Christmas Sliceform Lanterns

After having made sliceform sphere shaped lanterns for hubby's birthday and to send to our granddaughter for Halloween, I thought I would challenge myself to make them as Christmas gift card holders for family and friends.

       

I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the photos in this post. I didn't realize until later that the fairy lights I had used to illuminate these lanterns were a bit too bright to get photos with good contrast to  clearly show the detailed cuts inside each sphere.

If you look closely inside the sphere, you should be able to see Santa in his sleigh pulled by eight reindeer flying across the sky as a bunny and squirrel look on in the foreground. The template to make this Christmas themed sliceform sphere was purchased  from designer M3DArt on Etsy.  

Each sphere required 15 sheets of 8.5 x 11 size cardstock and measures about 6.25 inches in diameter. I used Neenah Exact Index 110 lb cardstock to cut the layers, but after assembling a dozen of these, I now know that a lighter weight cardstock, (maybe 80 lb?) would probably have cut cleaner and been easier to assemble.

I used a freebie template from 3D Fancy to make the octagonal base, which was designed with a space to house the light source for the lantern. I used strings of fairy lights with 20 LED bulbs, but as mentioned earlier, a string with less bulbs may have been a better choice.

I hot foiled and die cut my Happy Holidays sentiment using Simon Hurley's "Joyful Christmas Collection" Glimmer Plates and attached it to a fancy label which had been die cut using a very old Spellbinders "Fancy Tags Two" die set. This was then glued to the front of the base.

Under the base, I added a panel matted with gold foil board with our sentiment and half circle cuts to hold a gift card.

The lanterns which I planned to hand deliver were wrapped in acetate bags tied with a festive gold bow.

Found a cute image of Santa in his sleigh which I thought was perfect for my hang tags. Instructions on how to light the lantern and where to find the gift card were printed inside.

Coolest thing about these spheres is how they collapse down to nearly flat, which made this gift super easy to mail to friends and family faraway.

Sweet Ho-Ho Holiday Wishes!

Inspired by some cute Santa Claus gift bags I saw online, my Chex Mix carriers this Christmas featured none other than Saint Nick himself.
 

I liked the design of the Chex Mix carriers I made last Christmas so I decided to go with the same template again this year. Very simple to put together, these are shallow boxes made to fit the bottom of the bags of Chex Mix with tall panels glued onto the front and back. Holes were punched at the top of the panels so I could attach a bow to keep it closed.

Using Make the Cut Design Program, I created a cutting file for a paper pieced peeking Santa from a coloring book image found on Pinterest. Santa's beard was done as a Print and Cut so I could add our "Ho-Ho Holiday wishes!" sentiment.

Found a fun image of Santa on the golf course which I used to print up labels to use on smaller bags of Chex Mix for hubby to share with his golf club buddies.

Christmas Tags and Things

Found the cutest polar bear Christmas wrapping paper at Hallmark this year and wanted to make matching gift tags.

I used Lawn Fawn's Stitched Circle Tags to cut silver foil board for the base and Spellbinders  nestabilities dies to cut the circles from blue dotted cardstock. Polar bears were cut and paper pieced using Eline's Collectables Arctic Bear die set.

At the last minute I needed a few gift card holders to include with some gift baskets. These simple top fold cards with pockets inside for gift cards came together quickly. I decorated the fronts with different sized die cut snowflakes from MFT DieNamics "Let It Snowflake" die and flatback rhinestones.

This little polar bear tag was the answer to the problem I have every Christmas of figuring out which bag of presents goes to which family. After having delivered the wrong bag of gifts to a friend last year, I knew something had to be done.

I added the family names to  cute a print and cut images of a Doodlebug polar bear from the Lori Whitlock Shop. Before cutting, I also added a small slit, just large enough for a paper clip to fit to the cut file.

This way, I was able to clip the polar bears to their correct bags before loading them into my car. Sitting on the edge of the bags these polar bears labeled with names are easy to see and no more worries of delivering the wrong bag to the the wrong family.