Panda Thank You's

Quick post today to share my very belated thank you cards that I'm actually still in the midst of finishing...

Stamped and colored panda is from Mama Elephant's Incoming Mail stamp set. And the layout design for the card was inspired by a super cute card by Christina of Bubblegum Paper blog.

Christina used the Mama Elephant script die to cut a negative on the front of her card, but since I don't own that die, I tried to improvise by creating a cut file using Ballerina font and having my Silhouette cut it on the front of the card. As you can tell from the photo, it did not cut as clean and perfect as you would get from a metal die.

Although I wasn't entirely happy with how my cards turned out, they were pretty much quick to put together so that was good enough for this time. Anxious to give this card design another try soon when I'm not in such a hurry...and hopefully then I'll be happier with the result!

Sweet Valentines

Happy Valentines Day! I made heart shaped cookie boxes this year and filled them with sugar cookies to share with family and friends.

The front of the boxes were decorated with paper pieced images of My Melody using cutfiles created in Make the Cut design program.

The Happy Valentines Day sentiment was die cut using a metal die from Mama Elephant, and the colorful hearts background paper is a digital file purchased from Bella Blvd.

Here are the side and back views of the box. The box is actually my copy cat version of the Valentines Lindor truffle box from Lindt Chocolates which I created in Make the Cut by welding basic shapes together. The size of this box is approximately 8 inches high and wide with a depth of about 2 inches; large enough to hold half a dozen medium size cookies.

After putting together a dozen of the My Melody cookie boxes, I realized I needed something less girly for my son in law...so I decorated  his box with a paper pieced Pochacco.

Had so much fun with little Pochacco and since I still had a bit more time, I decided to make half a dozen more...but this time in a smaller size to fill with chocolates to share with friends at work.

The size of this smaller box is about 6 inches wide and high with a depth of 1-1/2 inches. Especially nice since it only took one sheet of 12 x 12 cardstock to make each box. To save time and make these more quickly, I did a print and cut instead of a paper piecing of  Pochacco for the smaller boxes. The "Love" sentiment was cut using a die from Elizabeth Craft Designs, and I used another digital file from Bella Blvd for the heart panel.

These sweet little Dove chocolate heart holders are from dear Lorna. The adorable little teddy is a stamped image from Dandelion Designs, and though it's hard to see in the photo, his little hands are curved to hold the chocolate heart...too cute!!!

Talk about cute...how about these little Hershey kiss-y mice that were brought in for us at work by a very creative customer! Love those googly eyes!
Hope everyone had a fun Valentines Day today sharing the love!

Welcoming In the New Year 2017

Here are the Year of the Rooster magnetic calendars I put together this year for sharing with family and friends. In past years I've usually had at least half of my calendars done in time for donating to the Senior Citizen Craft Fair which is held in the fall, but I unfortunately I just wasn't able to get these started until after Christmas this year. Ugh! My lack of time management skills is showing again. Luckily, I was able to crank out three dozen of these just in time for New Years...whew!

Using the Make the Cut program made designing my calendars quick and easy. Arial font was used for the year and I chose a very simple design for a rooster so it wouldn't take too long to piece together. Mini calendars were purchased online from Impress Rubber Stamps. On the backside I added Darice adhesive magnet strips and backed them with foam tape for stability. Red sakura patterned paper is from the Cherry Delight collection from My Little Shoe Box.

To go with the calendars, I baked a few batches of Oriental Crispix cereal snack mix, and boxed them in take out boxes tagged with these Year of the Rooster tags. Isn't this little rooster adorable? I found him (together with many more Fluff Friends) posted here. I used Make the Cut to render him into a cutting file and used Lawn Fawn's Stitched Circle Tags die to cut a tag to put him on.

Both "Year of the Rooster" and the back sentiment on the tags were computer generated in Microsoft Word and cut into circles to fit the tags using the print and cut function on the Silhouette and Make the Cut.

Then for a very special aunt, I made another double hinged box, this time decorated with washi paper and a stamped and colored Sister Stamps image, "Pounding Mochi" to hold a gift card.

On the inside I placed a pop up insert to nicely hold the gift card in place. Video tutorial by Crafty Caroline for the double hinged box can be seen here, and the template for the gift card insert comes from the Holiday Cheer Box Collection at SVG Attic.