Valentine Pop Up Card Box

Happy Valentine's Day! I made Cupid Hello Kitty themed cookie boxes to share with my "gal-entines" this  year.
 

I found a few cute Cupid Hello Kitty images in my library of Hello Kitty coloring books and converted them into cutting files to piece together for my hinged lid boxes.  I used Hello Kitty peeking from behind a cloud for the box front and used a Happy Valentines Day sentiment die from Mama Elephant for the greeting.

Opening the box reveals a pop up scene on the lid inside. 

Amazed by the many beautiful and unique pop up packaging designs I've been seeing on Pinterest created to hold expensive Asian cookies and teas, I knew I wanted to give this style of box a try. Of course, my simple two tier pop up can't be compared to the intricate boxes that inspired me, but it was fun trying to figure out how to make one.

I started by using a svg cutting file template for a rectangular hinged lid box with reinforced sides from "Stick and Crop". 

After enlarging and altering the original template to create a box 5.25" x 4.5" x 1.5", I created and glued an insert with a depth of 1 inch to the inside of the box to be the platform for the pop up.  Hello Kitty and clouds were then popped up with strips of cardstock glued in as cubes.

Boxes were filled with  homemade shortbread cookies for special friends.  This was a fun box to learn to make. Thinking that next time I may want to try this style of box again, but maybe with a different type of pop up mechanism inside.

Ssss-sensational Year of the Ssss-snake Crafty Goodies

Today I want to share some of the fun and crafty goodies I received from my creative friends to celebrate the New Year.

Every year my mom makes plastic canvas refrigerator magnets to celebrate the lunar animal of the year and shares them with family at our New Year family reunion lunch. This year she had a difficult time finding a plastic canvas pattern for a snake that could be sized down for a refrigerator magnet, so  instead she converted a cross stitch pattern I found online into one she could use for plastic canvas. I especially liked how she added a fancy frame and gold cording to accent the snake.

My sweet friend Lorna put together a ssss-super kawaii daruma snake paper piecing to embellish a wrapper for a treat package of ramen. She also created cute gift tags using a print and cut image of a Japanese ceramic snake bell with a gold metallic shadow layer.

My dear friend Bev created this show stopping pop up Year of the Snake Chinese New Year card. As always, her interactive cards have the "wow factor" and are amazing.  If you'd like to try to recreate this fun card, the video tutorial by Peter Dahmen Papierdesign  can be found here on You Tube.

This adorable miniature hanging paper lantern and paper pieced Pochacco treat box were put together by my super talented friend Kris. The tiny paper lantern is very cute, embellished with shimmery gold blossoms and tassel. It's just large enough to hold a tea light and so pretty with the light shining through its vellum panels. The tutorial and free svg cutfile for the lantern can be found at Craft with Sarah website.  I think Pochacco looks just too irresistible dressed in his Mandarin jacket,  holding a string of firecrackers to celebrate the New Year!

I'm very fortunate to have a circle of creative friends who always generously share their handmade treasures with me. Looking forward to another fun year of crafty inspiration from them!

Year of the Snake Calendars

Here's our annual Lunar Calendar/Thank You Card/New Years Card for 2025 that we sent out to family and friends. This year I decided to try something a little different than the usual top or side fold card and instead, made a card with a pocket to slide the decorated calendar magnet into.

I used gold metallic foil board for the base of the card and red pearlescent text weight paper to create the pocket over it. To give the pocket a festive look, I hot foiled gold fireworks onto the red papers using the Spellbinders Glimmer System prior to trimming. An Elizabeth Craft Designs word die was used to cut the "Happy New Year" from gold foil board, and I used Make the Cut Design program to create a shadow layer for it.

My 2025 Year of the Snake calendar design was inspired by the work of several talented graphic artists like Atlantico54 and Baby Sofja.  Cutting file for the snake was created and numbers for the year were traced from Christie font using Make the Cut Design program. Pink blossoms and stamens were cut using Punch Bunch mini punches. Although the design for this year's calendar was simple to piece together, the multiple shadows and layers took a bit of time to cut and assemble. Thankfully, my dear friend Pat came to my rescue to help get nearly 60 of these calendar magnets completed.

One of the problems I ran into making these calendars this year was that my usual supplier for the mini tear off calendars, Impress Rubber Stamps closed their business in 2024. After spending much time searching for an alternate, I purchased mini calendars from Paper Accents because theirs were closest in size to what I had used in the past. They were reasonably priced and came in a package of ten. Unfortunately, all ten calendars came bound together as one pad, and I had a difficult time separating the calendars without pages falling off. I ended up having to glue individual pages back onto several of the calendars, and it's questionable whether those pages will tear off nicely. Definitely will need to start searching for another supplier for my 2026 calendars early this year.

Not a very good photo but  since it was the only one I had of all of us together, I used this selfie group photo taken while our daughter and her family  were visiting to create the back panel to the pocket card.

2025 Slithers in like a Snake

Gung Hei Fat Choy! Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year of the Snake. To celebrate, I baked several batches of almond cookies and made twenty of these shadowbox treat holders with handles to put them in to share with friends and family.

To make the box, I used a digital cutting file called "Fold Over Box" designed by Pebbles In My Pocket. I enlarged the size of the original template to create a cube shaped box that was 3.75 inches in height, width, and depth to ensure I could get at least 10 medium sized cookies to fit inside. I added a circular cut out to the template for the front of the box and added clear acetate for the window. A round frame cut from gold glitter cardstock was then glued onto the front of the window.

To add the shadowbox to the window, I first created a square tray with a depth of 1/4 inch. I

adhered a square piece of gold foil board which had been embossed with the "Weaving Blocks" embossing folder from Craft Concepts to the inside of the tray. Cutting file for the paper pieced snake was inspired by littlemandyart and created in Make the Cut. The snake was then added to the tray using foam tape for dimension, and finally, the tray was glued to the inside of the box, behind the window. 

On the back of the box, I added a stylized, circular Chinese "fu" character for good luck, cut from gold foil board. Cutting file for this was also created in Make the Cut.

Then, since hubby spent this morning golfing, I packed some cookies for him to share with his golf club members. I got the cute snake in a lion costume image to create the labels from "Shiok Artistry" on Etsy.

I also made several of these decorated "lai see" or red envelopes to pass out with the boxes of cookies.

Inspired by several similar cute Chinese New Year Snake illustrations on Pinterest, I used Make the Cut Design program to create a cutting file of a snake peeking out of  a red Chinese money bag. 

The gold Asian coins were cut from gold foil board using the "Asian Accessories" die set from Elizabeth Craft Designs. All pieces for the snake and red bag were cut from pearlescent cardstock on the Silhouette Cameo. The snake heads were glued separately onto the envelope flaps so the recipients could lift the heads to access the "gifts" inside.

The good news is that the Year of the Snake promises to bring positive transformation, personal growth and wisdom. Best wishes to all for a year of good health and many happy days of crafting!

Christmas Sliceform Lanterns

After having made sliceform sphere shaped lanterns for hubby's birthday and to send to our granddaughter for Halloween, I thought I would challenge myself to make them as Christmas gift card holders for family and friends.

       

I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the photos in this post. I didn't realize until later that the fairy lights I had used to illuminate these lanterns were a bit too bright to get photos with good contrast to  clearly show the detailed cuts inside each sphere.

If you look closely inside the sphere, you should be able to see Santa in his sleigh pulled by eight reindeer flying across the sky as a bunny and squirrel look on in the foreground. The template to make this Christmas themed sliceform sphere was purchased  from designer M3DArt on Etsy.  

Each sphere required 15 sheets of 8.5 x 11 size cardstock and measures about 6.25 inches in diameter. I used Neenah Exact Index 110 lb cardstock to cut the layers, but after assembling a dozen of these, I now know that a lighter weight cardstock, (maybe 80 lb?) would probably have cut cleaner and been easier to assemble.

I used a freebie template from 3D Fancy to make the octagonal base, which was designed with a space to house the light source for the lantern. I used strings of fairy lights with 20 LED bulbs, but as mentioned earlier, a string with less bulbs may have been a better choice.

I hot foiled and die cut my Happy Holidays sentiment using Simon Hurley's "Joyful Christmas Collection" Glimmer Plates and attached it to a fancy label which had been die cut using a very old Spellbinders "Fancy Tags Two" die set. This was then glued to the front of the base.

Under the base, I added a panel matted with gold foil board with our sentiment and half circle cuts to hold a gift card.

The lanterns which I planned to hand deliver were wrapped in acetate bags tied with a festive gold bow.

Found a cute image of Santa in his sleigh which I thought was perfect for my hang tags. Instructions on how to light the lantern and where to find the gift card were printed inside.

Coolest thing about these spheres is how they collapse down to nearly flat, which made this gift super easy to mail to friends and family faraway.

Sweet Ho-Ho Holiday Wishes!

Inspired by some cute Santa Claus gift bags I saw online, my Chex Mix carriers this Christmas featured none other than Saint Nick himself.
 

I liked the design of the Chex Mix carriers I made last Christmas so I decided to go with the same template again this year. Very simple to put together, these are shallow boxes made to fit the bottom of the bags of Chex Mix with tall panels glued onto the front and back. Holes were punched at the top of the panels so I could attach a bow to keep it closed.

Using Make the Cut Design Program, I created a cutting file for a paper pieced peeking Santa from a coloring book image found on Pinterest. Santa's beard was done as a Print and Cut so I could add our "Ho-Ho Holiday wishes!" sentiment.

Found a fun image of Santa on the golf course which I used to print up labels to use on smaller bags of Chex Mix for hubby to share with his golf club buddies.

Christmas Tags and Things

Found the cutest polar bear Christmas wrapping paper at Hallmark this year and wanted to make matching gift tags.

I used Lawn Fawn's Stitched Circle Tags to cut silver foil board for the base and Spellbinders  nestabilities dies to cut the circles from blue dotted cardstock. Polar bears were cut and paper pieced using Eline's Collectables Arctic Bear die set.

At the last minute I needed a few gift card holders to include with some gift baskets. These simple top fold cards with pockets inside for gift cards came together quickly. I decorated the fronts with different sized die cut snowflakes from MFT DieNamics "Let It Snowflake" die and flatback rhinestones.

This little polar bear tag was the answer to the problem I have every Christmas of figuring out which bag of presents goes to which family. After having delivered the wrong bag of gifts to a friend last year, I knew something had to be done.

I added the family names to  cute a print and cut images of a Doodlebug polar bear from the Lori Whitlock Shop. Before cutting, I also added a small slit, just large enough for a paper clip to fit to the cut file.

This way, I was able to clip the polar bears to their correct bags before loading them into my car. Sitting on the edge of the bags these polar bears labeled with names are easy to see and no more worries of delivering the wrong bag to the the wrong family.