Handmade Holiday Surprises

Christmas is over, but I couldn't go without sharing some of the wonderful handmade goodies I received from very talented crafty friends this year!

This adorable Christmas card and refrigerator  coaster calendar set was created by a very sweet friend, Karen from Have A Scrappy Day blog. Adorbs, right? Karen is the master of setting up the cutest little scenes with her stamped images and die cutting. She is also the person who has inspired me into making yearly refrigerator calendars for giving too!

This holiday trio of goodies comes from none other than my crafting bestie, Kris. 

Her holiday card this year was an ah-mazing window/pop up card  with a photo of her beautiful kids.

And how about this super cool snow globe box starring none other than her favorite Pochacco! Cutting file for this 3D snowglobe comes from the Lori Whitlock store, which Kris very cleverly altered into a treat box...love it!

Here's the little paper pieced penguin Kris put together to adorn the gift bag...isn't he just too adorable?

My dear friend Lorna was hard at work in her Christmas workshop this year too! 

I think you'll agree that Lorna's Christmas tree on a car has got to be the cleverest treat box ever! Super duper cute, right? And I really love her embossed golden stocking with washi paper accent. The front of this very pretty stocking treat box actually opens up like a card!

This pretty pair of packages embellished with matching bows and lace were created by sweet Gwen...
pulling up on the bow reveals a gift box with a surprise gift card! Wow, love the stamped images and all the details that went into creating these innovative gift card holders.

From our friend Heather's home bakery...the cutest  (and yummiest) Christmas cookies we look forward to every year. Look, star shaped cookies decorated as Santa with M & M buttons and noses!

And finally, this beautiful swing style Christmas card from Bev, who recently told me she's "not into crafting". Uh, huh, Bev...yeah right.
Many, many thanks to everyone who worked so hard this year to create such special holiday treasures!

Fan Swing Card

Here's yet another swing/swivel type card I created using the MTC program. This time I decided to try something a little different and experimented with a fan shape for this birthday card for a very special friend. Getting the fan to be centered on the closed card was a little bit of a challenge but I think I finally got it to where I'm pretty happy with it.
Fan insert was cut using my Cricut and the Pagoda cartridge, sized in Cricut Design Studio to fit my card. Japanese kanji character "kotobuki" for "congratulations" and "long life" was cut on the Silhouette using a cutfile created in MTC.
I used the Sizzix Birds and Branches decorative strip die for the leaves and branches and medium and small Carl Sakura punches for the cherry blossoms. Flower centers were punched from a Punch Bunch mini flower center punch.

 

Here's the card opened to show the inside. Orignally the card looked kind of bare on the inside, so I decided to add my very first "ningyo-gami" or "Japanese paper doll" to liven it up a little. 



She was actually pretty easy and fun to make. I used tutorials I found on Pinterest like this one by Lina Conde and this one by Melanie Gray Augustin. Need to play around and practice a bit more with this, and hopefully, when I get better at it I may want to try a project showcasing these type of paper dolls.

 

Hydrangeas for Mom

I love hydrangeas! Been seeing so many beautiful hydrangea cards on the internet, and have always wanted to try making one too. Thought it would also be a good time to test the circle swing/swivel card cut file I created in MTC earlier this year.

The hydrangea cut file comes from the now retired Walk In My Garden Cricut cartridge. I wasn't happy with the leaves on the cartridge so I used a Marvy Uchida leaf punch instead. Leaves were then crimped with a crimping tool and stained with distress inks.

I chose two shades of blue Bazzill Bling for the flower, using the darker shade for the base and the lighter shade for the individual florets. Edges were sponged with blue and purple pearlescent pigment inks (Tsukineko Brilliance) and flowers were shaped with an embossing tool. Drops of glitter glue were added to the flower centers as the final step after the individual florets were glued in place.

Here's how the card swivels open. One of the leaves on the bottom had to be trimmed to allow the card to properly swing open. The trimmed off piece was then glued on to the base card.

On the inside of the card, I used a free SVG from Shery K Designs for the flourished round tag. Corner flourishes were cut from a sizzlit die from the Architectural Accents set and the "embossing" on the base card was done by using my Martha Stewart scoreboard and a bone folder to make scorelines 1 inch apart.
This card was created for my mil who celebrated her birthday last month. Really enjoyed making this, and am thinking I may want to do a few more, probaby smaller and maybe in white or pink. But first I still have a couple more swing/swivel cutfiles I need to test...

Make the Cut Swing Card

This was actually a personal challenge to myself...at first I thought it couldn't be done...Well, it took me quite awhile, but I think I finally figured out how to create a cutfile in MTC for a swing card (aka flip it card) with a fancy label shape. Decided to test my cutfile by using it to make a birthday card for my dear friend, Pat. (Please pardon the color discrepencies in the photos caused by poor lighting...)

The cutsie hedgehogs are a cut from Cricut Create A Critter cartridge, and the grass and flowers are quick cutfiles created in MTC.

Used Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder to emboss the back panel and added stickles to the flower petals...

On the inside, I added a couple more hedgies and a mini birthday cupcake cut from an EK Success mini cupcake punch. This was a pretty quick and easy card to put together, once I figured out how to get the swing card base onto MTC. Not sure exactly what it is about these cards, but something about the way they open up just intrigues me! So far I've created (but have not yet tested) the circle, diamond, heart and flower shapes for the swing elements. Looking forward now to testing the files to make sure they actually cut and work correctly and maybe trying out more different shaped swing elements before novelty of it wears out for me.

Resurgence of the Swing Card

Have you seen the new line of Flip-It dies from Sizzix? Gee...wish these were around when I was struggling with my Christmas cards couple years ago! When I first learned to make this type of card, they were called "Swing" or "Swivel Cards"... now Sizzix is marketing them as "Flip It" cards and making them so easy to create! I especially love that they're available in so many fun shapes!
Anywho, seeing all the excitement generated by these new dies got me wanting to make one again too. Searched my Design Studio files to find the cutfile I created two Christmases ago using the George cartridge so that I could use it again to make this  Swing style birthday card for my dear friend, Kris.

 

Used Cricut Hello Kitty Font cartridge for the Hello Kitty fairy cuts. Created a mirror image of the fairy in blue using Design Studio so I could place her back to back onto the swing element. This way she could appear on both the front and on the inside of the card. The puffy cloud-like label is from Cricut Elegant Edges cartridge. Inked the edges of the label with Tumbled Glass Tim Holtz Distress ink and used it for my sentiment on the front of the card and again as the base for the giftcard holder inside.

Digital patterned paper is from the Chic Jessica Paper Pack by Woofy World at My Grafico, corners are from the Cuttlebug Vintage die set, and font is Lettering Delights LD Charming Light. Added Stickles glitter to the fairy wings, flatback adhesive pearls and a white organza bow to finish it off.

On a side note....with the growing popularity of the Sizzix Flip It dies, I've noticed that several very innovative crafters have even come up with ways to re-create this type of card using other types of shapes dies. Dawn Griffith from Dawns Stampin' Studio uses her Stampin Up Framelits dies and shows how she does it here. 

 As for myself, I guess I'll need to try and figure out a way to do this card in different shapes using either Design Studio or Make the Cut...lol, I just love a challenge to create a new cutfile!

In the Nick of Time (...barely!)

Our family Christmas cards barely got to the post office in time this year. (Note to self...no more paper piecing for Christmas cards!) Those little reindeer from Create A Critter are adorable, but piecing together 180 reindeer (2 per card) took way too long to do!
Our card this year was a swing style card. Took me a while to figure out, but I managed to create a cut file for it in Design Studio, which made cutting and scoring the card base pretty quick. I used Bazzill Bling (Feather Boa) for the base card and patterned paper is from the Provincial Princess collection at Lettering Delights, printed on ice gold text.

Holly and leaves are from a Martha Stewart punch, trees are Quickutz, and as mentioned earlier, the reindeer are from the Create A Critter cartridge. Font is LD Charming Bold. As a final touch,  a small red rhinestone was added  for one of the reindeer's nose.  Sadly, I didn't have time to do anything much else creative this Christmas, except matching tags for take out boxes filled with cereal mix for dh to take to work....

and a half a dozen more gingerbread houses, this time in a larger size, so I could fill them with pizzelles.

The larger sized houses were about 3-1/2 inches wide on the bottom. Photo on the left shows the relative comparison in size.

Wrapped these in cellophane and shared them with friends. Really had fun making these larger sized houses, they were a lot easier and came together a lot quicker than the earlier tiny version. Only wish I had more time to make more! Maybe next year...

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year! And here's our Latte....

wishing everyone a "Merry Chris-MOOSE!"

Year of the Boar Swivel Card

From A Star For Chiemi

A birthday swivel card for grandpa... used a cute image of a boar I found on the internet & printed him up on some foil paper. Gave him a little dimension and shine with a couple coats of Diamond Glaze. then popped him up on a gold cardstock panel embossed with the Cuttlebug. Sentiment inside printed on torn & chalked parchment, secured with gold brads. Patterned paper from EK Success Paper Adventures, the Japanese kanji on the paper is "ai", the character for "love". Love 'ya Grandpa!

Swivel Card

A Birthday Swivel Card, idea & instructions from "Cards that Pop Up, Flip & Slide" by Michael Jacobs. Cuttlebug Birthday embossing folder for background, QK mini Blossom font, and Cricut Mickey & Friends cart.






Inside of swivel card reveals a mirrored image of Mickey with a gift card attached for a special friend. QK mini Paige font.