Simple Thank You's

I know it's very bad of me, but I'm usually so wiped out after the holidays that I get too lazy to make thank you cards. Instead I end up buying thank you cards or just emailing a short note. In my effort to try to self improve and make good on at least one New Years Resolution  this year, I came up with these simple thank you cards which didn't take too long to make thanks to my Silhouette Cameo and Make the Cut design program.

The base of the card was created by welding the word "thank you" using Pharmacy font.between two rectangular shapes in the Make the Cut (MTC) program. and cut using the Silhouette Cameo. Finally got a chance to use my cutie Mama Elephant panda stamps!

On the inside... a strip of rainbow colored paper created with the Print Shop publishing program which doubles as the background for my "thank you" on the front and a border for the panda inside. So easy, but still kinda cute, no? I really should consider making a bunch of these to keep on hand whenever I need them...

Crafty Christmas Creations

My crafty friends outdid themselves once again this past Christmas with their amazing holiday creations! So much to "ooh and ahh" about...just had to share!

These festive goodies are from my always inspiring friend, Lorna...

Absolutely adorable gingerbread candy cane toppers!

Lookie! A sweet treat cup topped with a fun wintery scene, an Asian inspired holiday card, and oh my, the cutest gift bag to hold all the goodies! Just LOVE the very cool Christmas light garland Lorna made to drape over the front of the bag!

These fabulous paper pieced treasures are from my crafting bestie, Kris! A super cute paper pieced holiday penguin gift bag, an intricately paper pieced, irresistible Pochacco gift box and a super fun interactive Christmas card~

See how the two sides of her card pull open to reveal photos of her beautiful kids...how neat is that! Definitely need to learn how to do this!

Happy holiday mail surprises from my creative blogging pal, Karen!

Absolutely LOVE her beautifully stamped and colored Christmas card. Penny Black images are just too adorable! Karen's creations are always so professionally done...hubby said "How come she didn't make her cards this year?"

I always look forward to receiving Karen's super cute coaster calendars in the mail each year. Always an intricately stamped, colored and paper pieced treasure to proudly display on my fridge! 

Don't you just love this NEAT candy sled from my sweet and creative pal, Gwen? Rows of yummy chocolate stacked upon each other and a pair of candy canes for the blades...oh my, this is so darned cute I don't think I'll ever have the heart to take it apart!

Thank you to my sweet, generous and immensely creative friends for all the wonderful crafty surprises! Looking forward to another fun and inspiring crafty year with you all!

Fun Gift Card Holders

Gave out a few gift cards this Christmas, and always enjoy dressing them up in gift card holders so the recipients will have something fun to unwrap. Here are a couple pizza boxes I put together to hold gift cards from California Pizza Kitchen.

The cutting file and template for this cute box was created and is is generously shared by Heather on her blog, Images By Heather M. After assembling the box, I printed out and added on the California Pizza Kitchen logo to make it look like a mini version of the actual box. On the inside I added an insert and used a a Tim Holtz medium Notch Punch to create a tab to hold the gift card in place.

This mail delivery truck gift card holder box was inspired by my crafting bestie, Kris who made a similar box for her mail carrier a few years back. Thought it was such a neat idea, I wanted to make one for our mail carrier too.

For mine, I used the Delivery Truck Treat Box from SVG Cutting Files and added the USPS logo to the sides and back of the truck.

The top of the box opens to add treats, or in this case, a gift card. Our mail carrier really got a kick out of this box...and now LOL, I think she understands why I get so many packages from JoAnn's!

Here's another gift card holder I decorated to look like a vintage suitcase. I used a circle punch to punch out circles which I quartered and glued on to the corners of the suitcase. Brown grosgrain ribbon was used for the straps and I slid on some paper buckles created by welding together square and rectangle shapes in Make the Cut. Handle was also created in Make the Cut by welding oval and rectangle shapes. Handle was then attached with brads. Found some images of travel stickers on line which I printed out and stuck on to the side of the suitcase.

Open the suitcase and a pop up insert on the inside holds the gift card in place. The cutting file and template for this pop up gift card box comes from the Holiday Cheer Gift Boxes collection from SVG Attic. Thought this would be a fun way to surprise my daughter and son in law with an airline gift card for an outer island vacation.

And last, I put together this kawaii rice cooker box to hold a gift card to a Japanese specialty market for a special aunt. 

Cutting file for this adorable treat box originally comes from SVG Cutting Files, but I'm sad to say that it has since been retired and is no longer available for sale on the site.

And that's about it for my holiday projects for this past year. In my next post I'll be sharing some of the amazing handmade holiday cards and gifts I received from my super talented crafting buddies...and then I'll be done with my late Christmas posts...I promise!

What Happened to December?

WHOA!!!! It's a NEW YEAR already and looks like I was left in the dust! I guess it may have seemed that I fell off the face of the blogging world, but only because I was struggling to keep up with the holidays. As a result I'm embarrassingly late in posting my holiday projects... I hope you'll bear with me for my next few posts as I scramble to try to catch up.

Every Christmas we make batches of Chex mix for hubby to share with his co-workers. In the past we've given them in plastic jars I've decorated, but lately it's gotten more difficult to find the jars on sale so we opted to do something different this time. Picked up these cute take out boxes at a local restaurant wholesale supplier and decided to give these a try.

Kept it simple by tying on a big bow with some wide grosgrain ribbon and adding a homemade Santa tag. Cutting file for the Santa comes from My Scrap Chick. This came together much quicker than decorating jars, and so much easier to carry to work. Definitely will do this again next Christmas.

And here's Latte's gifts to her friends...a jar of people treats for her sweet friends at the pet clinic, and goodie bags filled with doggie treats for her canine pals.

For these, I used my favorite furry puppy from Little Scraps of Heaven's "Puppy Love" cutting file together with the holly border from Kadoodle Bug Designs' "Holly Bear" file.

Here a few of the tags I put together for our gifts. Used metal dies for these. Snowflakes dies are from Die-namics "Let It Snowflake"; peeking teddy is from Cottage Cutz "Peeking Santa Bear", and round tag from Lawn Fawn "Stitched Circle Tags". Had fun making these...wish I had time to do more!

And finally, the holiday cards we sent out. Started working on these in November but ran into printer problems which set me back and ended up taking way too long to finish. Photo on the front of the card is our sweet furbaby Latte wearing a string of battery powered fairy lights Used Sizzix "Stars and Swirls" embossing folder for the white panel backed with silver metallic cardstock from Hygloss. Ornaments were die cut using Memory Box "Classic Ornament" die, strung with silver metallic cording.

On the inside, a simple accordion flag pop up style card inspired by a holiday card by my friend Patti of  Creations By Patti blog a few years back. Tutorial for Patti's card can be found here.

I used photos taken during a recent Disneyland vacation for my "flags", increasing the dimensions of the card slightly to accommodate the width of the photos. With hubby's help scoring the cards and with backing the photos, we were able to get 80 of these in the mail just in time.
Okay, on my next post I'll be sharing some of the fun gift card holders I put together for holiday giving. Hope you'll stay tuned!

Birthday Surprises

Another short post today to share a few of the sweet surprises I received for my birthday this year. This is the amazing card I received from my bestest crafting buddy Kris. Without question, this has to be CUTEST Tsum Tsum card ever!

And of course, being from Kris, this had to be another fun interactive card. We've all seen those neat cards that look like smartphones and iphones...but this is the first time I've seen a phone card with a game on it...so CLEVER!!! Kris made this adorable card even more special by making it into a Penny Spinner card. If you look very closely, you can detect the curvy track for the spinner. It's hard to see because the backing panel is printed with an image identical to the front panel and Kris took the time to perfectly align the images. See how the Mickey Tsum spins along the track to the bottom? SUPER COOL!!!

Mmmmm!!! Don't these cranberry scones look scrumptious? Let me tell you, they are! My dear friend Heather baked these sweet yummies for my birthday...lucky me! You know how scones are usually dry and crumbly? Not these! Move over, Starbucks! Heather's scones are my absolute favorite...moist, buttery, melt in your mouth deliciousness!

Then to make my special day even more special, my little Latte came to visit me at work again this year for my birthday! Awww....I always love getting these adorable puppy bouquets from hubby!

Happy Pumpkin Pie Day

OMG, OMG...can you believe it? The holiday season has already begun... and as you might guess from this late post, I'm struggling to keep up!
Nice to know that at least one of my friends is organized and on the ball...my dear sweet friend Lorna brought this beautiful and amazing pumpkin pie creation to our workplace last week just before Thanksgiving. I thought it was so clever how she put it in a plastic take out box to deliver. Oops! Sorry, looks like someone grabbed their piece of pie before I could even snap a picture of the whole pie.

Here's a shot of an individual slice of pie. Each slice is a wedge shaped box, filled with treats! I love how she added strips of brown cardstock to the bottom of the box and a scallop edged piece of cardstock to the lid to resemble the crust. The sweet paper rose reminds me of whipped cream, and the swirly embossing really makes this look so yummy! And the little banner on top of each slice of pie reads "happy pumpkin pie day"....awww....how adorable is that!

Hope that everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving spent with family and loved ones this year. I am thankful and truly blessed to be surrounded by dear friends and family who have always given their loving care, support and thoughtfulness throughout the years.

Life With You Is Still SO Sweet!

Hubby and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary last month and this is the card I put together for him.There's an ongoing joke around our home that he's the "Smoothie King" because he blends together the absolutely yummiest smoothies for us every weekend... acai, strawberries, bananas, pineapple, yogurt and kale...mmmm...YUM! He jokingly calls me the "Smoothie Monster" because I can slurp up those delicious smoothies he makes in no time flat. Even before he has a chance to sit down to enjoy his own drink, I'm already half way done with mine and begging for more!

So naturally, when I spied this adorable "Sweet Smoothie" cutting file over at Marjorie Ann Designs, I knew it would be perfect! All the paper piecings were cut on my Silhouette from white cardstock and colored using Copic pens. I used the Cuttlebug "Wicker Weave" embossing folder for the background on my blender mouse.

I decided to try another slider style card; this one is called a "Peek A Boo Slider". Found a very detailed and easy to follow photo tutorial for this shared by Norma on her blog, From My Craftroom. If you do a search on her blog, you'll find many of the beautiful Peek A Boo style cards Norma has created...so inspiring! In addition you can find her video tutorial for this card over at Splitcoast Stampers

As this card is opened, a panel with a new image slides over the first image seen in the window to replace it...neat!

And here's the card fully open with the new image... mousies slurping up their smoothie!

Just love these cute mousies from Marjorie Ann Designs! See the mousie on the bottom with the pinked cheeks and eyelashes? That's me!

A word about the mechanics about this card...as with most slider type cards, this Peek A Boo Slider card works best using flat images that are printed or stamped onto the sliding panels. Layered paper pieced images like the ones I've used here tend to get caught onto the sliding mechanisms making it difficult for the card to open and close smoothly. For this card I did a fix by first, adding 2 layers of adhesive foam on the top and bottom edges behind the inside panel. This prevents the paper pieced images from getting snagged onto the edges of the window by allowing the panel to slide about 1/8th inch away. Next, I added a 1/4th inch spine to the slider piece and the back panel (indicated by the red arrows) to accommodate the extra thickness from adding the foam. And lastly, I added a tab (blue arrow) to hold the inside and back panels together to keep the sliding mechanism in place. Took a bit of extra work, but this made a huge difference on how well this card opened and closed. Now that I've finally figured out a solution, I think I may be doing more of these fun slider cards again!