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!

Peeking Puppy "Open Down" Birthday Card

 I'm a bit behind on posting my projects due to the holidays. Alot of my family celebrate their birthdays at the end of the year but with all the excitement of the holidays, I haven't had a chance to share their cards till now. Today's card is the one that got sent to my daughter back in October, right before Halloween...

 

It's been awhile since I've done one of these type of cards...don't know what they're called, but I've decided to call it an "Open Down" card, simply because unlike most pop up cards that open "up" this one's a little different in that it opens "down".

The front page of this card is the layer with the two wrapped gifts. The puppy and balloons peeking from behind are on the inside layer of the card...

  

And when the card is opened "down", you see the popped up layers inside...a birthday cake and more presents! The concept is simple enough but it always takes me so long to figure out the layers and the sizing of each layer that I usually don't have the time or patience to make this type of card.  The cake is a cut from Cricut Sretch Your Imagination cartridge, balloons are from the Celebration cartridge, and the the label inside from the Elegant Edges cartridge. Bows for the gifts are a Google image search find, rendered into cut files by MTC. And of course the familiar little puppy is a MTC cutfile created from my own rendering of our Maltese.

 

Here are a couple shots from the side and top of the card showing the three layers inside and the tabs behind the layers that hold them in position, similar to a basic pop up card. I used MTC to create the shadowed layers for the card and placed each layer 3/4" in front  of the other. 

The original concept of this card is not my own, but from a Hallmark card purchased a long while ago. As mentioned before, the basic card is really simple, and in retrospect it may have been quicker and easier to simply hand cut the shadow layers on this rather than spending time creating a cutfile...will have to try that next time!

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.

 

Fabulous Pagoda Cascade Card

I'm sharing with you today what I consider the most fabulous handmade birthday card I have ever received in my life. And without a doubt, this incredible cascade card was created by my very special and talented friend Patti, of Creations By Patti.

 

I've had my eye on, and pinned what I thought were some really pretty cascade cards on my Pinterest board for quite awhile now, with the hope that I'd like to try one someday...but none of them even come close to being as clever and elaborate as this one. Woo Hoo! You can just imagine how excited I was to receive this stunningly beautiful card from Patti during our last visit to the Bay area.





Here's a view from the top of the card at a different angle to show all the intricate attention to detail that went into putting this card together...each piece of the red traditional torii gate, the Japanese girl, her kimono and teapot... every bamboo stem, each leaf, painstakingly inked and pieced together to create this very special one of a kind card.







You can find links to all the different svg cut files and learn about the techniques Patti used to create this little masterpiece by visiting her blog here. And while you're there, be sure to check out all the rest of her beautiful creations, guaranteed to amaze and inspire you to no end!

Homemade Christmas 2012

Receiving anything homemade from friends during Christmas is always very special to me, especially since I know from experience how difficult it is to find the time and energy to get everything done during the holidays. Lucky for me, I have crafty friends who (unlike myself) are well disciplined in their time management skills...look at the little treasures they created!

  

My dear friend Heather (aka the amazing pastry chef) always comes through with the prettiest decorated cookies and yummilicious treats, not only during the holidays but all year 'round!

Awww...isn't this Christmas gift tag from Kris just the most adorable ever? I think I recognize him as the doggie from the Cricut Create A Critter cartridge. Love how Kris dressed him up in a scarf and Santa hat to be festive for the holidays!




  

 

Okay, so you had to pick me off the floor after I opened this amazing handmade gift created by my friend Gwen. Everything about this shouts "CUTE"! First check out the header to this little bag of snowmen chocolate treats...don't you just love that peeking Snowman? What a creative and clever way to use her Sizzix and Stampin' Up dies, embossing folder and punches! Now look inside the bag to find three of the most delightful stocking capped snowman Hershey chocolate nugget treats. I'm pretty sure those adorable little snowman caps are fingers to what once were some knitted gloves! CUTE, CUTE, CUTE!!! Now tell me, who's ever gonna eat those chocolates?...not ME!

Then a few days after Christmas, I received another delightful surprise from Gwen...a very classy looking thank you card, eh? Who wouldn't recognize that frosty beard, red belly and shiny buckle!

A warm and fuzzy thank you to all my very talented and crafty friends who put so much time and love into putting together these delightful holiday treasures. You all made me feel so very special!







Welcome 2013!

Happy New Year! We celebrated the first day of 2013 together with our extended family, spending time catching up on each others' lives, watching the bowl games on TV and eating way too much! I put together a dozen of these decorated gable boxes filled with homemade treats to share with each family. Originally, I had designed a box for my New Years treats back in November during the Sister Stamps Chinese Zodiac release. *Sigh* I had high hopes of getting started early on those in time for New Years, but as you can see that didn't happen!

I fell behind schedule before Christmas and didn't have time to start on the boxes till after Christmas so I had to keep the decorating  down to something quicker and simpler. I used Sister Stamps Year of the Snake image, mounted onto an octogon shaped gold cardstock run through a Cuttlebug embossing folder. Had my Silhouette cut the Japanese kanji character "Hebi" for snake. Red patterned paper background panel is from My Little Shoebox, Aiko Collection.

As it turned out, the original gable box design I had chosen to use back in November was a bit too small to hold my treats, so I ended up changing it at the last minute to this larger one (6-3/4"H x 6-1/2"W x 3-1/2"D), which could easily hold a dozen cookies.Template for this one was also found on the internet and converted into a workable cut file in Make the Cut.
Chinese New Year is coming up soon (February 10th) and these were pretty quick, so I'm thinking I may make up a few more of these....

Christmas 2012

It's Christmas! Whew, I really struggled this year just to get a few projects done on time. Every year DH takes twenty jars of sweet cereal mix to work to share with his co-workers. I decided to go with a penguin theme this year to decorate the jars.

The cut file for these penguins came from a set of candy wrappers from Treasure Box Designs, and I used  Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Four die for the labels. Thank goodness these were super quick and easy! In addition to the penguin, this candy wrapper set included cutfiles for 4 other adorable holiday characters: a gingerbread man, reindeer, snowman, and teddy bear. Maybe I'll do the snowman or reindeer next year.

Though I didn't have much time to do any Christmas crafting, I'm lucky enough to have friends and a mom that did! Mom put together these cute beaded wreath lapel pins for me to share with my friends at work. Thanks Mom, you're the best!

These two very special holiday treat holders were lovingly created by friends Kris and Lorna.

Isn't this chocolate filled Christmas tree from Kris stunningly yummy? Love it! Amazing what people come up with using a bit of cardstock, glue and ribbon. You can find the tutorial by Brenda Quinata at her blog, Qbee's Quest. I know it's a little too late for this year...or maybe not...how about keeping the kids at your Christmas dinner busy by having them make their own?

Once again, Lorna didn't fail to amaze us! This time she brought by these cute chimney boxes filled with goodies for each of us at work. Oh, look! Don't you just love the way she perched a chocolate Santa right on top of the chimney box. So clever!!!

Last year, for the first time in over twenty years, I didn't send out Christmas cards because we were so busy putting together my daughter's wedding invitations. This year, I thought, "It was so nice not having to stress over Christmas cards last year, maybe I won't do them again this year..." Let's face it, when you've done Christmas cards featuring photos of your only child every year for over twenty years, what is there to do when she gets married and moves away?

ANSWER: ...Christmas cards featuring a photo of your DOG!

LOL, I actually did include another photo of all of us together on the inside. For my card, I used the center step card template shared by Sandy Hulsart, Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Four and Labels One dies, and a Sizzix Holly embossing folder to put sixty of these together.

Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, and I still have gifts to wrap...need to get hoppin'! Sending blessings to all for a very Merry Christmas!