More Year of the Sheep Treats

Slowly but surely I'm finally catching up with my late blog posts. Sharing the last of my Year of the Ram goodies today. This fancy little hanging lantern decoration was given to me by none other than my uber talented friend, Lorna to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Lorna created this beautiful hanging lantern by joining several Chinese red envelopes (li see, lai see, or hongbao) together at their corners...so COOL, eh? Awww...and isn't that tiny little ram bell charm hanging from it the CUTEST thing ever?

The lantern ornament hangs from a hook made from a heavy gauge jewelry wire which extends from a "stand", filled with a fortune cookie and other sweet treats. So clever! The adorable little rams on the front is also a red envelope which Lorna adhered to the stand. Another amazing and creative original from my sweet friend!

Here's yet another Year of the Sheep inspired gift I received...from none other than my dear mom! Even while laid up in bed after her knee surgery, she spent her time stitching away in between physical therapy sessions. LOL, there's no stopping a crafter!

Totally LOVE my new plastic canvas sheep tissue holder! Each of the colorful blossoms on this were individually stitched and sewn on separately for dimension, and she even stitched the year on the top!

And finally, these are the calendar magnets I put together at the very last minute when I realized I had run short of the easel calendars I made earlier. I purchased the calendars for these from Impress Rubber Stamps because their shipping costs were more reasonable than other places. The size of their small and medium calendars are different than the ones from Vippies, but no problem. I actually felt the quality of these were much better.

Using the "2015" cutfile I used previously for my easel calendars and the cute ram image (from daikonko) cutfile I used to decorate my New Years treat bottles, together with a lot of helpful advice from my friend Karen of Have A Scrap Happy Day blog, I was able to put a dozen of these together and in the mail pretty quickly...whew, glad that's all done!
Yay! I think I'm pretty much caught up on the posting of my holiday projects...at least for now!

Cuteness Overload!

Still trying to catch up! St, Patrick's Day was Tuesday, and though I didn't wear green, I got really lucky... My dear friend Kris surprised me with this super adorable bag of goodies!

Aww...isn't this little leprechaun mouse the CUTEST ever?!!! Kris has an amazing talent with paper piecing these little critters, always making them look so irresistibly cute!

Oh, oh...more CUTENESS! This darling card from sweet Patti of Creations by Patti had me squealing with delight! Is that my little Latte on the card? This was a Make and Take ard offered by Avery Elle Stamps at the recent CHA trade show which Patti put together and sent my way 'cause it reminded her of my furbaby. How sweet is that!

 One thing's for certain...I MUST have this stamp!

Lucky,lucky me, to have such very special friends!

Sweet Surprises!

I'm afraid I'm quite behind on my blog postings...but late as this may be, I really wanted to share these sweet surprises I received from my very talented crafty friends for Valentines Day and Girls Day this year. First up...Lorna's super cute Valentines Day packets filled with chocolates.

She used Sister Stamps Miyako stamp, colored with Copics and holding up a washi paper pieced heart to embellish her packet closed with a bow. So adorable!

This beautiful card in a box creation came in the mail from my dear friend, Patti of Creations By Patti blog. Wow, I love how this card in a box looks like it's just bursting open with so many hearts! Even the flaps on the box are heart shaped! Patti chose perfectly coordinating papers and a cutting file from SVG Cuts to make this a very special Valentine.

Then on Girls Day (March 3rd), Lorna blew me away with these incredible kokeshi doll treats! 

Lorna used the Kokeshi Doll Heads stamps to make these doll displays...and  if you look carefully, you can see the packets of wasabi iso peanuts draped with pretty washi paper she used to create their bodies. Yes, this girl is just out of this world creative!

And tucked underneath each of the display stands were these yummy mochi candies...

And finallly, this "OMG SO KAWAII!!!" kimono Hello Kitty packet of treats comes from my dear friend Kris. She embossed her packet with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and paper pieced this adorable Hello Kitty. Love, love all the tiny little details from the pretty bow and flowers in her hair to the little pair of geta on feet.
I'm so blessed to have such wonderfully talented and crafty friends who always spoil me with their amazing creations! Okay, please bear with me as I still have a few more Chinese New Year projects to share on my next post and hopefully I'll be caught up and ready for...Easter!

Girls Day Sakura Petal Boxes

Uh, oh! It's only March, and already I'm slipping behind on all my projects and blog posts...YIKES! I suppose part of the reason is that Valentines Day, Chinese New Year and Girls Day were all less than a week apart this year. That, and me not being able to come up with any creative ideas...I was especially stumped on what to do for Girls Day this year. Then I remembered some cute petal boxes I had seen a while back and recalled wanting to try them as sakura petal boxes. Searching online, I came across a few usable templates, but they were all four petal (square), six petal (hexagon) or eight petal (octogon) boxes. For a sakura, I needed a FIVE petal (pentagon) box. Desperate and running out of time, I finally came to the realization that I'd have to come up with my own template...UGH!

Tracing the template I found for a six petal box into MTC, I removed one of the panels to make it a five sided box, then created a pentagon shape for the box bottom. Ta-Da...it worked!

The individual petals of the sakura were also created in MTC by doing some pixel editing to separate the petals on a sakura image I had previously saved.

Various sized sakura and flower center punches were used to decorate the sides of the box...

and paper pieced kokeshi was created in MTC using a kokeshi head image found online and pairing it with the kokeshi body from Jin's (Under A Cherry Tree blog) freebie Kyoto Kuties cutting file.

Here's what the box looks like when it's open. I was able to finish ten of these just in the nick of time, and filled them with Japanese mochi candies.

Finished them off by bagging in cellophane...

And adding a fun topper.

Girls Day (March 3rd) isn't a major holiday but I always enjoy making a little something to share with friends. Brings back lots of warm memories of my daughter growing up and even of my own childhood.