A Card To Amuse Dad

Still catching up on posting birthday cards from last year. This one was made for my dad who turned 92 in November. Always a challenge to come up with guy cards...LOL, even harder to think up a card for an OLD guy! Decided to make a Magic Color Card for him, hoping that he might be amused by it.

I chose to use good ol' Mickey Mouse for his card...Mickey turned 82 years old in November, so he's nearly as old as dad...and even tho dad's memory isn't so good anymore, I figured he'd still remember Mickey Mouse, right? I used a coloring book image of Mickey found on the internet and added the "92" behind him  Found some old vintage Mickey Mouse scrapbook paper in my stash which I thought might be fun to use as a background.

Pull up on the Mouse head shaped tab at the top of the card and Mickey disappears from the window...

...and re-appears at the top of the card all colored in! Always a fun card to give, and not too hard to put together. I used the tutorial by Beate Johns found here at Splitcoast Stampers.

As it turns out, dad was more amazed to learn he was 92 years old than with the color changing card. "Wow!!! I'm 92 ?!!! Wow, I'm old, huh" Happy Birthday, Dad...we love you.

Splurge a Little...It's Your Birthday!

Happy Valentines Day! I didn't make anything for Valentines Day this year since we were away on vacation, but in the spirit of Valentines Day, this card does have a few hearts on it! This is the card I sent to my daughter for her birthday back in October, but haven't had the chance to post due to all the busyness and excitement of the holidays at that time. For her card, I went with an ice cream theme since she and I both have an insatiable love for ice cream...guess it must be in the genes. I found what I thought would be the perfect cutting file set for her card called "Cool Treats" over at Marjorie Ann Designs.

Doily and ice cream are from "Cool Treats" and "Lacey Doily" cutting files from My Scrap Chick; and "Splurge" was created in Make the Cut using Ballerina font.

Using the tutorial from Norma's "From My Craft Room" I made this into another Peek A Boo Slider Card. As the card is opened, a panel with a different image slides over the bear with the ice cream scoop...

...and here's the card fully open.

All the paper piecings on this card were cut from white cardstock and colored with Copics. Background panels were embossed using a Cuttlebug folder called Juli's Garden. Similar to the Peek A Boo Slider card I made earlier, I added a spine to this card to try to prevent the paper pieced images from getting snagged as it slides open. You can find the details here. Having much fun learning to make this type of slider card! Hope to do more soon!

Swinging In with the Year of the Monkey

Happy Chinese New Year! Today marks the beginning of the Year of the Monkey so I made batches of Oriental Crispex snacks and put them in the same take out boxes I we used for giving our Chex mix during Christmas.

This time I tagged the boxes with a Year of the Monkey tag. I used the "Gone Bananas" cutting file from Marjorie Ann Designs for my monkey and welded together cherry blossoms from Cricut "Pagoda" cartridge to create the border. The numbers for "2016" is Arial font rendered into a cutting file with Make the Cut (MTC) program. Tag was cut using a metal die from Lawn Fawn's "Stitched Circle Tag" set. I really like that it doesn't take much to make these take out boxes to look festive enough for holiday giving...just some ribbon and a cute tag!

Also made a bunch of these refrigerator magnet calendars to go along with the treats. Actually, this is the project I had originally created for our annual Cricut Club share project. Made 30 of these calendars for our Cricut Club project, another dozen donated to mom's Senior Citizen Club craft fair, and 30 more for giving to friends and family at New Years.

I used a combination of Arial and Bergamo fonts to do the "2016", using MTC to create a cut file and shadows for it. The red base background layer was created by welding a shadow of the "2016" to a rectangle shape. Adorable little hanging monkey is from the Cricut "Life's A Party" cartridge. Found a traceable image of the kanji character "saru" or "monkey" on the web and had MTC create a cut file for that as well. Added that to a small circle as a medallion for the monkey to hold.

Then for a bit of whimsy, I attached the monkey to the calendar using a small brad. allowing him to swing from side to side. Fun!

Speaking of fun...

...couldn't go without sharing these two AMAZING New Years goodies from my super wonderful and talented crafty friends, Kris and Lorna!

No question about it, Lorna once again got squeals of delight from all of us when she brought these fabulous daruma treat holders to our workplace. I thought the colors and details on her Daruma doll face and body were really well done! I love how she added the kanji character for "kotobuki" which is the symbol for "celebration, long life, happiness" to her daruma and the branch of glittery sakura blossoms. Hard to see in the photos but even the holder itself has been embossed with an Asian wave pattern. Inside, a yummilicious rice cracker!

And how about this super ADORABLE pillow box holder filled with sweet treats shared by Kris at our last Cricut Club meeting?  Kris' little monkey is a cutting file from Miss Kate's Cuttables....isn't he the cutest thing ever? Love how she embossed the red belly band with the weave embossing folder from Cuttlebug's Asian bundle for a perfect festive touch!

Okay! Looks like even our little Latte is dressed and ready to celebrate the start of a brand New Year! Gung Hay Fat Choy! Best wishes and congratulations to all for a wonderful prosperous New Year!

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!