Christmas Shaker Tags

I was very late putting these Christmas treat boxes together this year, but here they are, twenty of them ready to be delivered to hubby's workplace, 5 days before Christmas.

 Made two batches of Chex mix bagged, sealed, and boxed them into take out boxes tied with a bow. That was the easy part...

And then there were these shaker tags! What on earth made me think they'd be quick and easy? Teddy bear is Cottage Cutz Mr. Snuggles die and the bow is a die from Mama Elephant. All other cuts were created in Make the Cut Design program and cut on the Silhouette. I'm still a newbie when it comes to making shaker projects, so I struggled a bit assembling these tags, but after making twenty, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it!

Also bottled some of that Chex mix for sharing with the special people at the pet clinic we take our doggie to.

Didn't have time enough to make a cutesy label for the bottle so I ended up using a recent photo I had taken of our doggie right after I discovered she had devoured a whole sleeve of Girl Scouts Thin Mints cookies. Had to rush her to the pet clinic...I was so frightened and worried at that time, but everyone at the clinic was so kind and helpful. giving our little Latte the best of care. Now everyone at the clinic knows her as the dog who ate the Thin Mints..."Naughty or Nice?"

2017 Holiday Cards

It's Christmas Eve and I'm happy to say I made it through another holiday season. This is the family Christmas card we sent out to friends and family this year. Since we had plans to be out of town during the first week of December, I forced myself to get started extra early this year, and amazingly finished 80 of these before December...wow, that's gotta be a first for me!

I used metal cutting dies to create the Santa sleigh scene for the front of my card. Santa and reindeer die is from Impression Obsesssion, Winter Neighborhood border die from Cheery Lynn, and Hillside border die from Lawn Fawn. Sentiment label and frame were cut on the Silhouette and adhered to the card together with the Winter Neighborhood border using foam tape for three layers of dimension. Creating the snowy background was the funnest and easiest step;  just went crazy making random dots on the red cardstock with a bamboo skewer and some white acrylic paint!

And here's the inside of the card, inspired by a  recent Make and Take project shared by dear friend Kelli at our craft club meeting. I thought the Pop Up Book style card would be a fun way to showcase our photo this year.  I used the  6 x 6 inch Pop Up Book template and tutorial shared by Norma from From My Craft Room  as a guide for my insert. I adjusted the size of the pop up book to be a little larger to accommodate our photo, compensating by decreasing the depth of the book a little. I also decreased the overall size of the card to 5-1/2 inches square so it could be easily cut on the Silhouette. Sizzix Snowglobe embossing folder was used to emboss  the frame panels. Cutting, embossing and adhering those TEN individual panels was definitely the most time consuming and tedious step of creating this card!

I made just one other Christmas card this year, for our granddaughter to celebrate her First Christmas.

I used a cutting file from Cuddly Cute Designs for the reindeer...isn't she adorable?...and put her on a round shaped easel card.

Couldn't resist putting her head on a wobbler for some fun!

And here's our sentiment on the inside...it's really hard having to spend the holidays miles apart from family! Really glad that hubby and I had the chance to spend at some time with our granddaughter early in December. Hope you all are having wonderful Christmas! 

Onsie Easel Card

I have yet another baby onsie project to share today. I purchased several of the onsie cutting files from My Scrapchick earlier this year and I'm happy that I've been making good use of them. So far I've made the onsie lidded box and an onsie treat holder; this time around I made the onsie easel card for a baby boy.

I thought the little boy onsies with the tie and vest were so adorable. Baby boys have the cutest little dress up clothes too! The best thing about this card is that there are only a few pieces to cut and it came together so quickly!

I used a large ball embossing tool, (the kind used for shaping paper flowers) to give the knot on the tie some dimension and added real buttons to the vest instead of cutting the paper buttons that came with the cutting file.
Goodness, can you believe how quickly the time flies by this time of the year? Just two more weeks before Christmas! Although I'm still posting projects from 2 months ago on my blog, in real life I'm going a little crazy trying to finish all my holiday crafting. Wonder if I'll be done in time?

Super Sonic Birthday

Ready for another fun Triple Slider card? This one was made for my son in law who enjoys playing video games. I don't know much about video gaming other than Super Mario and Angry Birds, but I thought Sonic the Hedgehog was kinda cute so I decided to use him on my son in law's birthday card this year.

I used a coloring book image of Sonic running to create a cutting file in Make the Cut design program. For the background, I did a Google search for Sonic game backgrounds and printed one I liked to fit my card. Arial Black font and the headline function in Print Shop were used to try to make a Happy Birthday sentiment that looked similar to Sonic's title logo, then I used the print and cut function to cut it out.

Pulling on the ribbon on the right side of the card makes panels slide out from both ends of the card, and at makes Sonic run across the front of the card at the same time. In case you're wondering, the panel on the left was left blank because I still didn't have the gift card I intended to put on it! I was really hoping to purchase a Sonic Drive In gift card to put on that left panel... now wouldn't that have been so cool? Unfortunately I couldn't find anywhere that sells them. We don't have a Sonic Drive In here where I live; I tried calling them but they wouldn't take a phone order for a gift card. So my son in law had to settle for an Amazon gift card instead. Lol, I'm sure he preferred that anyway.

Onsie Treat Boxes

When my little granddaughter came to visit for her first visit with us last month, we held a small get together at our home so her great grammas and aunties could finally meet her.

I thought it would be nice to have a little something to thank everyone for stopping by so I came up with these Onsie treat boxes. 

I started with the svg cutting file for the adorable Onsie Overalls Flatfold Card from My Scrap Chick and added gussets and a bottom to create a box for the cookies I had baked. I found just enough pink buttons in my stash to use on the overalls instead of cutting paper ones that came with the file.

On the back of the box, I added a slip notch closure to make it easy to open, and a scalloped oval label with a little greeting from Evie.

My granddaughter is now at that stage of her babyhood where she smiles and laughs a whole lot and allowed all her aunties and great grammas to carry her without making a fuss, so everyone had a fun time meeting her. Hubby and I miss her so much, and are anxiously looking forward to seeing her again soon.

First Thanksgiving Card

I don't think I have ever in my life made or even given out Thanksgiving cards. Until now. Usually around this time of the year I am crazy busy planning holiday meals, cranking out Christmas cards, and shopping...who has time to make Thanksgiving cards? My daughter's reaction: "What?!!! You're making Thanksgiving cards?" "No, just one...just for Evie." It is, afterall, her FIRST Thanksgiving. And even though she's still too young to even have turkey or pumpkin pie or know what Thanksgiving is about, I just HAD to make her a card. Crazy gramma...yes, I am.

The cutting file for this cutie patootie pilgrim bear holding a wishbone is called "Thanksgiving Bear" from Cuddly Cute Designs. The shaped label behind him comes from the Cricut Lacy Labels cartridge, and the sunflowers were cut using Cottage Cutz "Mouse with Sunflower" die.

Made this into a very simple easel style card. 

So there you have it... Evie's first and my first Thanksgiving card! Probably will try to make it a point from here on to make a Thanksgiving card for my granddaughter every year. She and her parents live many miles away across the ocean so it will be our way of letting her know how much we miss her and are thinking of her during this special holiday.
Hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving holiday! Heartfelt thanks to you all for stopping in for a peek and always leaving such sweet comments.

Autumn Thank You

I wanted to send a thank you card to someone who recently went way beyond the call of duty to help me find a solution to a problem I had nearly totally given up on. The entire process took nearly 3 months, but he remained patient and determined to help until the problem was finally solved.

I needed to do something that would come together fairly quickly so I chose to do a mini shadowbox card, similar to the ones I made for Halloween. The template I created for this card can be found here.

Paper pieced squirrel and acorns are from Cricut Create A Critter cartridge, all cut in white cardstock then colored with Copic pens. Leaves were cut using an old Paper Adventures punch. The cut file for the folded banner at the top of the card was created in Make the Cut design program and the row of fall trees backdrop was created in Printshop using clipart from Doodlebug's Flea Market collection, purchased at the Lori Whitlock Shop.

I added a pocket on the backside to for a gift card holder and my sentiment inside. Thank You die cut is from Elizabeth Crafts. I was inspired by all the fun fall themed crafts being posted on crafty sites lately when trying to come up with ideas for this thank you card. And although it wasn't my original intent, I guess this could easily pass as a Thanksgiving card as well.

Timeless Love

My anniversary card for hubby this year was another Mickey and Minnie themed one. I'm a big fan of Disney, and for me, Mickey and Minnie represent the ultimate timeless couple. They've been together for 89 years, ever since Steamboat Willie premiered in 1928. Pretty sure I don't know any other couple who's been together quite that long!
Decided to do another one of my new favorite interactive cards, the Triple Slider style card...

Pull on the ribbon to the right of the card and two panels slide out from both ends of the card...

...and at the same time, Minnie slides across the front of the card to give Mickey a kiss on his nose!

Aren't they adorable? The cutting file for "Kissing Mickey and Minnie" is another fabulous freebie created and shared by the very talented and generous Krafty Nook. The background subway word art panel was created in Print Shop. A little hard to see but I started with "37 years" and added the equivalents in days, hours, minutes and seconds below it, using different font styles.

Imagine that, 37 years already! I guess it's true, time really flies when you love the one you're with.

Ker.r.r.r...PLUNK!

Just when I thought I couldn't possibly think of another golf card to make for hubby, I came across a very cute and clever Golf Slider Card created by Clover S on the Docrafts blog. Liked Clover's card so much I basically did a direct CASE. Shameful, I know, but why change a great thing, right?

Freebie svg image for the golf club was found on the Pixabay website, and the golf ball is a circle cut and embossed using the "Tiny Bubbles" embossing folder from Cuttlebug.

Tilt the card just a bit and...

KerrrrPLUNK!

Kinda fun, huh. This is actually only the second Penny Slider type card I've ever made...don't know why. Maybe because my brain can't think of anything else spinning except a ball? I think what really appealed to me about Clover's card was that she didn't use a straight line tract. I saw that there are a few metal dies for sale shaped like this, specifically made for making penny spinner cards... but you know cheapskate me! Lol, yup, I created a cut file for it in Make the Cut instead.

At first I felt this birthday card for hubby's birthday looked too plain. But to my unexpected surprise, he really liked it! Caught him playing with his card like a kid with a new toy several times...perhaps dreaming that it could be that easy on the real golf course?

More Halloween Treats!

I honestly thought my last post would be my last Halloween project post for the year. But last night I realized I had made way too much snack mix and was left with way more snack mix than hubby and I could, or rather, should eat by ourselves. I knew I definitely needed to share that snack mix with others!

Found four empty jars in my pantry, two large, two medium sized ones...measured them and got to work on the computer with the Make the Cut program to try and figure out an easy way to dress up the bottles for Halloween. Since I already had the cut file for Chococat's head made, I decided to add a box for a body that the jars could fit in.

I welded two kitty heads together at the ears to make sort of a shaped card, then just glued them on to the box body. Not very fancy but very quick! I hastily made the cutting file last night before going to bed and did the assembling early this morning. Lol, the glue may not have been fully dried when I ran out to hand one of these kitties out to our mail delivery gal this morning! Remaining jars went to our doggie's vet and our neighbors.

Before I go, I also want to share a couple super neat Halloween treat boxes I received from my sweet friend, Kris.

Kris made this very cute window treat box to share at our last craft club meeting. Kris decorated the window with an adorable paper pieced ghost and bat, and backed with with clear acetate so you can see the yummy treats inside. But the neatest thing about her box are the pleated corners on the bottom of the box...no gluing needed! And when the lid is lifted, the bottom of the box almost seems to pop open!

Whoa!!! How COOL is this for a Halloween treat box? This gruesome little hearse treat box put together by Kris is beyond amazing! Love all the spooky details...really reminds me of those metal die cast cars made for kids.

But that's not all! The back of the hearse opens and lookie what's INSIDE!

YIKES! Don't worry... it's a coffin box filled with more yummy Halloween candy. Now isn't that so COOL? Maybe a little too morose for little ones...but fun for older ghouls! If you think you might want to make one of these (maybe for next Halloween?) the cutting file and tutorials are available at the Simply Crafty SVGs site. Have a safe and fun Halloween!!!

Evie's First Halloween

Halloween is tomorrow, and I'm happy to say I got all my treats delivered and mailed in time! This is the Halloween card I made for my granddaughter's first Halloween. She just turned 6 months old and is still too young to understand, but of course gramma just had to make her a card anyway!

Kept it simple by making a center step style card.

The svg cutting file for this cute paper pieced kitty is a retired freebie from Kadoodle Bug Designs. Used an oval stitched die behind little kitty and added an oval scalloped frame created in Make the cut.

Fancy label template is also a freebie, from Make a Wedding blog. I used DJ Doodlers font with the label template to do a print and cut, then added a shadow layer cut from Best Creations black glitter cardstock plus a couple flatback rhinestone flowers for some fun bling.

Here's our sentiment inside the card. Cute Halloween patterned paper comes from Doodlebug Designs' Halloween Parade collection.

And finally, the treats for our furbaby's doggie pals... isn't that skeleton plush toy the cutest?

Orange handled gift bags decorated with Pochacco were made to put the doggie treats in. I started with a coloring book image of Pochacco sitting to create a cut file in Make the Cut, then added the witch's hat from Designs On Cloud Nine's Halloween Kitty file, and the jack o lantern from Kadoodlebug Design's Candy Corn Witch file.

This year our little Latte got to take Halloween pictures with a new "friend", our granddaughter! Lol! So much fun trying to get the two of them to look toward the camera and smile at the same time! Happy Halloween, everyone!