Lunar Year of the Horse Calendars

Happy New Year! These are the Year of the Horse refrigerator magnet calendars I put together for 2026.My paper pieced horse was created from a coloring book image I had on file of an unicorn. In the process of rendering it into a cutting file, I removed its horn to create the horse I needed to use on my calendars. I used Arial Black font to create the numbers, and the blossoms, pine, and bamboo images were cut from older cutting files created in the past. The horse and numbers were layered multiple times with black, gold, and red shadows and adhered with foam tape to create dimension. Magnetic strips backed with foam tape were glued on to the backs of each calendar. And happily, my dear friend Pat helped  once again this year with the assembly so I could get sixty of these done on time.

This year, I purchased the small calendars I used from Gracious Bee Greetings on Etsy. Their prices are reasonable and the quality of their calendars exceeds ones I've used in the past. I will definitely use them as my source from now on.

Here is the top fold card I made which doubled as my New Years/Thank You card sent to friends and family. I used an Asian border image from FreePik and did a little bit of editing to get it to fit nicely onto the top and bottom edges of my card front. In the center, I used my Silhouette to cut a stenciled image of a horse head from a brush stroke image rendered into a cutting file. Gold mirror cardstock was used to mat the front panel so that the gold would show through the stencil cut. This was adhered to a pearlescent gold cardstock base, then finally matted onto a piece of red foil board.

Each calendar was placed into clear cello bags and adhered to the inside of the cards with double stick tape. I added my sentiment matted in red foil board to the top of the card.

I added a photo of our family to the back of the cards and printed up sheets of matching stationery so I could write our thank you notes to include with the cards.

Year of the Snake Calendars

Here's our annual Lunar Calendar/Thank You Card/New Years Card for 2025 that we sent out to family and friends. This year I decided to try something a little different than the usual top or side fold card and instead, made a card with a pocket to slide the decorated calendar magnet into.

I used gold metallic foil board for the base of the card and red pearlescent text weight paper to create the pocket over it. To give the pocket a festive look, I hot foiled gold fireworks onto the red papers using the Spellbinders Glimmer System prior to trimming. An Elizabeth Craft Designs word die was used to cut the "Happy New Year" from gold foil board, and I used Make the Cut Design program to create a shadow layer for it.

My 2025 Year of the Snake calendar design was inspired by the work of several talented graphic artists like Atlantico54 and Baby Sofja.  Cutting file for the snake was created and numbers for the year were traced from Christie font using Make the Cut Design program. Pink blossoms and stamens were cut using Punch Bunch mini punches. Although the design for this year's calendar was simple to piece together, the multiple shadows and layers took a bit of time to cut and assemble. Thankfully, my dear friend Pat came to my rescue to help get nearly 60 of these calendar magnets completed.

One of the problems I ran into making these calendars this year was that my usual supplier for the mini tear off calendars, Impress Rubber Stamps closed their business in 2024. After spending much time searching for an alternate, I purchased mini calendars from Paper Accents because theirs were closest in size to what I had used in the past. They were reasonably priced and came in a package of ten. Unfortunately, all ten calendars came bound together as one pad, and I had a difficult time separating the calendars without pages falling off. I ended up having to glue individual pages back onto several of the calendars, and it's questionable whether those pages will tear off nicely. Definitely will need to start searching for another supplier for my 2026 calendars early this year.

Not a very good photo but  since it was the only one I had of all of us together, I used this selfie group photo taken while our daughter and her family  were visiting to create the back panel to the pocket card.

Crafty Treasures from Special Friends

Couldn't go on without sharing some of the crafty goodness I received from special friends this month.
 

This handmade calendar and card came in the mail recently from my sweet friend, Lynn.

I think this die cut "maneki neko" (lucky cat) is so adorable with his stylized "fu" (for good fortune) character on his tummy and shiny gold bell and baker's twine collar. I really liked how Lynn rolled the ends of a piece of cardstock to create a scroll, stamped with Chinese characters "gan xie" (for gratitude) for lucky cat to hold up.  The neatest thing about this lucky cat is that he can be lifted from the card front to sit upright on his mat, using his little tail as an easel stand!

Lynn also sent along this super cute Valentine easel desk calendar featuring  a stamped, colored, and fussy cut image of my all time favorite Pooh bear. 

My amazingly creative friend Lorna made this pair of kawaii Valentine treat holders.

Reminiscent of  the silk rose truffle holders seen at fancy weddings, Lorna cut and folded the petals of this fabulous rose from red cardstock to create this sweet rose candy holder. Look carefully and you'll see Hershey kisses and Dove chocolate hearts tucked in the center of the rose. Little Mocha Bear standing on the petals with his bouquet of roses just doubles the cuteness of this treat holder!

Lorna also pieced together this irresistible pink "maneki neko" (lucky cat) as a Valentine treat holder. I wasn't even aware that different colored lucky cats represent different things. Pink lucky cats represent romance and brings love; perfect for Valentines Day!

My dear crafty friend Kris put together this sweet heart shaped basket perfect for a fellow crafter (like me!). This sturdy and roomy basket has room enough for a lot of treats. I love that Kris filled it with crafters' favorites... diamond glaze and chocolates! The template for this cute basket was designed by Kim of Crafting Cheerfully.

Hope you enjoyed seeing crafty projects from friends and hope they may have inspired  your creative juices as much as they did for me.

Celebrate the Year of the Dragon

 Happy New Year! This is the first of  my back dated holiday projects posts. 2024 is the Lunar Year of the Dragon and today I'm sharing the card and calendar we sent to family and friends to celebrate the New Year.

I decided to keep the front of the card clean and simple, using plain white cardstock and an old embossing folder from Crafts-Too to add a subtle bamboo with butterfly and dragonfly textured background. 

I used Spellbinders "Sealed Twine" die and gold foil board for the cording and adhered a wax seal. The wax seal was created using Craspire's "Dragon" wax seal stamp purchased on Amazon. I used a Marvy Uchida DecoColor Metallic Paint Pen to highlight the image of the dragon. The "Happy New Year" fishtail banner below it was foiled and cut using Spellbinders "Christmas Sentiments" and "Hexi-Gems Sentiments" hot foil plates and dies.

I enclosed a Year of the Dragon calendar magnet inside each card. The sentiment on the top was computer generated and the clip art of the cute pair of dragons on it comes from the Pixta Japan site.

This year's lunar year calendar magnet could very well be one of the most detailed ones I've created over the years. Of the twelve animals in the Chinese Lunar Zodiac, the dragon is the only mythical creature and probably most revered. Wanting my dragon to be special, I used lots of pearlescent cardstock: three shades of green, two shades of blue as well as red, gold and cream. I started working on these in late summer and finally finished 40 of them in December thanks to a sweet and crafty friend who helped with the assembling.

Our daughter and her family visited for  a week after Christmas so I was able to get a photo to quickly print and add to the back of our cards before sending them out. 

I have a few more New Year of the Dragon crafty goodness I want to share!

Every year I look forward to seeing the daruma lunar year treat holders created by my dear friend Lorna. This year's daruma dragon and "suzu" ceramic bell dragon treat holders are so kawaii! The adorable paper pieced dragons were packaged together with yummy rice crackers and mochi.

I think my mom has been making these fun plastic canvas Chinese Lunar Year animal magnets every year for as long as I have been making my calendar magnets. I guess it's a fun tradition that we share them together with family at our annual New Years family reunion. 

Thanks for stopping by. I will continue to slowly back post a few of my Christmas projects from 2023 in the weeks to follow. If interested, you can scroll back to see them.

"HOP"py New Year of the Rabbit

2023 is the Lunar Year of the Rabbit which promises to be a year of harmony and diplomacy with a focus on creativity and appreciation of the arts. Sounds like great year to be a crafter! 

This is the card I made to enclose my refrigerator magnet calendars and send to family and friends in celebration of the New Year. I used Make the Cut design program to cut a shaped window so the rabbit on the calendar inside could be seen on the front of the card. I also added an illustration of Japanese mizuhiki and a New Years greeting below it, using the Print and Cut function.

Each calendar was put into  a clear plastic sleeve and adhered to the inside of the card with double stick tape. I added our New Years sentiment underneath the window on the left.

I got the rabbit, pine and bamboo images to decorate my calendar from the Japanese digital image website, Pixta. Images were converted into layered svg files and cut using the Silhouette Cameo. Decorative plum blossoms and pine image on rabbit's body was done using the Print and Cut function.  

For the plum blossom backdrop behind the rabbit, I used a simple 5 petal shaped flower and ran it through Mpress Mystic Clouds embossing folder to add texture. Arial font was used to create the cut file for the "2023".Papers used include washi paper as a mat for the calendar togher with pearlescent and gold foil cardstocks for the paper pieced embellishments.

At the last minute I decided to add a recent family photo to the backside of the card, mostly since I was feeling a little guilty about not sendimg any cards out this past Christmas.These New Years cards doubled as our Christmas cards and thank you cards as well.

Before I close I'd also like to share another New Year/thank you card and a couple adorable New Year treats from friends.

This super cool NewYear card which doubled as a thank you card was designed by my dear friend, Bev. I love the pretty washi paper she chose for the front of the card and loved the fun pop up surprise inside even more! Bev used Karen Burniston's Parcel Pop Up mechanism to animate her card such that the traditional kagami mochi and tangerine rises up to the top of the "sanpo" pedestal as the card is opened... this is SO COOL! 

These two super kawaii Year of the Rabbit Daruma treat boxes were created by my sweet crafty friend, Lorna. The cute daruma with a carrot on her head held a container of white rice and the red daruma was filled with yummy Japanese candies. Of the twelve lunar zodiac animals, the Year of the Rabbit just might be the cutest of all, with so many adorable crafty possibilities!

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!

Persevering with the Year of the Ox

 

Happy New Year! I'm finally getting back to posting again after a long winter's nap! 

For my first post of 2021, I'm sharing these Year of the Ox mini calendar magnets I put together. They say the Year of the Ox symbolizes hardwork, honesty, diligence and perseverance; positive attributes which will hopefully help pull us through to recovery from all that 2020 threw at us.

I typically make several dozen of these Chinese zodiac calendar magnets every year to donate to my mom's senior citizen group for their annual craft fair. Unfortunately the craft fair was canceled due to Covid 19 safety precautions, so I decided to send the calendars in a New Years card to family and friends instead.

I tried to keep the card simple by having the Silhouette cut a fan shaped window on the front of the card so the top of the calendar would be visible. "Happy New Year" greeting was added using the print and cut function and the sentiment on the inside was stamped using a stamp from Mama Elephant Lunar Extras set. I added text weight Stardream gold paper on the inside. Then a small Heiko cellophane sleeve was trimmed to fit the bottom of the calendar and adhered to the card as a pocket. This way the calendar would be the embellishment on the front of my New Years card and can later be slid out by the recipient to use as a calendar.    

The inspiration for my calendar this year comes from a clip art image by illustrator Sayo which I purchased from Pixta. I used Sayo's leaping ox image to create a paper piecing cut file and added pine, bamboo and plum blossom icons as well as a fan background embossed with the Rainbow Wave embossing folder from Couture Creations. Gold metallic and pearlized papers were used as shadows for the cut images and washi paper as a mat for the mini calendar from Impress Cards.

2020 was a long hard journey for many but I'm hoping the New Year of the Ox brings the strength, tenacity and perseverance we all need to thrive. Please continue to stay safe and healthy!

Crafty Holiday Treasures

2020 was a year that we'll all likely remember for a long time. Things weren't always easy, and probably many, including myself found solace immersing ourselves in our hobbies. Maybe that could  explain the huge amount joy I felt in receiving so many wonderful handmade treasures this Christmas.

                            

My long time friend Bev always wows us with her handmade Christmas cards, and this year was no different. I love the beautiful and intricate holly/star swirl design she used for the front of her card, not to mention her paper and color choices. 

But the best part of this "Peek A Boo" style card happens as you open it... the "Happy Holidays" sentiment in the window disappears and is replaced with a photo collage of Bev and her family engaging in a virtual meeting. With travel restrictions in place everywhere, many of us, including Bev and her daughters, could only spend time together "virtually". What a wonderful idea to use screenshots for her  holiday photo collage!

My always amazing crafty friend Lorna outdid herself again with this super creative tropical Sand "Snow"man under a coconut tree. 

The coconut tree is actually a tall box filled with candy canes and chocolates! And how adorable is this little "sand man" with his cool hat and shades and even a string of Christmas lights!

This adorable bonnet girl Christmas card and super kawaii Dandelion Designs kimono girls coaster magnet calendar were put together by my very special blogging pal, Karen of "Have A Scrap Happy Day" blog. Karen has made it a holiday tradition to send out her beautifully designed stamped cards and coaster magnet calendars every year. In fact it was she that inspired me to start making my annual Chinese lunar animal calendar magnets too.

How cute is this Hello Kitty snowflake ornament?!!! This meticulously paper pieced Hello Kitty angel was created by my dear friend Claire. I apologize that my photo does not fully capture all the intricate little details of this project, from Hello Kitty's garland of teensy. tiny flowers to her glittery little halo, dress and wings. Claire attached her Hello Kitty angel to a sparkly resin ornament topped with a shiny gold bell... cuteness overload!

This pair of handcrafted treasures was created by my sweet and crafty pal, Kris. 

This  super adorable fuzzy teddy bear with his watermelon is a "tear bear", which Kris created by layering and adhering many tiny pieces of felt together... truly amazing, right? After piecing her teddy bear together, she adhered him to the front of a notepad holder. Imagine this, a notepad with a mini plushie on it... love it!

Kris also put together this delightful matchbox Santa giftcard holder. I especially liked that she used glossy enamel dots to give his eyes that special twinkle! SVG cutting file for this adorable giftcard holder can be found at the Lori Whitlock store.

Here's a fun vintage style shaker card that was sent to me by my super creative blogging pal, Patti, of Creations by Patti blog. Did you recognize Siren, the two tailed mermaid in the center of the shaker of "snow" beads?

Yes, of course you did! That's because all the "patterned paper" that adorns this amazing gift card holder was cut from an actual Starbucks cup. Very clever, and so beautifully put together... definitely a keepsake piece!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you enjoyed seeing the fun creations put together by some of my sweet crafty friends and that you may have been inspired by them as I always am.