Black Cats and Glowing Pumpkins

Happy Halloween! I've been neglecting my blog recently because I've been busily putting together these Halloween treat boxes which were inspired by my crafty friend Lorna. Lorna often creates fun scene displays for her treat boxes and I wanted to try one too. 

I started by assembling one of the cool 3 dimensional jack-o-lanterns from the "Halloween Jack-o-Lantern Trio" project from the  Simply Crafty SVGs store.   BTW, you can find the neatest "scary-cute" Halloween 3-D projects at this website. Since this treat box was originally intended for my 5 year old granddaughter, I wanted more cutesy than scary so I ended up swapping the jack-o-lantern's face for another and adding a leaf and vine with a lot of Stickles glitter. 

I found a coloring page image of a cute cat online from which I was able to create a layered paper pieced svg cut file using Make the Cut Design program. I used white and pink chalks to give kitty some highlights and cheeks and a dimensional bow using a free svg cutfile from Birds Cards found here. 

A rectangular panel cut to the width of the treat box was adhered to the lid of the box for the background where I added gold glitter stars, bats die cut from Karen Burniston's "Haunted Tiny House Add-Ons" die set, and a Stickles glittered moon. 

Computer generated "Happy Halloween" sentiment on the front was embellished using a silly bat and ghost die cut from glittered and pearlescent cardstocks using an old "Halloween" die from Cuttlebug.

The box underneath was filled with candy and I placed a tea light in the lid by pushing the bulb through a hole cut in the lid and the bottom of the pumpkin.

Turning on the tea light makes the Jack-o-lantern glow!

I had so much fun putting this together for our granddaughter that I had to make twelve more to share with family and friends!

These three fabulous Halloween treat boxes were designed by my amazingly talented and crafty friend Lorna. 

This haunted mansion box with the adorable paper pieced Frankenstein boy was created by Lorna last Halloween and was the inspiration for my treat box this year. The svg cutfile for this haunted house box  designed by Nilmara Quintela can be found at the Silhouette Design Store. 

Lorna used an image of a cookie cutter to create her cut file for her cute Frankenstein. Then to complete the "scene", she adhered everything to a platform and used a Martha Stewart border punch to cut a spooky fence to wrap around it.

This year Lorna created beautifully decorated witch hat treat boxes! Don't you love how the cone of this witch hat becomes the lovely dress for this fashionista witch? So much attention to detail... Lorna used a wooden bead for the head, created her hat from felt, her dress from cardstock, yarn and glittered net and even made her broom!

This second witch's hat is really a wizard with a large purple hat! So clever!

This next Halloween treat box was masterfully constructed by my dear friend, Kris. This mechanical paper pieced project is better described as an "animated toy" or "treat dispenser" than a treat box.

Pull down on the rubber band activated dowel on the front and candies drop through the front door! Totally amazing, right? The roof of the house even lifts open so you can fill with more candies as you please.

Super kawaii! There's cute goblins and a paper pieced Hello Kitty dressed in Halloween costumes decorating every side of this fun haunted house candy dispenser.

And finally, cuteness overload! The yummiest of all the treats! These "too cute to eat" adorable cookies came from the creative kitchen of our dear friend, Heather. We look forward to her cookies every Halloween... they get cuter and cuter every year!

Happy Trick or Treating! Wishing everyone a fun and safe Halloween!

Another Year of the Tiger Birthday

I'm finally getting around to posting this second of the two birthday cards I put together last month using the Spellbinder's Be Bold Blooms dies.

This time I added a paper pieced tiger to sit with the flowers since this card was for a special aunt who celebrates this year as her milestone Year of of the Tiger birthday. The svg cut files for the adorable tigers I used come from Creative Cat and Co.

On the inside I used the Pop Up Accordion Panel mechanism again to animate the Happy Birthday sentiment. This panel was created using Arial Black font, shadowed, then print, cut and folded to fit onto the arms of the pop up mechanism. Can't tell from the photos but I used Stickles glitter glue to outline the letters to add a little sparkle.

Here's a side view of the mechanism which is also called a Twist Panel Pop Up. Currently there are many companies that have dies and templates which cut different versions of the mechanism for this pop up card. The template I used for my card comes from Kevin Devine of Devinely Designed which can be found here.

Really like how the cute paper pieced tigers and die cut blossoms add such a fun, whimsical feel to this card!