A Valentine for Hubby and RAKS from the Heart

Oopsie...I was in such a rush last week to get my Valentine Treats posted that I completely forgot about this card I had made for dear hubby.

While searching in desperation for ideas for a Valentines card for hubby, I came across an amazing Mickey and Minnie pop up cutfile I wanted to use, created and shared by Debbie on her Paper Pulse blog. To keep with the theme, I chose a cut of Minnie from the Cricut Mickey and Friends cartridge to decorate the front of my card. 

Now open the card to see Debbie's adorable pop up insert...

Isn't that the cutest pop up ever?!!!! Love it!

Check out the closeup.....

Well, I think I was more excited about this card than hubby, but that's probably because I'm such a kid at heart when it comes to anything Disney. Oh, in case you're wondering, the sentiment on the card reads, "Sometimes I think our relationship is a cartoon..." "...a dream come true and happily ever after!"

Many thanks to Debbie for generously sharing her wonderful cutfile. If you own an electronic cutting machine, you must pop in to visit her at Paper Pulse. You'll be amazed to see the plethora of beautiful cutfiles this talented lady has created and very generously shares.

Now on to some of the sweet Valentine surprises I received...

Taking a closer look...

A Hello Kitty goodie box from my dear friend Kris...don't you just love her red heart embellished shirt and the pink bow and arrow?

And a Hershey Kisses Valentine heart created by sweet friend and fellow Cricuteer Cheryl! I think these look so elegant...find the tutorial over at Qbee's Quest.

An adorable treat bag from dear Aunty Pat...don't you love the colors? Cute owl comes from the Cricut Hoot and Holler cartridge, and that super neat tag is actually washi tape, printed on an inkjet printer.

And how cute is this birdcage treat holder from Lorna? Bird cage is a Sizzix/Tim Holtz Bigz die, and adorable glittery birds are from the Cricut Simply Charmed cartridge.

And yet another incredibly cute and clever RAK from the ever so talented Lorna...she put together this sweet little lantern for Chinese New Years. Can you believe that these were made from Hello Kitty printed lai si envelopes? Just amazing....!

Whew! My head is spinning with all the creative talent that surrounds me. Wish I could absorb all the vibes and make it work for me too!



Sharing the Love!

Had so much fun making the flatback treat boxes last month that I decided to make even more! But this time around I made them a little larger to hold more candy. The finished size on these are: 5.25"H x 4.5"W x 1"D, and the box on the bottom holds eight Dove chocolate hearts.

 

Finally had the chance to work on more cutfiles of my favorite Tokidoki characters. Used MTC to create cutfiles of Cactus Hello Kitty and Polpettina from the Tokidoki Cactus Friends collection to decorate this box. Put together a little over a dozen of these to share with special friends. A little time consuming, but fun!

Then for my techie son-in-law, I used the robot image from Cricut Boys Will Be Boys cartridge to decorate his box, hoping to give it a slightly more masculine touch....

And here's the MTC screenshot you can use as a template to create your own similar box:

Start off with a piece of cardstock 8.75" x 8.5" and trim as indicated above to create the flaps of the box. Instructions for assembly of this box are the same as described on Splitcoast Stampers Resources Page for the Flat Backed Treat Box by Patti Gilliam. Be sure to also watch the short video tutorial by Beate Johns on the bottom of that page.

I used MTC to create my templates but this is simple enough do with just a ruler and pair of scissors. And in answer to those of you who have asked about SCAL, the MTC program has the capability of converting any of my files into svgs, so if you're interested, please email me.

I also made up a few more of the smaller three Dove chocolate heart boxes to share at our Cricut Club meeting last week...

Since it was for the Cricut Club, I needed to use an image cut on my Cricut, right? These adorable koala bears and "Hugs n kisses" sentiment are from the Create A Critter 2 cartridge.

The best part of this smaller sized box is not only that they're quicker to put together but also that you can cut two from a sheet of cardstock. You can find the template for this smaller sized box here.

Now as if putting together all those treat boxes didn't keep me busy enough, here's an idea I spied on Pinterest that I just HAD to try...

...decorated candy kisses! Luckily, these were REALLY quick to do...

For mine, I used a free template I found over at Little Bitty Design Studio, but there are a lot of similar freebie ones by other designers you can find by doing a Google image search for "Hershey Kiss Labels". I simply printed mine out on Avery 8.5" x 11" white shipping labels and used a 3/4" circle punch to cut them out. My bag topper was created in Printshop using digital paper from Sassy Designs and a png. digital image from ScrappyDew.com  BTW, if you're in to digital paper, Sassy Designs is currently having a crazy 99 cents sale on everything in their shop till Sunday (2/17)...

And finally...yes, you guessed it...gotta decorate those treat bags for our doggie friends! I just love that Snoopy is so quick and easy to render into a cutfile and cut!

Happy Valentines Day! Hope you all had a wonderful time sharing the love with your sweeties today!

Happy Chinese New Year!

"Gung Hay Fat Choy!" Today is Chinese New Years and the first day of the Year of the Snake. We didn't do much to celebrate, but I did bake up couple batches of almond cookies and put together another style of gable box to put them in. These boxes are a little smaller  (6.5"H x 5"W x 2"D) than the ones I made in January, but still large enough to hold about a dozen small cookies.



This time I wanted my box to look a little more Chinese so I used a lot of red and gold and chose a Chinese papercut image to decorate it. Since I didn't want to spend too much time poking out all the tiny cuts in the snake, I chose to simplify the original image a bit in Adobe Photoshop before importing it to MTC to create a cutfile. Shadow layer for the snake and kanji character for snake "hebi" was also created in MTC and cut in gold metallic cardstock. Used foam tape to pop the snake up onto a red circle and backed it with gold Stardream cardstock embossed with Spellbinders Asian M-Bossabilities folder. Clipped the corners with a Stampin' Up Ticket punch and backed it with more red cardstock. 

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous New Year filled with good health and good luck!

Sister Stamps Release 11: It's Release Day!

Woo Hoo! Today is the day we've all been anxiously awaiting....it's Release Day for the five brand new Sister Stamps images! Head on over to your favorite craft store to grab yours before they're gone. For a listing of retailers here in Hawaii or online check out the listing on the side bar over at Sister Stamps official blog.

Sincere thanks to all of you who stopped by to visit during release week.  Hope you'll join us once again at the end of March when we introduce the next two Chinese Zodiac Animals, Year of the Rooster and Year of the Dog...see 'ya then!

 

Sister Stamps Release #11: Valentines Day Treats!

Remember how I mentioned before about how versatile the new Sister Stamps Chinese Zodiac animal stamps can be? Well, with Valentines Day just around the corner, I just couldn't resist using the new Year of the Monkey and Year of the Sheep stamps to start working on my first Valentine goodies for the year!

I put together this darling little monkey one first. Simply colored him up with Copics, cut him out and placed him on this "Flatbacked Treat Box". Double heart cutout was created in MTC by welding two heart outlines together; added a bow, a tiny punched tag (EK Success), and a cute Valentine sentiment on a scalloped circle (Spellbinders Nestabilities). A few more cute Valentines sentiments came to mind that might be perfect for this as well. How about... "Bananas For You"...."Let's Monkey Around".... "To My Favorite Swinger"... lots of possibilities!

Had so much fun with the first one that I just had to make one using the Year of the Sheep stamp too! Outline heart and "Love Ewe" in the background are cutfiles created in MTC (LD Charming ttf). And of course the creative possibilities with this adorable Year of the Sheep stamp are limitless... Thank "Ewe" cards, Happy Birthday to "Ewe" cards, "Ewe" are Special cards...just to name a few. ("EWE" know what I mean? LOL, sorry, I couldn't resist!)

The original template for this "Flatbacked Treat Box" comes from Patti Gilliam over at the Splitcoaststampers Tutorial page. There's also a video tutorial by Beate Johns which I found helpful on the bottom of the same page. I think Patti G's box is just the perfect size for holding Hershey Nugget chocolates, but since I wanted to use Dove Chocolates in mine, I adjusted the sizing of the box a bit, decreasing the depth to 0.5" and length to 3.5". The finished height of the entire thing is 4.5" and is just the right size to hold 3 Dove Chocolate Hearts.

Although I created my re-sized box as a cutfile on MTC, the template is simple enough to do with a paper cutter or pair of scissors...

Using a sheet of cardstock 5.5" x 8", you can use this MTC screenshot to create and handcut your own template for this box. The numbers in red indicate the placement of the box flaps as well as the scorelines. Score your cardstock first then trim down to the scorelines as shown for the box flaps. Or if you prefer, as always, the cutfile for this is available just for the asking.The instructions for assembling the box are the same as provided on Beate John's video tutorial. Very quick and easy!

And if you haven't had a chance to do so yet, you must go check out the fabulous project samples for this new release created by the other guest designers as well as over at the Sister Stamps blog!

Patti:  Creations By Patti

Linda: Simple and Sassy Creations

Laura:  By TKG

Debi:  Crafty Buzz

Suilan:   Sweetland Paper Treats

Sister Stamps Release #11: Year of the Sheep

Yay! It's time for another Sister Stamps new release. This time I'm back with the second pair of Chinese Zodiac stamps, the Sheep and Monkey, which will be available for purchase this Friday.
I've decided to share a birthday card I came up with using the Year of the Sheep stamp...isn't he adorable? This one holds a special place in my heart because my mother in law, hubby and myself were born in the year of the sheep. Ooops....did I just give away my old age?
For the background paper on the front of the card, I added the years associated with the Year of the Sheep (Gabriola ttf) onto some red tone digital paper purchased from Lettering Delights. Thought it was kind of fun that you can customize and print up your own paper that way. Used Copics to add a bit of color to my sheep and placed him on a circle on which I had printed "Born in the Year of the Sheep" (Calligrapher ttf) using the WordArt function in Microsoft Word.

Over to the right of the main image, I added a gold tabbed "flap" which I embossed using the Spellbinders Asian  M-Bossalities folder. Kanji for "hitsuji" or "sheep" is a cutfile created in MTC from a Google Image search.

Then inside the little tabbed pocket, I added a little removable insert which describes some of the personality traits associated with people born in the Year of the Sheep...

And here's a shot of the inside of the card with the Happy Birthday greeting. Thought this would be kind of neat card to give to someone born in the Year of the Sheep. Of course you could do this same idea using any of the Chinese Zodiac animals for friends born in any other year!

Okay now, don't forget to go visit the blogs of my fellow guest designers today for more fun ideas for this new Sister Stamps Release! Click on the links below to take you directly to their sites:

 

Patti: Creations By Patti

Linda: Simple and Sassy Creations

Laura: By TKG  

Debi: Crafty Buzz

Suilan: Sweetland Paper Treats

Please come back to visit again tomorrow, I'll have yet another Sister Stamps Zodiac project to share with you!

A New Year of Inspiration

Want to share a couple New Years goodies I recently received from my crafty friends! This super cute New Year card came hand delivered from my crafty buddy at work, Lorna. Thank you, Lorna, your sweet card really brightened my day! So super kawaii, don't you agree?

Here's what this cute circle swivel card looks like on the inside... just love all Lorna's extra special touches on this card that make it so special, including Sister Stamps Kiyoko's washi paper pieced kimono, the gold embossed background (Spellbinders), and all the hanging lanterns (Pagoda Cricut Cartridge and Memory Box die).

Then I received some happy mail from my favorite crafty pal in SF... this beautiful desk calendar from Patti of Creations by Patti! Patti always has the knack of making simple look so fabulous! How does she do it?! The little kimono girl (Dandelion Stamps, Butterfly Frame) looks so adorable peeking out from behind the calendar....and I love the pretty border (Martha Stewart Floral Crochet punch) that peeks out from the bottom!



The neatest thing about this calendar is that it came in the mail, folded flat in a standard legal size envelope. See the lines of double stick tape...all ready for me to assemble!

Wow! I am truly the fortunate one, to have such sharing and crafty friends! You ladies have really got my mojo going and ready for another New Year of fun crafting...thank you so much!