Ramming in with the Year of the Sheep

Happy New Year! A big hearty welcome to the Year of the Sheep...or Year of the Ram...as hubby would correct me. All just a matter of semantics, but I guess men prefer to be called "Rams" instead of "Sheep". Hubby and I were both born in the Year of the Sheep, and that could be the reason why he was more concerned than usual when I was putting together some things to share with our family at our annual New Years luncheon.
I could tell that he wasn't particularly pleased when I made the 2015 Year of the Sheep easel calendar card earlier last year...(too cutesy and feminine?) Then while I was searching for an image to use to decorate treat jars for New Years, he made a comment about rams and horns.
Okay, okay...compromise....how about a ram with horns that's still a little bit cute?

Hubby was pleased.

Had MTC create a cutfile for the ram (by Daikonko) and Japanese kanji for "hitsuji" or "sheep" with shadow layers. Images were cut on the Silhouette Cameo, paper pieced and adhered with foam tape onto a circle shape which had been run through one of the embossing folders from Cuttlebug's Asian Bundle. Wrapped a strip of red/gold washi paper around the bottles and tied a bow on each.

Still had a couple unopened boxes of cereal left from Christmas so we used it to make up another batch of cereal snacks, this time using Asian flavors and adding macadamia nuts. Filled a dozen quart size bottles...I just love that these bottles are pretty much quick and easy to decorate.
Hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday season!  Being that 2015 is "our year" hubby and I are looking forward to a GREAT YEAR for all our friends and family!

Homemade With Holiday Cheer

Every Christmas for as long as I can remember, we've baked up batches of Chex cereal mix for hubby to share with his friends at work. But because of our situation this year, I mentioned that I might not have the time to decorate the bottles like I usually do. He simply shrugged his shoulders, "That's okay" he said, "They don't care what it looks like on the outside, they just want what's inside." Uh...typical male response? Honestly though, I truly believe he was trying to sound supportive... maybe just the wrong choice of words?

Even so, I was determined to create a label for the bottles, even if was a simple one. I was lucky enough to make it home for a few hours on some weekends to quickly design and print up the labels and cut the pieces for this peeking snowman from Treasure Box Designs. As with our Christmas cards, I took all the pieces with me and glued and assembled after my parents were asleep. Got 30 of these bottles decorated and ready for giving on time!

By the middle of the month, mom was doing so well that I even had time to put these little babies together. I wasn't able to do any Christmas shopping so nearly everyone on our gift list got gift cards this year. But I still wanted to have some cute way of presenting those gift cards...then when I spied this adorable Santa Patio Paver Box over at My Scrap Chick, I thought it might be perfect for what I had in mind.

Really liked how these turned out! I love the unusual shape of this box, and they were so much fun to put together that I didn't even mind having to make 12 of these cuties.

Here's a shot of the inside of the box. The depth of these boxes is over 1-1/4 inches, so there's plenty of room to add in lots of goodies.

Okay, so since I enjoyed making all the Santa boxes so much, I decided to try a couple more...

Here's the Penguin...

...and the Gingerbread Cooky...

...and here they are all together!

I had three gift cards for my sil's family so I thought it would be cute to put them each in separate boxes and create the look of a "gift set".

For the outer gift box, I cut and re-sized a regular shirt box, covered it with cardstock and embellished with various snowflake die cuts (Sizzix, Cheery Lynn, Die-namics) and adhesive backed rhinestones.

That's about all for my Christmas crafting this year...so happy it's all done! So looking forward to the New Year! So ready for a fresh start...LET'S GO-O-O-O!!!!!!!

Happy Holidays! (...just a little late...)

WHOA!!!! Is it over already? It's only been a month since my last post, but it feels like it's been a lot longer. Got back home about 2 weeks ago, and didn't think I could do it, but got all my holiday cards and packages done and mailed out in time, plus a few more things. Yay for me! Whew! Don't want to sound like a GRINCH, but man, I am sure glad Christmas is over!
For our cards this year, I decided to do a waterfall type of card. Created the prototype for the card a week prior to mom's surgery, then went crazy cutting all the pieces needed to make our 80 cards. Turned out to be a good plan as I found enough free time late at night after putting mom and dad to bed to put all the pieces together and assemble the cards.

 I found many tutorials on YouTube for waterfall cards, but I tweaked mine just a bit so I would have just two oversized flaps. And in place of the brads that usually hold the sliding mechanism in place, I simply used staples. I used the tiered O Christmas Tree cutfile from My Scrap Chick for the front of the card and a circle punch to cut the simple ornaments from red foil. I was a little sad that my poor tree looked like a pre-schooler had put it together but since I didn't have access to any of my crafty supplies, there wasn't much I could do. LOL, all I could do was hope that the fun sliding and page flipping movement of this card would make everyone not notice the sad tree as much!

Pulling down on the tab on the bottom of the card brings the first flap up with a photo of our funny Santa doggie, sitting in a gift box.

Pulling down on the tab further brings the second flap up with our family photo. A little time consuming to assemble, but not too difficult at all.

Uh oh...look who got curious and wanted to help while I was taking pictures for this post! Hope everyone had a joyous Christmas! Still have a few holiday projects to share...hopefully I can get them posted before the New Year!

For Our Not So Little Anymore Girl

It's so hard to believe, but our "little girl" turned 3-0 this year! I know she's thinking that she's "so OLD"...lol...imagine how old WE, as her parents must feel! Nevertheless, I've decided to continue sending her cutesy girly cards to keep us both young at heart. When I saw Marjorie Ann Designs' teddies cutting files over at Too Cute By Jessica, I knew that they would be just perfect for my little girl's birthday card.

I decided to give the cascade type card another try, this time using a stretch card cutting file from Little Scraps of Heaven to create the base card. I liked the shape of the panels on this, and so much easier to have my Silhouette cut it out than to have to do all the measuring and size calculations on my own! Cheery printed cardstock comes from Doodlebug's Spring Time and Fruit Stand lines.

Inspired by other cascade type cards seen on Pinterest, I added arcs in between the tiers for the Happy Birthday sentiment. Used Quickutz Banana Split Skinni Mini dies to cut out the letters.

Added a grassy die cut border using a DieNamics die, clouds cut from Cricut Once Upon A Princess cartridge and butterflies cut from a Martha Stewart punch.

Then finished it off with a sentiment to the back of the card. You know how it is, no matter how old they get, our kids always remain our children in our hearts!
I'm taking a short break from blogging to help out at home while my mom recovers from a recent surgery. She's an amazingly strong woman and is doing remarkably well, but for now I haven't had time to do much crafting. Still hopeful though, to get our Christmas cards done on time...been working on them a little at a time, whenever I can. Will post when they are finished and in the mail!

Another "Thanks A Latte" Card

Yes, I know...I really overuse the "Thanks A Latte" sentiment for our thank you cards, but this one was for Latte's amazing vet and all the sweet folks over at the animal clinic where we take her. Our poor furbaby came down with a bad skin infection last year that had her scratching till she was bald and bleeding. It had us taking her to the vet nearly every other week for more than six months; but I'm happy to report that thanks to the expert care she received, she is finally back to her fluffy furry self and all better now.

So of course I had to do another "Thanks A Latte" card, right? This one is a simple shaped easel type card which I created using a free cutfile of a coffee mug from Birds Cards....

and my most favorite Puppy Love cutfile from Little Scraps of Heaven.

Then I baked up a batch of cookies...

And added a fun label to the jar. Doggie on the label comes from "Dog Collection"  from Treasure Box Designs and the red "cross out" sign was created in Make The Cut by welding basic shapes. Wording on the label was computer generated using Expose font in Microsoft Word. 

Hoping this little thank you project helped to let the wonderful folks over at Latte's veterinary clinic know how much we appreciate the excellent care and kindness they always give!

"Yoda" Man!

While shopping at Costco recently, we saw a Star Wars Lego collectors set that we knew would be the perfect "fun" gift to send my son in law for his birthday. To keep with the theme of his gift, I decided to put Yoda on his birthday card, and did another version of the Magic Color Card similar to the one I made for hubby's anniversary card here.

I found a coloring page image of Yoda on the internet and printed him twice; once on clear acetate and a second on plain white cardstock. Used Copics to color up the one printed on cardstock. A label from the Cricut Elegant Edges cartridge was used to cut the window. To put this card together, I used a tutorial by Cathy found on her blog, Bright Side Of Life. This Magic Color Card differs just a little from the one I made earlier in that the image stays in the window instead of pulling out with the tab.

Pulling the tab on the top of the card gives the illusion of the image in the window "magically" becoming colored...

I thought my son in law might get a kick out of this card since he has an amazing talent of always being able to figure out how things work...LOL, don't ever go to any magic shows with him if you want to be amazed...

...And here's the silly sentiment in "Yoda language" on the inside of the card...

Had fun with this second type of Magic Color Card too. Still not too sure which style I prefer. The one thing I'm pretty certain about is that these Magic Color Cards are a great choice if ever you're stumped for creative ideas for guy cards. Dad's birthday is just around the corner so he just might get one too!

No Tricks, All Treats!

Even though Halloween may be over, I just had to post and  share the fabulous treats I received from my crafty friends this year.

How cute are these adorable jack-o-lantern and witches' broom treats from sweet Gwen!

Gwen used the Stampin' Up Curvy Keepsake Box die to make jack-o-lantern treat holders, and fringed tissue tied onto a Tootsie Pop for clever witches' broom favors. She even colored the Tootsie Pop stick black to really make them look like broomsticks! And don't you just love those little labels!

More pumpkin magic here, from our dear friend Lorna!

"Bibbity Bobbity Boo!" Lorna added a special twist to her pumpkin boxes by adding rhinestone studded wheels and a window to transform them into carriages! And here's another version of a lollipop treat...this one is an adorable pumpkin!

And of course, I totally flipped when I received this amazing paper pieced treat bag and treat from my crafting pal, Kris.

Look at all the intricate detailing on this cute paper pieced mouse which she used to adorn a little Tupperware container filled with candy!

And OMG, this treat bag is nothing short of fabulous...Love it!!!!

A huge thank you to these awesome crafty ladies for all the wonderful Halloween surprises! Everything looks so darned cute that I'm hesitant to open any of them up...even to get at the candy!