Happy New Year 2022

Happy New Year! I'm finally back from my usual holiday hiatus from blogging. The first project I'm sharing this year are my Year of the Tiger calendar magnets.

While searching the internet for inspiration, I came across many adorable maneki neko (lucky cat) tiger images on Pinterest and knew right away I wanted to create a paper pieced version for my calendars this year.

I normally try to start working on these calendar magnets during late summer to alleviate holiday stress but last year I got behind schedule and didn't get a chance to start cutting and assembling until after Christmas. In order to save time, I decided to print the stripes onto orange cardstock for the tiger body pieces prior to cutting them on the Silhouette. It saved a lot of time doing it that way instead of having to cut the stripes out as a stencil or as individual pieces, and it prevented much stress! Arial Black font was used to create the cutting file for the year. The cutting file for the paper pieced tiger was created in Make the Cut design program, inspired by a combination of several maneki tiger images found on Pixta Japan. 

 I wanted to send the calendars in my holiday thank you cards again this year so I created a window on the front of a card for the tiger to show through. "Year of the Tiger" was done as a print and cut and backed with a gold foil board shadow cut.

I trimmed an acetate sleeve to fit the bottom half of the calendar and adhered it to the inside of the card. Mama Elephant stamps from "Lunar Sayings" and "Lunar Extras" sets were used to add the sentiments to the left side.

I enjoyed putting these calendars together and sending them to friends and relatives again this year. Hope the Year of the Tiger proves to be a lucky one for everyone!