Happy New Year of the Dragon

Kung Hei Fat Choy!  I'm finally back after my holiday break. Today marks the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year, and this year we celebrate the Year of the Dragon.

I baked batches of almond cookies to share with family and friends and created these boxes to put them in. 

The design of my cookie boxes was inspired by the four-sided lantern style boxes often seen used as favors at weddings. After looking at several illustrations of  templates for these wedding favor boxes online, I tried to design something similar in Make the Cut Design Studio by welding together a few basic shapes. I then sized my box to be large enough to hold half a dozen or more cookies and added legs to the bottom of it to make it look like an Asian style lantern.

Two sides of the box were decorated using a free dragon image from Vecteezy.  A stencil cut of the image was created in Make the Cut and pieced together using gold foil board and red pearlescent text weight paper. On the alternate sides I used Spellbinders Destination China: Chinese Coin Window die to cut a  frame from gold foil board. The Chinese character for "dragon" was traced in Make the Cut to create the layered stencil image in the center.

I also put together several of these fun "laisee" or Chinese lucky red envelopes decorated with a whimsical paper pieced dragon, inspired by Tsuki-san on Pixta Japan.   The dragon's head was adhered to the flap of the envelopes separately from the dragon's body so recipients could lift the dragon's head up to open the envelope.

I  was excited to use my new Chinese character "Fu" (for good fortune) wax stamp to make wax seals to add to the envelopes. I tried the double layered wax technique for the first time to get the gold wax border around the red wax and colored the "Fu" character using a Marvy DecoColor gold metallic paint pen.

I also want to share these super cute Year of the Dragon lucky money bag treat holders that I received from my dear friend, Lorna. Lorna very cleverly origami folded Chinese red envelopes into the shape of a Chinese Lucky Bag, and decorated it with an adorable paper pieced Hello Kitty dressed in a dragon costume.

I also received this fun Year of the Dragon Chinese New Year pop up card in the mail this week from my crafty friend, Bev. I love the lantern design digital paperon the front of the card. The sentiment "Gong Xi Fa Cai" is Mandarin whereas "Kung Hei Fat Choy" is the Cantonese pronounciation of the same greeting, meaning "Wishing you prosperity".

For the pop up feature inside, Bev used the mechanism from Karen Burniston's "Rocket Pop Up" die. As the card is opened the dragon inside pops forward and slides to the right... so fun! Happy New Year!

(P.S. I will be slowly adding back dated posts of  my 2023 Christmas projects so you may scroll backward to older posts if you're interested.)

Celebrate the Year of the Dragon

 Happy New Year! This is the first of  my back dated holiday projects posts. 2024 is the Lunar Year of the Dragon and today I'm sharing the card and calendar we sent to family and friends to celebrate the New Year.

I decided to keep the front of the card clean and simple, using plain white cardstock and an old embossing folder from Crafts-Too to add a subtle bamboo with butterfly and dragonfly textured background. 

I used Spellbinders "Sealed Twine" die and gold foil board for the cording and adhered a wax seal. The wax seal was created using Craspire's "Dragon" wax seal stamp purchased on Amazon. I used a Marvy Uchida DecoColor Metallic Paint Pen to highlight the image of the dragon. The "Happy New Year" fishtail banner below it was foiled and cut using Spellbinders "Christmas Sentiments" and "Hexi-Gems Sentiments" hot foil plates and dies.

I enclosed a Year of the Dragon calendar magnet inside each card. The sentiment on the top was computer generated and the clip art of the cute pair of dragons on it comes from the Pixta Japan site.

This year's lunar year calendar magnet could very well be one of the most detailed ones I've created over the years. Of the twelve animals in the Chinese Lunar Zodiac, the dragon is the only mythical creature and probably most revered. Wanting my dragon to be special, I used lots of pearlescent cardstock: three shades of green, two shades of blue as well as red, gold and cream. I started working on these in late summer and finally finished 40 of them in December thanks to a sweet and crafty friend who helped with the assembling.

Our daughter and her family visited for  a week after Christmas so I was able to get a photo to quickly print and add to the back of our cards before sending them out. 

I have a few more New Year of the Dragon crafty goodness I want to share!

Every year I look forward to seeing the daruma lunar year treat holders created by my dear friend Lorna. This year's daruma dragon and "suzu" ceramic bell dragon treat holders are so kawaii! The adorable paper pieced dragons were packaged together with yummy rice crackers and mochi.

I think my mom has been making these fun plastic canvas Chinese Lunar Year animal magnets every year for as long as I have been making my calendar magnets. I guess it's a fun tradition that we share them together with family at our annual New Years family reunion. 

Thanks for stopping by. I will continue to slowly back post a few of my Christmas projects from 2023 in the weeks to follow. If interested, you can scroll back to see them.

Christmas Tree Lanterns

I put together these Christmas tree lanterns or luminaries to be used as gift card holders to give to friends and family this holiday season. 

The original svg template for the tree and star for this project was designed by Makamo Creations. I sized the template to as large as I could cut from a 12 x 12 sheet of Diamond Bazzill Bling cardstock and glued vellum panels inside.  I should mention that I also added a few extra star cuts on each panel of the tree to maximize the lantern glow. Once cut, the tree itself was very easy to fold and assemble; the gold star on top: not so much. Since I knew I would be needing a place to include a giftcard, I added a tree trunk and a square box as a base for the tree to stand.

The 3D star tree topper was probably the most challenging part of this entire project for me. The gold metallic foil board I chose to use was not very pliable and although I watched in amazement how the designer assembled the star using a hot glue gun in the tutorial, I knew there was no way my fingers would be able to stand the heat. Instead I opted to use Beacon 3 in 1 adhesive because I knew I'd be able to wipe off most of the excess glue mess with Un-du adhesive remover. I also glued several  flatback crystal gemstones in two sizes to each tree to give the tree some sparkle.

I made a cylinder from cardstock and attached it over a circle I had cut in the bottom of the tree for a tree trunk. This trunk was then glued  directly over a circle I had cut on the top of a square box for the base of my lantern. Gold foil board and glitter cardstock cut with Photoplay's "Merry Christmas" die was used for a glittery shadowed greeting and adhered to the front panel of the base.

Here's a view inside the box base with the flap lid open. Adding the cylindrical trunk and box created a place to easily access the on/off switch to the flameless candle for the lantern as well as a place where I could enclose a gift card.

These are the enclosure cards I made to hold the gift cards I placed in the base box of the Christmas tree lanterns. The front of the card is a piece of white cardstock hot foiled with Papertrey Ink's "Cascading Dots" plate which was layered on top red and green metallic foil board. Spellbinder's "Sealed Twine" die was used to cut the faux twine border from gold foil board and I added red and green  Merry Christmas wax seals. I used a Marvy Uchida DecoColor gold paint pen to color the impression on the seals.

This is what the Christmas tree lantern looks like with the flameless candle turned on. 

After wrapping thirteen Christmas tree lanterns in cellophane and gold ribbon, these tags were tied on.  I used the foiled cardstock left over from making the gift card enclosures, matted on gold foil board. Simon Hurley's "Joyful Christmas Sentiments" plates and dies were used to foil and die cut the sentiments. Inside, the tags included instructions to each recipient on where they would find the on/off switch to the lantern as well as their gift card.

Holiday Packaging for Chex Mix

I used the same paper pieced reindeer head and body svg file that I used to decorate my treat boxes (see previous post) to decorate these trays to hold bags of Chex Mix we made to share with family and friends.
 

Since these packages of Chex Mix were considerably larger than the packages of puffed rice, I opted to simply make a tray with front and back panels for the  Chex Mix to sit in.

I used the same tag idea I used for the smaller reindeer boxes, with small changes in the wording.

We filled smaller window mylar bags with Chex Mix for hubby's golf buddies.

 It's nice that these red mylar bags looked festive enough so all that was needed was to attach a fun gift tag. Found a cute clipart image of golfing Santa on Etsy to use for these.

For My "Deer" Friends

My first Christmas project of the season was a dozen of these reindeer treat boxes, made to share with friends at a holiday dinner get together.
 

Inspired by the many cute reindeer face images I saw online, I tried to create something similar in Make the Cut Design studio. I knew I would be putting puff rice treats in my boxes so I created the template for a flap style treat holder that would be just the right size for one package of puff rice treats.

The treat boxes were designed with a tuck in front flap closure. I glued the paper pieced reindeer heads onto this flap so the treat boxes could easily be opened simply by lifting up reindeer's head.

For a fun final touch, I created a "punny" print and cut gift tag and matted it with glitter cardstock to add to the front of the box. Tiny hearts were cut using a Carla Craft mini heart punch and the dies for the candy cane are from Karen Burniston's Stocking Pop Up die set.

Swing Through Accordion Thanksgiving Card

This is the card I put together to send with our little Thanksgiving "care package" to our granddaughter this year.  
 

I've been wanting to try a landscape format accordion card for quite awhile, especially after seeing all the wonderful cards others have been creating in this style.  For the base of my card, I used Lori Whitlock's Swing Through Valentine Card Cut file, and adjusted the length of the window and frame of the card to be rectangular. Each of the three panels measures 7.25" x 4.25".

Although the finished card is too large to fit into a legal size envelope, I intentionally made this card oversized because I wanted to be able to comfortably fit the cute raccoon and fox die cuts onto the panels.

Several different die sets were used to decorate the three card panels. Marianne Design Eline's Collectibles dies were used to create the fox and raccoon, Lawn Fawn's Grassy Borders, Karen Burniston's Upsy Daisy Pop Up for the flowers, Spellbinders Be Bold Blossoms for the leaves, and a retired Quickutz die for the pumpkin.

I added our computer/printer generated sentiment to the center panel of the accordion. Thank you for stopping by today. Hope you're having a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving!

Birthday Wishes for Some Bunny Special

Today I'm sharing the card and matching gift card holder I made to send to our daughter for her birthday. 
 

On the front of the card, I decorated the two panels showing through the window with my favorite  flowers  cut using Spellbinders "Be Bold Blooms" die set and a cute bunny cut and pieced together using dies from Marianne Design Eline's Collectable "Baby Bunny" Set. White pearlized cardstock was used for the panel insets and run through Cuttlebug's "Modern Wallpaper" embossing folder for texture. The sentiment was created using Memo and Hello Valentica fonts in Make the Cut design program. 

On the inside, I used a Doubled Hinged Pop Up mechanism to add movement for a fun interactive card. As the card is opened, the two side panels move apart to reveal the panel behind them. Video tutorial and templates for this pop up card by Tatyana Zhykova of Crazy Paper can be found here.

I used my printer to print the sentiment on the inside and cut it with a shadow layer on my Silhouette Cameo. 

Other than the two sentiments on this card, all other embellishments were created using the dies I mentioned earlier plus Karen Burniston's "Big Birthday Charms" set for the cake slice and presents.

My new favorite way to give a gift card is to enclose it in a box assembled using Karen Burniston's "Slider Box" dies and decorate it to match the card. Lawn Fawn's "Happy Birthday Border" die was used to cut the words on the front.

I always love a surprise element and I'm finding that it's fun to attach the gift card to a rubber band activated Bam Box and add in a pair of pop up cubes in the slider box for some birthday excitement. Pretty sure nearly everyone on my birthday card list will be getting one soon!