make a card using older cut files I made for past projects instead of trying to create new files. I wanted to go with a kokeshi themed card, so I paper pieced a few kokeshi girls dressed in washi paper design kimonos. Arched and shadowed "Celebrate" greeting in Benson font as well as the fan shaped background are older cut files created for cards in the past. The patterned paper I used for the card and gift card holder come from a digital paper collection purchased many years ago, "Happy Spring" by Nancy Kubo.
 

Inside the card, I installed the bottom layer from Karen Burniston's "Cake Pop Up" die to create a mini version of a hexagon pop up platform. 

The double fans and large cherry blossom are from a very old Cricut "Pagoda" cartridge, and the bamboo is also an oldie I created in the past. I used a Lawn Fawn "Happy Birthday Border" die to cut the greeting added onto the fans. The number "70" was cut from glitter cardstock using Beach font.

Here's side view of the pop up platform where you can see the acetate strips used to hold the fans and kokeshi doll in place.

I kept the matching gift card holder very simple, allowing the patterned paper to do most of the work. "Just for you" was cut from gold foil board using a die from Lawn Fawn's "Gift Box" die set and the white shadow layer for it was created in Make the Cut design program.

Whimsical Teddies Birthday

Inspired by the adorable cards created by Karen Burniston Design Team member Suzanne Smit, I wanted to make a card with a whimsical spirit like so many she's shared on her blog, Knutsel Suus. For my card I used Marianne Designs dies from "Arctic Bears", "Daisies", and "Happy Daisies" sets and a very old Stampin' Up Embosslits die for the tiny butterflies. Fishtail "Happy Birthday" sentiment banner was hot foiled and cut using Spellbinders "Hexi-Gems Sentiments" Glimmer set.

Inside, I used Karen Burniston's "Triple Platform Pop Up" die set to animate the giant daisies, teddy bear and even a double layered birthday cake. Sounds crazy but very whimsical and fun!

Here's a short video of what it looks like when a card using this mechanism is opened...

I thought it was pretty cool how all the seemingly oversized elements folded down, hidden within the confines of the closed card.

To decorate the gift card holder, I used the smaller daisy dies, butterflies and a stamp from Lawn Fawn's Tiny Tag Sayings set.