Thanksgiving Treats

I'm a week late, but I thought I should post these Thanksgiving projects before I get too wrapped up in Christmas stuff and forget. As much as I love Thanksgiving, for some reason I always fall behind and struggle to create anything fun to share with others for this holiday. Luckily, I have two crafty friends who are on the ball and always have a creative RAK to share for Thanksgiving.

This sweet Thanksgiving bendi card was created and sent to me by my dear friend Bev. I think this is the very first bendi card I've ever received and I love it! Bendi cards are especially fun because the recipient gets to play a part in putting it together to create a neat three dimensional display style card.

 

My super creative friend Lorna came up with this sweet treat box which she filled with my favorite candies. I thought her paper pieced roasted turkey and pumpkin pie were adorable; and I really liked how she added a cute seasonal kokeshi stamped image from Dandelion Designs to adorn her treat holder.

I was feeling a little guilty because I knew I was behind schedule and didn't have time to put a Thanksgiving card together for our 4 year old granddaughter this year. A week before Thanksgiving, I came across a post by a member of Dreaming Tree's Facebook group about how she had cut out a paper pieced turkey and sent it unassembled to her grandson for a fun Thanksgiving craft project. What a brilliant idea, right? I didn't have time to come up with a fun interactive card, but I knew I'd have time to cut the pieces for a paper pieced turkey and send to our granddaughter to assemble herself.  I also adhered a simple folding frame to the back of the base piece so turkey could stand up for display once it was completed. Prior to mailing, I snapped step by step shots for assembly instructions to include with the turkey pieces.

Happily, it turns out she had a great time putting her turkey together.

Only problem, I'm told was that "It was too easy" and to "Please make the next one more challenging"!

Looking For Rainbows

Everyone needs a little cheering up sometimes, right? I made this card to send to a friend who was going through a rough patch in her life about the same time that I too was going through sadness from having to put a beloved furbaby to rest. Focusing on making a card to help cheer someone else up seemed to help ease some of my own sadness.

My friend is a fan of all things kawaii and Hello Kitty, so I decided to use this Hello Kitty with umbrella image from the Hello Kitty Greetings Cricut cartridge. Cutting file for clouds and raindrops were created in Make the Cut and the grassy background border was cut using Lawn Fawn's Stitched Hillside die.

On the inside, I used Karen Burniston's Katherine Label Pop Up mechanism to animate my card. As the card is opened, a rainbow and Hello Kitty pop up and rise up to the top of the card.

Paper pieced rainbow and clouds cut file comes from Cricut's Once Upon A Princess cartridge. Cutting files for Hello Kitty with balloons and blue birds were created in Make the Cut design program from coloring book images. I hope that this simple card brought even just a little bit of sunshine into my friend's day!

Have a "GROOT" Birthday!

Every year I try my best to come up with a birthday card that will amuse my son in law. It's challenging but fun because I find myself learning a lot about things he enjoys. For example, this year I decided to use  baby Groot on his birthday card.

Do you know Groot? Any Marvel Comics fan would know him as the tree character in Guardians of the Galaxy. Groot's vocabulary is limited to just three words, "I am Groot", but depending on the tone of his voice, those three words can translate to many different things, and it's usually something unexpected and funny.

 

I was happy to find several cute coloring page images of baby Groot which were rendered into cutting files in Make the Cut Design program. 

Then for a fun surprise, I used Karen Burniston's Flower Pot Pop Up die and planted a baby Groot inside. 

I used one of the stitched balloon dies from Craft Emporium's Balloons Galore set to add festive birthday balloons.

Just for laughs I added the translation for "I am Groot" in the sentiment box and a print and cut image of adolescent Groot's cassette tape of rock music. Birthday cupcake was cut and pieced from Cottage Cutz' Tiered Cupcake die set. It was fun putting this card together while watching and laughing at Groot video clips from old Guardian of the Galaxy movies on You Tube. Hope my son in law enjoyed his card as much as I enjoyed making it!

Golf Shutter Card

I'm always looking for new ideas for golf themed cards to make for hubby so  I was excited when I came across this Golf Shutter Card designed by Cyndy Gustashaw of My Scrap Chick. 

Shutter or Magic Iris cards are probably one of the funnest interactive cards to receive. As the lever on the right side of the card is pulled down...

The center shutter or iris of the golf ball opens up to reveal a message.

Although the interactive element of  this type of card is fascinating, admittedly it was a bit fiddly to assemble. After a few practice runs I knew I would have to add some strength by using a double layer of cardstock for all the working pieces of the mechanism to ensure the iris would open and close smoothly. I should also mention that I used Cuttlebug's Tiny Bubbles embossing folder on the pieces of the iris to give the golf ball a cool dimpled texture but that may have created some of the resistance causing the need for the extra reinforcement of the mechanism.

I kept the inside of the card simple by using a golf course background printed at 60% tint and adding the birthday sentiment, using Aloha Summer font. 

This was my first time working with this style of shutter/magic iris card. Although initially I ran into some difficulty getting the mechanism on this card to work smoothly, hubby loved his birthday card so much that I guess I will be playing around with it a bit more so I can get better at putting this together. I am hoping to one day try this with a camera shaped card,

Kitties, a Dragon, and a Unicorn

Don't know why but it took me longer than usual to get excited about Halloween this year. Couldn't get the creative juju going so I ended up having to fall back on good ol'  reliable cuteness of Hello Kitty on a fry box. 

I used the template for the Elf Fry Box from SVG Cutting Files which makes a fry box large enough to hold more than half a dozen cookies or a dozen pretzels. Paper pieced Hello Kitties were created in Make the Cut Design program and sized to fit on the front of the boxes.
 

Cut file for the spider was created from freebie icon clip art and the bats cut from glitter cardstock using a very old Quickutz die. "Happy Halloween" and the back inset was done as a print and cut using Henny Penny font. Hello Kitty skeleton boxes were filled with Furikake Pretzel sticks.

Cutting files for both Hello Kitties were rendered from coloring book images. I filled the Jack o Lantern Hello Kitty boxes with butter cookies generously sprinkled with orange sanding sugar. Being that I was running late it was nice that a dozen of each box were finished in a week. Hello Kitty saves the day!

Perhaps part of the reason I was so late in getting started on Halloween treat boxes may have been this card. This is the card I made to send to our granddaughter for Halloween.

 I wasted so much time trying to find the perfect paper for the back drop for this card, and in the end I decided to try and make my own. This gave me the chance to finally try the Bokeh Background technique using distress and white inks together with circle stencils. I started by randomly brushing on 3 colors of distress ink onto white cardstock. I used my Silhouette to cut different sized circles onto a piece of sturdy cardstock to use as a stencil. Then I brushed white pigment ink from an inkpad over the distress inked background using my homemade stencil to create the bokeh effect. I was quite pleased with the result and am looking forward trying this technique again soon with different colors of distress inks.

I completed the scene on the front of the card by adding glittery die cut bats cut from an old Quickutz die and a spooky haunted house border using a cutting file from Miss Kate's Cuttables.

I thought it would be fun to do another Popping Flap style card. As the inner panel is pulled out of its outer "pocket"...

"Sisu" the water dragon from Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon" pops out and up from inside!

Yes! You are absolutely correct if you guessed that our granddaughter chose to be "Sisu" the dragon for Halloween this year.

SVG cut file for Sisu was acquired from One Creative Market on Etsy. I used pearlescent and glitter cardstock to cut and piece Sisu together and added glittery Stickles accents to her mane. 

As mentioned earlier, this card took way too much time to create, but that's okay because I had so much fun putting it together!

And finally, here's the Unicorn... she's the newest member of our family, our furbaby "Polah" dressed up for her very first Halloween! Thanks for dropping by today. Happy Trick or Treating!

"FaBOOlous" Halloween Treats!

I have a trio of  fun and "Fa-BOO-lous" Halloween treats from my creative friends to share today. 

Caution! Cuteness Overload Alert!!! This Halloween bento box of goodies put together by our dear friend Heather is almost too cute to eat. Heather worked her magic in the kitchen baking and decorating these adorable cookies and making mochi in Halloween colors. There's orange chichi mochi, and mochi filled with peanut butter and Resses peanut butter cup... so yum!

My crafty friend Kris created this amazing haunted house treat box filled with treats and even a  little coffin box. I think the flying ghosts outside the house and the spider on the coffin are just too cute!

I love that this treat box is nice and large; it stands about 7 inches high and is approximately 3 inches in depth... so plenty of  room inside for lots of treats! SVG cutting file for this "Haunted Ghost House" comes from Simply Crafty Svgs.

The third of my trio of Halloween goodies was put together by creative friend Lori. This has got to be the cutest tombstone treat box ever! Sturdy tombstone shaped box is from Stampin' Up and Lori did an amazing job of dressing them up using an adorable print and cut Halloween teddy by Kristi W. Designs together with spooky tree, fence and sparkly star die cuts. The glitter glue accents she added gives everything a fun, almost magical feel.

Halloween falls on Sunday this year which means we can enjoy celebrating all weekend long...stay safe and have fun!

Popping Flap Gift Card Holders

Today I'm sharing two "Popping Flap Gift Card Holders". The one on the right with the adorable tear bear was a birthday gift last year from my dear friend Kris; which was the inspiration for the card I made on the left.

But first this card... I just love, Love, LOVE the super CUTE tear bears Kris puts together! Each adorable teddy is meticulously pieced together from many tiny pieces of layered felt which have been fluffed up to create teddy's furry texture.  Kris gave teddy a satin bow, a bouquet of sunflowers, and the cutest little face to make her tear bear absolutely irresistible!

Then she added the tear bear to the front of this fun "Popping Flap Gift Card Holder". When pulling down on the center panel...

...a card pulls out and pops open with a gift card and birthday greeting!

Loved that card so much, and Kris sent me this link to the video tutorial on You Tube by Srushti Patil .While you're there, be sure to take a peek at the list of all  the videos on her channel; as you'll likely find five or more  other amazing paper creations you'll want to try as well!

So for my version of the "Popping Flap Card", I kept the front of my card super simple, adding only a die cut word "celebrate" cut from glitter cardstock using a die from MFT Die-Namics. I had to increase the overall size of my card just a bit...

... to accomodate the paper pieced  Hello Kitty and Pochacco that pull out and pop up from inside. The inspiration for the character add on to this card comes from the amazing cards created by Anita Chang. You can  check out her Instagram here. For this card, I trimmed off the top of the inner pop up card close to the center fold and glued the paper pieced Pochacco and Hello Kitty to it.

I added a pocket for a gift card to the inside of the pop out card and embellished with a simple die cut "happy birthday", cut using Lawn Fawn's "Happy Birthday Line Border" die.

I like that this is a fun, yet easy pop up card which can be assembled pretty quickly. There are many versions  and different names for this fun pop up mechanism on the internet, a few which I hope to try out soon. If metrics are a challenge for you (as they are for me) Tamara Houk has a video tutorial for this converted into inches. Hope you give this a try!

Bridge Fold Birthday Card

While rummaging through my craft room in hopes of coming up with ideas  for a birthday card for my mother in law, I came across a very old Hero Arts wood mounted stamp set called "Asian Dolls". This set  (which was released by Hero Arts in 2009) was still in it's original packaging, never opened. I decided it was finally time to get these stamps inked up and put to use!

 

After being kept tightly shut in it's original packaging for over a decade seemed to have caused the foam backing on the stamps to wear down unevenly so I had to remove the stamps from their wood blocks and discard the foam backing. Luckily the red rubber had remained supple so I was actually able to get a pretty decent image using the Tim Holtz Stamp Platform. I chose two of the Chinese girl images for my card, using Copic markers to color them in.

I decided to make a bridge style card, using cardstock from Michael's Recollections "Cherry Blossom" Paper Pad for the back panels. Cherry blossom embellishments were fussy cut from cardstock from the same pad. Bridge die is from Lala Land Crafts. Border die cuts in the background are from Amy Designs' Chinese Landscape and Lala Land's Asian Landscape dies.

I added our sentiment to the backside of the card using the print and cut function and added a oval shadow layer cut in gold foil.

Welcome Fur Baby

Today's card is one I created and sent to my dear niece who recently brought a new puppy into her home. To add a personalized touch, I added the puppy's name, "Kinako" to the paper pieced dog tag I made for the front of the card.
 

I used the Three Dots embossing folder from Sizzix Textured Impressions Birthday Set #2 on the rounded square panel behind the collar and dog tag. I really wanted to use a pawprint patterned paper for my card so I made my own by randomly scattering pink pawprints on a page in Print Shop publishing program. "Welcome Fur Baby" sentiment was done as a print and cut in Make the Cut.

On the inside, I added a sweet paper pieced puppy sitting on a hexagon pop up. Dog bowl, bones and tennis ball cutting files were created using freebie icon clipart found online. Hexagon pop up stage was put together using the bottom cake layer from Karen Burniston's Cake Pop Up die.

The little puppy was put together using Eline's Puppy dies from Marianne Design. Loving all the cute pups one can create using this fun die set! 

Here's a photo of little "Kinako"... isn't she precious? Just for fun, I tried to make my paper pieced doggie look like the photo my niece had sent of her adorable puppy. How did I do? Lol, well at least I got her white paws right!

Here's a view of the hexagon pop up from the side...

... and a view from the top. Video tutorial by Karen Burniston on how to use her Cake Pop Up die set to make this hexagon pop up stage can be found here. This has quickly become one of my favorite pop up card styles to do.

Then on the backside of the card, I made a simple pocket using the Pocket Border die from Pretty Pink Posh to fit a  giftcard.  I enlarged the same pawprint clipart I had used to make my patterned paper to also make a pawprint cut file to add to the front of the giftcard holder.