Tsuru Gift Bags

When dd and her fiance decided to have their wedding in Hawaii, we were so pleased! After they had selected their venue, the first thing we worked on were the invitations. More about that later... The second project I wanted to get started on right away was the folding of her 1001 origami cranes. Known as a wedding tradition in Hawaii, originating shortly after World War II, the 1000 origami cranes or "senbazuru" is said to bring the newlyweds a thousand years of happiness, and the 1 last crane is for good luck.

Realizing this would take quite a bit of time to finish, I wanted to get started early. I recruited the help of friends and family and together with everyone's help, including dh (yes! he's an expert at it and folded over 300 of them!) we had over a thousand cranes folded in two and a half months. Yay!

As thanks and appreciation for everyone who helped, we filled these decorated bags with yummies.The tsuru or origami crane cutfile is the same one I created in MTC and used on a card earlier last year. This time I used metallic gold cardstock to cut these out and used vinyl transfer tape to remove the cuts from the mat. This assured that all the many pieces of the crane would stay in their correct positions when I transferred them to its' shadow. Sakura were cut using the sakura and sakura outlines dies from WikiCAPS, branches are a die from Quickutz and pine tufts were hand cut.

Once again, thank you for everyone who helped to fold cranes. It was so good to get these done early and not have to worry about it!

So Inspired!

I want to share photos of two very special handmade projects I received quite awhile ago that I never had a chance to post...naughty me! Both of these projects have recently inspired me to come up with similar creations which I will post later, but I really want to be able to give credit to where the original ideas came from.  The first is this awesome thank you card from dh's super talented and creative aunt which just knocked me off my feet...

Removing the belly band reveals an amazing tri-panelled screen card which opens up to showcase a beautiful glittered lotus blossom tucked inside what I can only best describe as a framed shadowbox. I've never seen a card of this style before, and I just LOVE the way Aunty Mollie put this card together... breathtakingly beautiful!

Here's a close up of the lotus flower... with all the intricate glittering and coloring (alcohol inks?). Truth be told, this amazing card has been sitting on my craft table for over a year...with the intention that I would hopefully one day try to figure out how it was put together so I could make one too. But all the precise measuring and cutting I knew would be required to re-create of the shape of the panels and shadow box to get all the pieces to fit accurately kept me from attempting this project for a very long time.

The second project is this cute little milk carton birdhouse favor, created by a sweet friend and super talented fellow Cricuteer club member, Aileen. Aileen created a cutfile for the milk carton and roof in Design Studio, and used the Give A Hoot cartridge for the other cuts.

I was so amazed and loved all the wonderful details she added to transform her milk carton into this adorable miniature birdhouse! Later, when my dd asked if I would make birdhouse favors for her upcoming lovebirds themed wedding, I remembered and was inspired by Aileen's project.

Heartfelt thanks to Aunty Mollie and Aileen for sharing their amazing treasures with me! I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very good at coming up with new and creative ideas...but it's the extra special  creations like these that always manage to amp up my mojo to get me inspired to create!