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 New Years 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 can 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 saying 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.

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.

Ssss-sensational Year of the Ssss-snake Crafty Goodies

Today I want to share some of the fun and crafty goodies I received from my creative friends to celebrate the New Year.

Every year my mom makes plastic canvas refrigerator magnets to celebrate the lunar animal of the year and shares them with family at our New Year family reunion lunch. This year she had a difficult time finding a plastic canvas pattern for a snake that could be sized down for a refrigerator magnet, so  instead she converted a cross stitch pattern I found online into one she could use for plastic canvas. I especially liked how she added a fancy frame and gold cording to accent the snake.

My sweet friend Lorna put together a ssss-super kawaii daruma snake paper piecing to embellish a wrapper for a treat package of ramen. She also created cute gift tags using a print and cut image of a Japanese ceramic snake bell with a gold metallic shadow layer.

My dear friend Bev created this show stopping pop up Year of the Snake Chinese New Year card. As always, her interactive cards have the "wow factor" and are amazing.  If you'd like to try to recreate this fun card, the video tutorial by Peter Dahmen Papierdesign  can be found here on You Tube.

This adorable miniature hanging paper lantern and paper pieced Pochacco treat box were put together by my super talented friend Kris. The tiny paper lantern is very cute, embellished with shimmery gold blossoms and tassel. It's just large enough to hold a tea light and so pretty with the light shining through its vellum panels. The tutorial and free svg cutfile for the lantern can be found at Craft with Sarah website.  I think Pochacco looks just too irresistible dressed in his Mandarin jacket,  holding a string of firecrackers to celebrate the New Year!

I'm very fortunate to have a circle of creative friends who always generously share their handmade treasures with me. Looking forward to another fun year of crafty inspiration from them!

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.

2025 Slithers in like a Snake

Gung Hei Fat Choy! Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year of the Snake. To celebrate, I baked several batches of almond cookies and made twenty of these shadowbox treat holders with handles to put them in to share with friends and family.

To make the box, I used a digital cutting file called "Fold Over Box" designed by Pebbles In My Pocket. I enlarged the size of the original template to create a cube shaped box that was 3.75 inches in height, width, and depth to ensure I could get at least 10 medium sized cookies to fit inside. I added a circular cut out to the template for the front of the box and added clear acetate for the window. A round frame cut from gold glitter cardstock was then glued onto the front of the window.

To add the shadowbox to the window, I first created a square tray with a depth of 1/4 inch. I

adhered a square piece of gold foil board which had been embossed with the "Weaving Blocks" embossing folder from Craft Concepts to the inside of the tray. Cutting file for the paper pieced snake was inspired by littlemandyart and created in Make the Cut. The snake was then added to the tray using foam tape for dimension, and finally, the tray was glued to the inside of the box, behind the window. 

On the back of the box, I added a stylized, circular Chinese "fu" character for good luck, cut from gold foil board. Cutting file for this was also created in Make the Cut.

Then, since hubby spent this morning golfing, I packed some cookies for him to share with his golf club members. I got the cute snake in a lion costume image to create the labels from "Shiok Artistry" on Etsy.

I also made several of these decorated "lai see" or red envelopes to pass out with the boxes of cookies.

Inspired by several similar cute Chinese New Year Snake illustrations on Pinterest, I used Make the Cut Design program to create a cutting file of a snake peeking out of  a red Chinese money bag. 

The gold Asian coins were cut from gold foil board using the "Asian Accessories" die set from Elizabeth Craft Designs. All pieces for the snake and red bag were cut from pearlescent cardstock on the Silhouette Cameo. The snake heads were glued separately onto the envelope flaps so the recipients could lift the heads to access the "gifts" inside.

The good news is that the Year of the Snake promises to bring positive transformation, personal growth and wisdom. Best wishes to all for a year of good health and many happy days of crafting!

Happy New Year of the Dragon

Kung Hei Fat Choy!  I'm finally back after my holiday break. Today marks the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year, and this year we celebrate the Year of the Dragon.

I baked batches of almond cookies to share with family and friends and created these boxes to put them in. 

The design of my cookie boxes was inspired by the four-sided lantern style boxes often seen used as favors at weddings. After looking at several illustrations of  templates for these wedding favor boxes online, I tried to design something similar in Make the Cut Design Studio by welding together a few basic shapes. I then sized my box to be large enough to hold half a dozen or more cookies and added legs to the bottom of it to make it look like an Asian style lantern.

Two sides of the box were decorated using a free dragon image from Vecteezy.  A stencil cut of the image was created in Make the Cut and pieced together using gold foil board and red pearlescent text weight paper. On the alternate sides I used Spellbinders Destination China: Chinese Coin Window die to cut a  frame from gold foil board. The Chinese character for "dragon" was traced in Make the Cut to create the layered stencil image in the center.

I also put together several of these fun "laisee" or Chinese lucky red envelopes decorated with a whimsical paper pieced dragon, inspired by Tsuki-san on Pixta Japan.   The dragon's head was adhered to the flap of the envelopes separately from the dragon's body so recipients could lift the dragon's head up to open the envelope.

I  was excited to use my new Chinese character "Fu" (for good fortune) wax stamp to make wax seals to add to the envelopes. I tried the double layered wax technique for the first time to get the gold wax border around the red wax and colored the "Fu" character using a Marvy DecoColor gold metallic paint pen.

I also want to share these super cute Year of the Dragon lucky money bag treat holders that I received from my dear friend, Lorna. Lorna very cleverly origami folded Chinese red envelopes into the shape of a Chinese Lucky Bag, and decorated it with an adorable paper pieced Hello Kitty dressed in a dragon costume.

I also received this fun Year of the Dragon Chinese New Year pop up card in the mail this week from my crafty friend, Bev. I love the lantern design digital paperon the front of the card. The sentiment "Gong Xi Fa Cai" is Mandarin whereas "Kung Hei Fat Choy" is the Cantonese pronounciation of the same greeting, meaning "Wishing you prosperity".

For the pop up feature inside, Bev used the mechanism from Karen Burniston's "Rocket Pop Up" die. As the card is opened the dragon inside pops forward and slides to the right... so fun! Happy New Year!

(P.S. I will be slowly adding back dated posts of  my 2023 Christmas projects so you may scroll backward to older posts if you're interested.)

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.