Happy 'Bear'thday To You!

This is the card I put together to send to my niece on her birthday last month. Went with a Surprise Pop Up style card using the tutorial by Beate Johns over at Splitcoast Stampers as a guide. Just changed up the sizing so it would fit my paper pieced teddy.

Pulling on the ribbon tab at the top of the card makes the slider pull up to make the panel with the teddy bear stand and reveal the hidden sentiment inside.

Teddy bear paper piecing comes from the Bear with Bucket and Shovel cutting file from Little Scraps of Heaven; but I swapped his bucket and shovel for a paper pieced cupcake from the Happy Birthday Cat cutting file from Kadoodle Bug Designs. Both files are freebie files from a while back, but still available for purchase onsite.The fancy rectangle label used for sliding panel is another freebie designed and generously shared by Heather M. on her blog, Images by Heather.  Used Cuttlebug's Happy Birthday embossing folder on it to add some texture.

Here's a closer look at the sentiment that's revealed as the center panel slides up.The pink banner comes from Cricut's Wedding Solutions cartridge.

Side view shows how it all works! The slider piece in the back is large with space enough to add another sentiment, or even a gift card if you'd like. The one problem I recently encountered with this Surprise Pop Up card was that some recipients may not be able to figure out how to get it to work. I used this card style to make Mothers Day cards for my mom and mil, and found out a week later that they both weren't able to "open"  their cards! So sad!!! Next time I'll know to be sure to include a little note with the card with instructions...

Goodies for Mothers Day and Boys Day

A little late with this post, but these are the treat bags and cookie boxes I barely finished in time for our Mothers Day dinner. I think I waited too long to start baking the cookies, mostly because I felt uncertain about how long they would keep, and then it was a mad rush to get everything put together in time. The cookies were Oatmeal Lacies...thin, crisp and buttery...not hard to make, but a little different than the usual cookie dough. They're quite delicious while crispy, but unfortunately they tend to wilt quickly in humid weather conditions like we have here in the islands. Waited till the last minute to bake them in hopes they'd be fresh and still crisp when I passed them out. Got the recipe for them here, if you'd like to give them a try.

Inspired by some pretty stencil cut boxes I saw over at the online Silhouette store, I decided to try designing something similar to put the cookies in, using the stencil cut rose file from the Cricut Wrap It Up cartridge. Had to keep it clean and simple so assembling would be quick once I got the pieces cut on the Silhouette.

Also created a  simple topper for the gift bag the boxes went in using the same rose and leaves stencil and a scalloped edge. Very fast and easy, though maybe a little too plain? Ah well, at least they got done in time!

Now, here's a look at two Mothers Day treats that aren't simple or plain at all that I was lucky enough to receive this year from sweet friends!

This super cute kokeshi chopsticks holder was made by none other than my dear friend Lorna, using a cutfile she designed. Aww...isn't that little baby kokeshi just too adorable? And the luscious pink macarons you see were a gift from our friend the master patissier, sweet Heather. Almost too pretty to eat but totally light as a cloud and melt in your mouth delicious!

Lorna also surprised us a week prior to Mothers Day with these fabulous Boys Day treats. You can just imagine all the excitement that went on at our workplace when she brought these amazing koi nobori candy holders in to share!

Lorna designed her koi from one of those paper party popper boxes, using an envelope punch board to create the pattern and trimming it at one end to look like a fish. She created the very cool scales on the fish by running her cardstock thru an embossing folder inked up with a shimmery ink pad...love it! Circle and heart punches for the eyes and fin, and a Chupa Chups lollipop placed inside a straw for the holder...amazing, right?

For A BEARY Special Mom

Hello, hope everyone is having enjoying their Mothers Day today! Sharing the Mothers Day card I put together for my mom and mother in law today.Decided it was time to do something other than my usual favorite box style cards so I chose to do a Surprise Pop Up Slider type card.

Decorated the front of the card with paper piecings from a new paper piecing website I recently discovered, Cuddly Cute Designs. I fell in love right away with all the Cuddly Cute Animal cutting files on this website! For my card I used the Cuddly Cute Koala file and paired him with a hearts and flowers arrangement from the Bunches Of Love file.
After assembling, I placed both on a heart edged oval I created in Make The Cut (MTC). Center oval was embossed using a Cuttlebug embossing folder, Kassie's Brocade. LaLa Land Flourish Corner Die was used for the fancy corners, and the banner cut for the sentiments comes from the Cricut Wedding Solutions cartridge.

Isn't this little guy just adorable? I think he might just be my new favorite bear cutting file!

Pulling on the tulle ribbon at the top of the card makes the center decorated panel slide back and pop up to reveal the sentiment underneath.

Here's the side view to show how it works...

I used the tutorial/video by Beate over at Splitcoast Stampers to do this card. I really liked that she adds on a guide to the inside of the card to help the slider pull out more evenly. A fun card to make and hopefully to receive!

Celebrating Boys Day with Pochacco

Happy Boys Day! Today, May 5th was traditionally celebrated as Boys Day or "Tango no Sekku" in Japan until recent times when it was changed to Childrens Day or "Kodomo no hi". But traditional Boys Day customs still seem to persist and Japanese families continue to display samurai warrior swords, helmets and dolls in their homes, and fly "koinobori" or carp streaners outdoors. For Boys Day this year, I wanted to surprise my son in law with some "happy mail" so I got a few Boys Day treats and a made a fun gift card holder to send him.

Finally decided to give the pop up gift card holder everyone else has been making for years a try. Lots and lots of tutorials on the web for these. I used the tutorial for a tri-fold one by Angie Leach on her blog Too Cool Stamping. Really like how she added a window to the front panel!
For the front of my card, I created a cutfile for adorable little Pochacco holding a fish to add to the window.

Here's the card opened with the gift card standing in the center. Found some cute and colorful koinobori images by doing a Google search and added them as a border to the inside of the card. More cutesy than masculine, but I'm hoping my son in law will like it!

Happy Anniversary to our Favorite Couple

My daughter and son in law celebrated their third anniversary last month...and yup, I made another sliding box card. I was already embarrassingly late with my card before I even started, and this was the quickest "nice" card I could come up with at the time so I just went with it, this time changing the window to a heart shaped one.

On the inside, I used a cute boy and girl paper piecing file called "Kissing Booth" from SVG Cutting Files.

Since the original cutting file on this only included the top half of their bodies, I used one of the Paper Dolls Add-Ons (also from SVG Cutting Files) to weld on the bottom half of their bodies and their legs in MTC (Make the Cut).

I always find it fun to add a few little subtle details to bring back memories of their wedding whenever I make my daughter and son in law's anniversary card. Though they probably didn't recognize it, the pretty patterned paper (retired, from Basic Grey) I used on the outside is one of the papers I had originally used to create one of their wedding invitation samples three years ago. And in keeping with the lovebirds theme they had for their wedding, I added a bird held banner for the Happy Anniversary sentiment. Birds are from the Cricut 3 Birds On Parade cartridge, and banner is a from a internet image search rendered into a cut file with MTC.

I used paper blossoms from All Natural Accents glittered with Stickles together with foliage from a Nellie Snellen punch on the bottom corners of the box, and a corner flourish die from LaLa Land embellished with flatback pearls and jewels on the remaining corners. And finally I added a scalloped heart frame embellished with more pearls for the window.

Views from the top of the box show the glittery Best Creation Inc sakura paper from the Kimono line used on the inside of the box and where the couple is attached to the sliding mechanism.
LOL, I think just about everyone on my cardmaking list has at least one (or maybe even two) of this sliding box style cards already. Guess it's about time to start looking for another style card to have fun with....

For a FAN-tastic Friend

Had another go at my favorite sliding box type card...this time as a birthday card for my sweet and super talented friend Lorna. 

Changed the window for this one to a rounded rectangle shape and put together paper pieced kokeshi Aoki and Panda images from Annelore Parot to peek out from the window.

Cutting files for kokeshi Aoki and Panda were created in MTC (Make the Cut) and I had them hold fans cut from Cricut's Pagoda cartridge. Digitized washi paper was used for Aoki's kimono and printed origami paper for the fans. Patterned paper for the base card comes from My Little Shoebox Cherry Delight collection.

Added my sentiment onto a freebie label svg designed and generously shared by Heather M. on her blog, Images By Heather M. 

Enlarged the same label and put it on the back of the box card for additional sentiments. Font used is Gaze Condensed ttf.

Here's the view from the top...where you can peek in to see kokeshi Aoki and Panda attached to the sliding element inside the box and the pretty patterned fan paper from Best Creation Inc.'s Kimono collection used for the background.

And here's what the card looks like when it's flattened to fit into a envelope. This sliding box card continues to be a favorite for me; still having fun coming up with different ways to decorate and embellish this! If you'd like to give this card a try, I have a mini tutorial for the basic sliding box card posted here. Have fun!

Happy Hoppy Easter!

Here are the Easter basket treat boxes I put together for sharing with friends and family this year. The design for these boxes was totally inspired by some cute Ghiradelli candy boxes I spied while browsing the Easter aisle at the store. I thought the box design was so cool and went home to try to create a template cutting file for something similar in MTC (Make the Cut). Once I got the trapezoid shaped box on the inside figured out, the rest wasn't too hard. I created a basket shaped "cover" for the trapezoid box to sit in and tied the handles together with a tulle bow.

After all fifteen baskets were finally cut and assembled, it was time for some fun decorating! Martha Stewart Layered Arches edge punch was used for a lacey border and Die-namics Grassy Edges die for the grass. Eggs were cut using a cutfile from My Scrap Chick, butterfly is a Martha Stewart punch and I used a mini punch from Punch Bunch for the tiny flowers.

Sweet little lop eared bunny is from one of my favorite cutting files, "Fluffy Bear and Bunny" from My Scrap Chick.

I glued the trapezoid box to just the back side of the basket shaped "cover" so the front side of the cover would fall open once the bow was untied. This made it easier to open the top of the box to get to the rice krispies cookies inside and also gave me a place to add a sentiment. Got the recipe for the cookies online here...a good one to try if you like crunchy buttery cookies.
Had so much fun putting these baskets together! Maybe a little challenging in the beginning to create the template on my own, but definitely a lot more satisfying in the end!

Can't leave without sharing the fabulous goodies I received too! 

We always look forward to Heather's kawaii cooky creations at Easter...hers are definitely the most YUMMI-LICIOUS decorated cookies ever! But they're so darned cute that I almost hate to eat them!

Double CUTE-NESS ALERT!!!! This pair of adorable Easter baskets filled with chocolates comes from sweet Lorna. TWO too cute, especially adorned with stamped and colored images from Dandelion Designs!

And finally...our Easter Greeting to you...(starring a very patient Latte!)

Happy Easter!

To My Favorite Peeps...

From Some Bunny Who Thinks You're Special!