Gallop Into the New Year of the Horse

Happy Chinese New Year! I baked several batches of almond cookies and created these boxes to put them in so we could share with our family and friends.
 

My cookie box style was inspired by gift boxes originally designed for cosmetics and fragrance that I've been seeing on several  design packaging websites. I really liked the clean and simple look of this triangular prism shaped box. Using Make the Cut, I created a template for a box 8 inches tall with a base 3 inches in width. 

To decorate the front of the box, I printed a calligraphic design of the Chinese character "fu" for good luck created for the Lunar Year of the Horse onto red cardstock using my laser printer. I used Make the Cut design program to create a shadow layer around the image and cut the image on the Silhouette Cameo using the print and cut feature. Then I ran the cut image together with a sheet of toner activated gold foil through my new Heidi Swapp Minc machine to foil the image. This was the first time for me trying this process of foiling and I must say I was pretty happy with the results.

The cut and foiled image was then mounted onto a square piece of gold foil board which I had dry embossed using Cuttlebug Oriental Weave folder and matted with a larger square of red foil board. After filling the boxes with packages of cookies, I used gold metallic taffeta ribbon to tie a bow onto the handles to keep the box closed. These boxes were simple in style and quick to assemble so that making twenty boxes didn't take as long as I thought it would. Wish I could have made more but ran out of red cardstock and cookies!

This year, instead of the typical red envelopes or "lai si" I make to share with friends and family, I decided to do something different. During Christmas I made a few holiday Hershey kisses gift card holders which I enjoyed making so much that I decided I wanted make a Chinese New Year version to replace the red envelopes I usually make.

I made the box in red and decorated with a gold panel embossed with a Paper Studio Greek Key folder and a paper pieced horse leaping near a string of fire crackers. Then I swapped out the Hershey kisses in the box with strawberry candies wrapped in red foil labeled with the Chinese character "fu" for good fortune, and embellished with a gold organza glittered bow.

               

The back panel is a pocket, just the right size to fit a gift card in. There's also plenty of room behind the panel to add a sentiment. There are lots of video tutorials online to create this fun gift card holder. I watched this video by Kelly Acheson from "A Stamp Above" for the inspiration to create my template.

Thank you for stopping by today. And to close, here's our furbaby, "Polah Beah" bearing wishes for a New Year filled with good fortune and happiness.