Go Shopping!

Like any other girl her age (or any age!) my daughter loves to go shopping so I decided to go with a shopping theme for her birthday card.

Surprisingly, I had a really difficult time finding an image or cutting file of a "shopping girl" that I liked. Finally chose to use "Jordan" from SVG Cutting Files because I like the way she looked like she might be walking since I wanted to use her on a Triple Slider card. Plus, I thought her boots looked really cool! The original "Jordan" is actually a holiday paper piecing, dressed in a Santa hat and fur trimmed dress. I just left those pieces off and gave her a couple shopping bags to hold instead! The round "Celebrate" emblem was created with WordArt in Microsoft Word. The background storefronts image was found through a web search for storefront backdrops.

As with my previous Triple Slider cards, pulling the ribbon on the right of the card reveals a panel with a birthday sentiment on the right, and at the same time another panel with a surprise appears on the left...and...Miss Jordan "walks" down the sidewalk to the next store!

Yup, still having loads of fun with this card style! Still wanting to try one in a portrait orientation where the image slides "up" instead...now that's definitely on my "to do" list for this year!

More Year of the Dog New Years Cards

I don't usually make New Years cards, but I really liked the little paper pieced dog I used earlier on the tags I made for my New Years treat box so I decided to use him again on New Years cards that doubled as my holiday thank you cards this year.

Kept the design very simple so I could make several very quickly. Arial font was used to create the numbers for the year, using the fill and print and cut functions in Make the Cut to add an Asian wave design from digital paper and cut. I replaced the zero in 2018 with a window for my doggie to peek out of.

On the inside, I used Make the Cut to design the background (sky, grass, plum branch), add the sentiment, and simply printed it out on my printer instead of cutting. All I had to do was glue my little puppy in the right place so his head would peek out from the front window. Yay, that was easy!

This second card was inspired by an adorable Year of the Rooster Daruma treat box my friend Lorna shared with me last year. I didn't realize how popular darumas were until I saw so many Year of the Dog Daruma images on the internet this year.

I used my paper pieced Shiba Inu Daruma to create a simple shaped card which doubled as a gift card holder for a very special aunt. Having too much fun creating Year of the Dog themed things... can you tell I'm a dog lover? Speaking of which...

Here's our little Latte in her kimono, holding her "hamaya" (arrow that wards off evil) and wishing everyone happiness and the best of health in the New Year of the Dog!

Baby's First New Years Day

It was my granddaughter's FIRST New Years Day, so... yup! I made her a special card. New Years Day is pretty much a big thing in our family, probably just as big as Christmas, and it's a little sad that we're not always able to spend those times with everyone we care about. I sent little Evie this card to let her know we were thinking of her and how much we miss her.

Since Evie's still very young, I've been trying to keep our cards to her very simple. This card style, the Simple Box or Squash Box card was taught to us many moons ago by fellow craft club member, Aileen, but this was the first time I attempted one since that time. There are many good video tutorials on how this card is put together. I watched and used the video tutorial by Frenchie Stamps as a springboard to create my card. I made a few alterations, decreasing the depth of the card to be just 1 inch, and added panels to the front closure of the card.

I covered the back inside panel of the box with gold foil cardstock embossed using the sakura folder from Cuttlebugs's Asian Bundle. Then I added a paper pieced emblem designed in Make the Cut design program of a child wearing a doggie costume.

And yup, I attached the emblem to the inside using a wobbler! I wanted the emblem inside to pop up as a surprise element when the box is opened, so I stacked two wobblers, one on top of the other to get enough height to achieve the effect I was going for. I found that stacking the two smaller ends of the wobblers together and using the two larger ends to attach to the emblem and onto the inside of the box worked out the best.

Here's a side view to show how I added the extra panels covered with washi paper to the front so it would look like panels of a screen door.

 The sides of the box fold in to allow the box to collapse flat.

I slipped on a belly band and medallion with the Japanese kanji character for "dog" to keep the box in it's collapsed position so it could easily be mailed.

Handmade Holiday Surprises

Christmas is over, but I couldn't go without sharing some of the wonderful handmade goodies I received from very talented crafty friends this year!

This adorable Christmas card and refrigerator  coaster calendar set was created by a very sweet friend, Karen from Have A Scrappy Day blog. Adorbs, right? Karen is the master of setting up the cutest little scenes with her stamped images and die cutting. She is also the person who has inspired me into making yearly refrigerator calendars for giving too!

This holiday trio of goodies comes from none other than my crafting bestie, Kris. 

Her holiday card this year was an ah-mazing window/pop up card  with a photo of her beautiful kids.

And how about this super cool snow globe box starring none other than her favorite Pochacco! Cutting file for this 3D snowglobe comes from the Lori Whitlock store, which Kris very cleverly altered into a treat box...love it!

Here's the little paper pieced penguin Kris put together to adorn the gift bag...isn't he just too adorable?

My dear friend Lorna was hard at work in her Christmas workshop this year too! 

I think you'll agree that Lorna's Christmas tree on a car has got to be the cleverest treat box ever! Super duper cute, right? And I really love her embossed golden stocking with washi paper accent. The front of this very pretty stocking treat box actually opens up like a card!

This pretty pair of packages embellished with matching bows and lace were created by sweet Gwen...
pulling up on the bow reveals a gift box with a surprise gift card! Wow, love the stamped images and all the details that went into creating these innovative gift card holders.

From our friend Heather's home bakery...the cutest  (and yummiest) Christmas cookies we look forward to every year. Look, star shaped cookies decorated as Santa with M & M buttons and noses!

And finally, this beautiful swing style Christmas card from Bev, who recently told me she's "not into crafting". Uh, huh, Bev...yeah right.
Many, many thanks to everyone who worked so hard this year to create such special holiday treasures!

Gingerbread House Gift Card Holders

 Christmas is over but I still have a few more holiday things to post! These are the gingerbread house gift card holders I put together this year.

The original idea for these gift card holders actually came from one very similar that I spied at the drugstore while out shopping during Black Friday weekend. I thought it was such a cute and clever idea that I snapped a photo of it on my phone and went home to CASE it! I started by using the Gingerbread Lidded Box cutting file purchased from SVG Cutting Files, enlarging and altering it just a bit.

To assemble the outer box or "sleeve", I cut two lids and adhered them together, leaving the top open and cut away the top half of the front of the box. For the inner box, I adhered two of the box bottoms together. Rooftop snow was cut using glittered cardstock and adhered to the inner box. SVG files for the door and candy canes were included with the Gingerbread Box cutting file. Peppermint candy cut file was created using an image found on the web, and snowflakes were die cut using the Snowflake Confetti die from Taylored Expressions. Then on the backside of the outer box I added instructions on how to "open" the box. Cute little cookie images are from Klouise DigiArt, purchased on Etsy.

When the bow is untied, the inner box slides out to reveal the gift card hidden inside. Once I figured out the assembly, fifteen of these came together fairly quickly. Making multiples of anything usually drives me crazy but these were really fun to do!

Happy New Year, 2018!

It's the start of a brand new year! Hope everyone had  safe and enjoyable New Years Eve and New Years Day holidays. I made refrigerator magnet calendars again this year for sharing at our annual New Years Day family reunion.

It's the Year of the Dog this year, so I created a cutting file for a Shiba Inu calendar in Make the Cut design program. Yes, it does look like a "fox" as hubby will insist, but then Shiba Inus do resemble foxes...anyway, my sister in law who owns a Shiba, assured me it was a Shiba, and not a fox...end of discussion! I actually had 60 these done early in August last year, for sharing with my craft club and in time to donate to my mom's Senior Citizen fundraising craft fair.

To give out with the calendars, I boxed Furikake Crispex snack mix into take out style boxes and made Year of the Dog tags for them.

Paper piecing cutting file for this little puppy (which hubby swears is a CAT) and the kanji for "dog" was also created in Make the Cut design program. I really like the look of this "cattish" dog and am contemplating using him on my thank you cards this year too.

The greeting on the flip side was done as a Print and Cut file, and the tag itself was cut using a stitched tag die from Lawn Fawn. These were fun and easy to put together..my favorite kind of project!