Holiday Goodies from Crafty Friends

 

Today I'm sharing some of the fun and adorable handmade goodies I received from my crafty friends for Valentines Day and New Years. First up are these two Valentines Day treat holders from my dear friend Kris that really blew me away...

Here's an absolutely amazing candy dispensing vending machine that really works! Pressing the rubber band activated heart lever allows the candies in the dispenser to fall into the clear tray below. How cool is that! I'm not mechanically inclined at all so I can't even imagine how Kris constructed this fun toy.

This second Valentine treat box from Kris is another fun and novel interactive box.

This box has an unusual side magnetic flap closure. When you pull open the lid, a large glittered heart filled with treats spills out of the box...what a fun surprise! Hope to learn how to make this one day!

Next up are these wonderful handmade projects created by crafty friends Bev and Lorna.

This beautiful glitzy hexagonal pop up New Years card was put together by sweet Bev. Hexagonal pop up cards are one of my favorite styles of card to make and receive. I really like the way she added the die cut word "Thanks" to the banner on the top so her card would double as a thank you card as well.

Then a few weeks later, I received another fun card from Bev. This time a Chinese New Year box card. This has got to be the cutest Year of the Horse card I've seen! Beverly constructed her card using Lori Whitlock's "Horse Stable Box Card" and very cleverly gave it an Asian twist by adding the Chinese Character for "Horse" on the front and hanging an Asian lantern on the panel behind the horse.

Every year I look forward to receiving  Lorna's lunar animal daruma creations. They are always so kawaii. This year she created a horse daruma and I love that she even added an easel on the back so it could rock back and forth, just like a real daruma!

This year we celebrated Chinese New Year just 3 days after Valentines Day, which made things a little hectic for crafters trying to make cards and treats. Lorna solved the problem by ingeniously combining the two! This Target wannabe shopping basket is so adorable... look closely and you'll see the holes in the basket are really tiny hearts. She added the familiar target bulls eye to the center of the basket but look again to see a heart shape in the middle. She also added an image of Hello Kitty riding a red horse as a nod to the lunar new year. Her tag with a cute horse dressed in lion dance garb and blowing heart shaped bubbles together with her sentiment say it all: "Happy Valentine;s Day and Kung Hei Fat Choy"!

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.

Beary Special Valentines

I decided to go with a teddy bear theme for my Valentines Day projects this year.

 

Our Valentines Day card sent to our granddaughter was more of a box instead of a card. I assembled and decorated a box with a sliding drawer using Karen Burniston's "Slider Box" die set. Cut file for the "LOVE" word art was  created in Make the Cut and cut from silver foilboard and red glitter cardstock. I used a Taylored Expressions Little Bits die for the mini teddy bear.

When the drawer to the box is pulled open, a teddy bear pops up from inside!

Sitting teddy bear is actually pieced and glued on to three rubberband activated pop up cubes for this surprise pop up. Cutting file for the teddy bear comes from My Scrap Chick's "Teddy B Valentine Candy Wraps" which had to be edited a little so he would fit onto the three cubes. I added our sentiment in the drawer behind the cubes. Such a silly but fun pop up! The inspiration for this came from a video tutorial by Karen Burniston where she teaches the assembly of a similar pop up box but with an Easter Bunny instead.

For treat holders, I picked up the template for these fun teddy bear boxes from designer Paper Makes Studio on Etsy. I changed teddy bear's face just a little by adding my own eyes, nose and muzzle. I also added gingham bows; bow ties at the neck for the guys and on the ear for girls.

Though not readily noticeable, in the first photo, the two bears on the left are about 3 inches  in diameter while the one on the far right is about 2 inches larger. I made the smaller bears for my younger Valentines who prefer Sour Patch Kids and Ring Pop candies...

...and  the larger bears for my "Gal-entines" who prefer chocolates. I also added a print and cut teddy bear shaped sentiment on the bottom of the larger boxes.

I also used the teddy bear candy wrap template from My Scrap Chick to make candy wrap boxes. I thought this candy wrap was designed to be so cute the way teddy bear's paws and heart are attached to the belly band that keeps the box closed.

The original template by My Scrap Chick for this candy wrap was made to fit a large size candy bar, but I sized mine to be taller and deeper so I could fit my favorite Japanese rolled cookies inside.