New Years Greetings and Holiday Thanks

Today I'm sharing some of the amazing paper crafts I recently received from creative and crafty friends.

 

My dear friend Lorna has been making these super kawaii paper pieced Chinese zodiac daruma dolls to celebrate New Years for the past few years now. And this year's Year of the Ox daruma might just be the cutest one ever!

I thought it was so clever that she used a jewelry jump ring as the lead nose ring for her ox. Lorna slid her paper pieced Ox into a clear cello bag together with a yummy Japanese senbei (rice cracker) treat.

This clean and simple New Years card was sent to me by Patti of Creations By Patti blog. Don't you love how she makes clean and simple look so elegant and classy with the addition of rhinestones and glitter?

These adorable thank you cards were created by talented paper crafters Karen of Have A Scrap Happy Day and Patti of Creations By Patti blogs.

Karen used a stamped image from Little Miss Muffet Stamps colored with Copic pens to create her thank you card. Isn't this little bonnet girl just the cutest ever? 

This die cut and paper pieced shaker card from Patti is beyond cute! She used Lawn Fawn's Stitched Mug Frame die to create her shaker cup and spoon, and added a paper pieced peeking Hello Kitty, kicking the cuteness level up by several notches for sure!

I apologize that I still haven't had a chance to post Christmas crafts from December, but hope to eventually do some backposting for December as time allows. Will let you know when that happens. Thanks for your patience!

Persevering with the Year of the Ox

 

Happy New Year! I'm finally getting back to posting again after a long winter's nap! 

For my first post of 2021, I'm sharing these Year of the Ox mini calendar magnets I put together. They say the Year of the Ox symbolizes hardwork, honesty, diligence and perseverance; positive attributes which will hopefully help pull us through to recovery from all that 2020 threw at us.

I typically make several dozen of these Chinese zodiac calendar magnets every year to donate to my mom's senior citizen group for their annual craft fair. Unfortunately the craft fair was canceled due to Covid 19 safety precautions, so I decided to send the calendars in a New Years card to family and friends instead.

I tried to keep the card simple by having the Silhouette cut a fan shaped window on the front of the card so the top of the calendar would be visible. "Happy New Year" greeting was added using the print and cut function and the sentiment on the inside was stamped using a stamp from Mama Elephant Lunar Extras set. I added text weight Stardream gold paper on the inside. Then a small Heiko cellophane sleeve was trimmed to fit the bottom of the calendar and adhered to the card as a pocket. This way the calendar would be the embellishment on the front of my New Years card and can later be slid out by the recipient to use as a calendar.    

The inspiration for my calendar this year comes from a clip art image by illustrator Sayo which I purchased from Pixta. I used Sayo's leaping ox image to create a paper piecing cut file and added pine, bamboo and plum blossom icons as well as a fan background embossed with the Rainbow Wave embossing folder from Couture Creations. Gold metallic and pearlized papers were used as shadows for the cut images and washi paper as a mat for the mini calendar from Impress Cards.

2020 was a long hard journey for many but I'm hoping the New Year of the Ox brings the strength, tenacity and perseverance we all need to thrive. Please continue to stay safe and healthy!