Recipe Page Group Project

 For our group project last year, our craft club decided to do a recipe page swap. It was basically an "Anything Goes" project,  the only restriction being that it had to be on an 8x8 page. We made enough pages for each member in our group, plus one for ourselves so that by the end of the swap we each owned a wonderful keepsake compilation of recipes.

For my page, I decided I would share my recipe for a long time favorite in our family, Mexicali Chicken.

The cutting file for the double shadowed title was created in Make the Cut design program together with Di and Tristan true type fonts.

For my cutie chicken, I used two cutting files from Cudddly Cute Designs. The little chicken comes from "Chicken and Rooster Cutiekins" and her colorful paper pieced sombrero is from the "Pepper Cutie" file.
Thanks for stopping by today. Please be well and stay safe as we all continue to hunker down and shelter in place.

Beary Special Birthday Wishes

I made yet another birthday card using the Karen Burniston Katherine Label Pop Up die. This die is fast becoming a favorite of mine as it can make the simplest of card ideas into fun, interactive cards. What's even nicer is that it's probably the easiest of all Karen Burniston's pop up mechanisms to put together.

So honestly for me, the most difficult thing about making this card was matching the colors. Purple... it's my sweet friend's favorite color. I often try to make cards in the recipient's favorite colors but I usually shy away from purple because I always have such a hard time matching tones of purple. Decided to stick to Easter/Spring colors to stay safe... hope I did okay!

Here's the inside of the card. As the card is opened, the label with the sentiment pops forward and up, giving the appearance the the balloons attached to the label are floating up...fun!

Paper pieced teddy bears, cake and gifts are from Marjorie Ann Designs. I used elements from three cutting files, "Take Time To Smell the Flowers", "Birthday Girl" and "Betsy Loves Baking" to put this card together. Stitched balloons were cut using Craft Emporium's Balloons Galore die set, and sprinkles and candles were cut from "Sprinkles Confetti" and "Cake & Stand" dies from Taylored Expressions' Little Bits collection.

Showers of Love for Dana and Ben

Recently I helped with the planning of a wedding shower for a former coworker and agreed to make the favors for the brunch. It's been a while since I've crafted anything for a wedding so I felt awkwardly out of touch, but figured I'd be safe if I stayed with something that was personalized, floral, and in the bride's favorite color.

This is what I came up with. I used Make the Cut design program to create a cut file from a stencil rose image found on the internet and used it to create a rose border around the bottom edge of the favor box cover.

The cut file for the scallop edge heart stencil on the front of the box was also created in Make the Cut using heart and half circle shapes. Box covers were cut from pearlescent Bazzill Bling Glamour cardstock to give the favors a pretty shimmer.

Favors were then personalized with the names of the bride and groom by using Amazone font and the print and cut feature on the inner box. Boxes were filled with chocolate hearts and kisses and finished with a white tulle bow tied on top. Nothing fancy, just sweet and simple.

Flying Tsuru Birthday Card

My mom's birthday was back in December but being that I notoriously fall behind with all my blog postings during the holidays, I always end up posting her birthday card several months late.

Usually I'm so focused on holiday crafts in December that I find myself struggling for ideas to make mom's birthday card. Thank goodness for Karen Burniston's Katherine Label Pop Up die. This pop up mechanism has pulled me through many creative slumps, helping to make even the simplest card idea into a special card.
This time I decided on using a paper pieced image of a Japanese Red Crowned Crane, or "tsuru" flying against the sun, a traditional Japanese symbol for good luck and long life. The tsuru and sun were positioned onto the pop up mechanism so it would partially show through the round front window while the card is closed.

As the card is opened the tsuru pops out and rises up, appearing to fly.

The pretty, glittered background cardstock is from the now retired Kimono collection from Best Creation, Inc. I chose it hoping it would add a soft feminine touch to the bold colors of the tsuru and sun. Stamped "Happy Birthday" greeting is from Darkroom Door Happy Birthday Sentiment Stamps set.

Special Girls Day Treats

Today I'm sharing two adorable treat boxes I received on Girls Day from my super talented and crafty friends, Lorna and Kris.

Kris put together this cute gable box and filled with yummy tricolor mochi. She decorated the sides of her treat box with panels of pretty origami paper and an adorable print and cut kokeshi doll image. Love this!

Lorna created another "knock your socks off" Girls Day treat box this year. Her kawaii paper pieced kokeshi is 3 dimensional, prettily sitting on a red stand with her fan and Japanese lantern. Wow, right?

Lorna made her stand from a piece of red cardstock which had been run through a cherry blossom embossing folder and wrapped around a foil pack of Glico Strawberry Pocky Sticks (yum!). Her little kokeshi doll is intricately dressed a lovely kimono created from layers of red foil and washi kimono.  Lorna even decorated the panels of the standing lantern with a mini cherry blossom stamps... so much attention to detail and so beautifully done! Lucky me, to have such talented friends who inspire me with their amazing creativity!

Treats for Hinamatsuri

Yesterday (March 3rd) was Hinamatsuri or Girls Day, a Japanese traditional holiday when we celebrate girls and wish them good health and happiness. Here is the card I put together to send to our granddaughter.

Finally had the chance to try out Karen Burniston's Triple Flip die which I got on sale last year. I decided to use three different kokeshi images from Kokolo Designs on Etsy for the three flaps on the front of my card, rendering them into cut files for paper piecing in Make the Cut design program. I used the fill in and print and cut features for their kimonos and  mini punches from Punch Bunch for the tiny cherry blossoms and leaves in their hair.

Here's the fun part of this card: when you pull on the tab on the right with the arrow, the three front flaps open simultaneously, to display what's on the other side of the flaps as well as under the first flap.

The entire interactive triple flip panel was adhered to a side opening card where I added our sentiment inside. I really liked that this was a pretty easy and fun card to put together. I did have a few issues with "catch points" on the flaps which caused two of the flaps not to open, but I was able to easily remedy this by trimming away a sliver from the right edge of the flaps.

For friends and family, I put a dozen of these boxes together to hold some chichi dango mochi treats.

I got the original template and cutting file for this box called "Slide Box with Snowflake", designed by Pebbles In My Pocket from the Lori Whitlock Store. For my box, I swapped out the snowflake on the original template for a cherry blossom, and enlarged it from a 3 inch square box to one that was about 4-1/2 inch square.

The slits in the center of the cherry blossoms creates the slide closure on the front of the box and a tab closure keeps the remaining two sides of the box in tact. A clean and simple design, and I really like the rounded curved edges.

Here's the mochi that was wrapped in decorative waxed papers and packed in mini bento containers before putting them into the slide boxes. Aren't the hinamatsuri stickers adorable? Stickers and pretty waxed papers were both purchased from "Celebrations" a local Japanese gift and packaging store in Honolulu. Hope everyone had a fun time celebrating Girls Day this year!