Fairytale Wedding

Here's my second take on a Cinderella themed wedding card. This one was made for the son of my coworker who got married in December. My first Cinderella wedding card was a shaker card, but this time, I was inspired by a beautiful shadowbox card by Thyme Graphics found here.

The basic concept of this is the same as with the ever popular pop up box cards. with the struts inside the box to hold the design elements. Adding a framed window makes this into a shadowbox.

Most of the cutting files I used were the same as I used for my first card. Cinderella with Prince Charming silhouette image comes from Cricut's Happily Ever After cartridge and the castle is a coloring book image found on the web which was converted into a cutting file via Make the Cut program. This time I also added a pumpkin carriage which was created by welding an image of a pumpkin together with an image of carriage wheels.

Added the names of the bride and groom to the front of the card and backed it with some pretty glittery paper. Pharmacy true type font was used to create the cutting file for this.

View from the top shows a peek at the struts which were adhered to the card below the window with the castle and carriage glued on to them.

I added a card to the back of the box with a side tab to keep the card closed. The background layer was run through Cuttlebug's Jamara embossing folder to add some pretty texture.

Then on the inside I added my sentiment and a side pocket to hold an envelope of gift cash. In the end I was slightly disappointed that I had not taken the time to dress up the back panel in the shadow box a bit. Maybe something as simple as running it through an embossing folder might have made it look much nicer. don't you think? Hopefully I can remember to try that for next time!

Girls Day Ningyo-gami

I apologize for being a little late with this, but just HAD to share these jaw dropping FABULOUS Girls Day treat boxes we received from our super talented friend Lorna!

Lorna made these beautiful Japanese dolls known as "ningyo gami" from paper, placing each doll in its own little "doll case". If you look closely you'll see that the doll cases are actually cellophane bags turned upside down. Yowza! How creative is that?!!!

And if you dared to even take this apart, you'd find that the base of the doll case is a box with sweet mochi candies hidden inside! Totally amazing, right?
But wait, there's more....

Here are the adorable treat holders Lorna made to share with her Bon Dance Club friends. Flip the kawaii paper pieced kokeshi doll over to find the sweet candies strapped to the backside. Once again, Lorna and her creative mojo are on fire! Don't know how she does it, but this creative gal never fails to come up with the most amazing treats and surprises. Thank you, Lorna!

About To Hatch!

The best Christmas gift hubby and I got last year was a phone call the day after Christmas from my daughter and son in law with news they were coming home for an unplanned visit in January. Last minute though it was, we decided to throw a baby shower for them, giving us just 2 weeks to put everything together. Crazy, huh. Not even enough time to send out invitations, but since a lot of the family would be coming over for our New Years Day family reunion, invites were entirely by word of mouth.

Theme of the shower was "About To Hatch". First glance at the party table and one would think this was for an Easter party. This was not my first choice for a baby shower theme. But sometimes you just gotta go with the flow... You see, when we made the announcement of the baby shower at our New Years Day party, my mom and aunties had "Year of the Rooster" in their heads, thinking it would be "cute" to have a rooster themed shower. Not even!  IMO, "Year of the Rooster" is not an appropriate theme for a baby shower, and especially not for a baby girl! I would have much preferred to do a "Princess" themed shower, but as a compromise, I came up with the "About To Hatch" theme...uh, well afterall, roosters all started out as baby chicks, right?

With not much time to plan and prepare, I had to keep everything simple. The cut file I used for the banner was the same one I had originally created 5 years ago when I made my daughter's "Just Married" wedding banner. I used Teletype font and MTC to create the alphas and hatching chick cut file comes from My Scrap Chick.

I had just enough time make simple favor bags for the guests and a diaper cake for the parents to be.

I was surprised at how quickly this diaper came together. Found a great tutorial for this by Mischele over at Bean Sprout Notes blog. Using a springform pan to hold the diapers in place to shape the layers and an empty paper towel roll to keep the layers stacked made this so easy!

Finished it off by covering the layers with receiving blankets, and adding bows and tulle roses. Sweet teddy dressed in the chick costume was a

Baby bottles filled with Hershey kisses and M & M's candies doubled as a cute table decor as well as a "Guess How Many" shower game.

And I just couldn't resist buying these adorable "chirping chicks" and egg shaped egg timers! 

Made 28 of these favor bags using a hatching chick paper piecing from My Scrap Chick's "Easter Chicks" collection.

Filled them with homemade chocolate chip cookies and added our thank you message on the inside.

Big hugs and special thanks to our dear sweet friend Heather who baked and decorated several of the cutest chickie and baby themed cookies ever! I used a few to decorate my daughter's favorite Lemon Crunch Cake, and the rest we individually sealed in cello bags to be used as game prizes. Darn! I really thought I had taken photos of the rest of the cookies...but I guess I didn't...I'm so mad at myself!

Thank you from our hearts also to our very special aunt who worked very hard making these lovely chicken and rooster themed kitchen towels for each of our guests. 

Whew! Now that it's over, I am still amazed that we were able to pull all of this off on such short notice...but it was fun and I'm so glad we did!

Fan Boxes for Girls Day

In celebration of Girls Day or Hina Matsuri I made fan shaped treat boxes to share with friends and family.

I actually started designing these boxes last year right before Girls Day but wasn't happy with how it looked, got frustrated, and left the template unfinished. Lacking fresh ideas for a Girls Day treat box again this year, I forced myself to finally finish it. I used a green cardstock (Bazzill Bling Petty Cash) for the lids and pink (Bazzill Romance) for the bottoms mostly just because I liked the color combo, and later liked it even more when I noticed how much it resembled the traditional pink and green diamond shaped mochi (Hishi mochi) associated with Girls Day.

To decorate the top of the box I used the fan cut from Cricut's Pagoda cartridge. The cute Japanese girl paper piecing is "Chibi Geisha Girl with Lantern" from SVG Cutting Files.

White and glitter Gelly Roll pens were used to add a simple design to the kimono and the lantern was run through a crimper to add some dimension. Cherry blossoms for her hair were cut using a Carl sakura punch.

Finished ten of these boxes just in time for Girls Day and  filled them with Japanese peach flavored candies. Wished I could have filled them with mochi instead but sadly the store I usually buy from didn't have them this year.

Also want to share this very cute and oh so creative lantern treat box designed by my sweet friend Lorna. Lorna created these as favors for a friend's party, but I thought they would be perfect as Girls Day treat boxes too. Definitely need to store this idea in the back of my brain to CASE later!

Panda Thank You's

Quick post today to share my very belated thank you cards that I'm actually still in the midst of finishing...

Stamped and colored panda is from Mama Elephant's Incoming Mail stamp set. And the layout design for the card was inspired by a super cute card by Christina of Bubblegum Paper blog.

Christina used the Mama Elephant script die to cut a negative on the front of her card, but since I don't own that die, I tried to improvise by creating a cut file using Ballerina font and having my Silhouette cut it on the front of the card. As you can tell from the photo, it did not cut as clean and perfect as you would get from a metal die.

Although I wasn't entirely happy with how my cards turned out, they were pretty much quick to put together so that was good enough for this time. Anxious to give this card design another try soon when I'm not in such a hurry...and hopefully then I'll be happier with the result!

Sweet Valentines

Happy Valentines Day! I made heart shaped cookie boxes this year and filled them with sugar cookies to share with family and friends.

The front of the boxes were decorated with paper pieced images of My Melody using cutfiles created in Make the Cut design program.

The Happy Valentines Day sentiment was die cut using a metal die from Mama Elephant, and the colorful hearts background paper is a digital file purchased from Bella Blvd.

Here are the side and back views of the box. The box is actually my copy cat version of the Valentines Lindor truffle box from Lindt Chocolates which I created in Make the Cut by welding basic shapes together. The size of this box is approximately 8 inches high and wide with a depth of about 2 inches; large enough to hold half a dozen medium size cookies.

After putting together a dozen of the My Melody cookie boxes, I realized I needed something less girly for my son in law...so I decorated  his box with a paper pieced Pochacco.

Had so much fun with little Pochacco and since I still had a bit more time, I decided to make half a dozen more...but this time in a smaller size to fill with chocolates to share with friends at work.

The size of this smaller box is about 6 inches wide and high with a depth of 1-1/2 inches. Especially nice since it only took one sheet of 12 x 12 cardstock to make each box. To save time and make these more quickly, I did a print and cut instead of a paper piecing of  Pochacco for the smaller boxes. The "Love" sentiment was cut using a die from Elizabeth Craft Designs, and I used another digital file from Bella Blvd for the heart panel.

These sweet little Dove chocolate heart holders are from dear Lorna. The adorable little teddy is a stamped image from Dandelion Designs, and though it's hard to see in the photo, his little hands are curved to hold the chocolate heart...too cute!!!

Talk about cute...how about these little Hershey kiss-y mice that were brought in for us at work by a very creative customer! Love those googly eyes!
Hope everyone had a fun Valentines Day today sharing the love!

Welcoming In the New Year 2017

Here are the Year of the Rooster magnetic calendars I put together this year for sharing with family and friends. In past years I've usually had at least half of my calendars done in time for donating to the Senior Citizen Craft Fair which is held in the fall, but I unfortunately I just wasn't able to get these started until after Christmas this year. Ugh! My lack of time management skills is showing again. Luckily, I was able to crank out three dozen of these just in time for New Years...whew!

Using the Make the Cut program made designing my calendars quick and easy. Arial font was used for the year and I chose a very simple design for a rooster so it wouldn't take too long to piece together. Mini calendars were purchased online from Impress Rubber Stamps. On the backside I added Darice adhesive magnet strips and backed them with foam tape for stability. Red sakura patterned paper is from the Cherry Delight collection from My Little Shoe Box.

To go with the calendars, I baked a few batches of Oriental Crispix cereal snack mix, and boxed them in take out boxes tagged with these Year of the Rooster tags. Isn't this little rooster adorable? I found him (together with many more Fluff Friends) posted here. I used Make the Cut to render him into a cutting file and used Lawn Fawn's Stitched Circle Tags die to cut a tag to put him on.

Both "Year of the Rooster" and the back sentiment on the tags were computer generated in Microsoft Word and cut into circles to fit the tags using the print and cut function on the Silhouette and Make the Cut.

Then for a very special aunt, I made another double hinged box, this time decorated with washi paper and a stamped and colored Sister Stamps image, "Pounding Mochi" to hold a gift card.

On the inside I placed a pop up insert to nicely hold the gift card in place. Video tutorial by Crafty Caroline for the double hinged box can be seen here, and the template for the gift card insert comes from the Holiday Cheer Box Collection at SVG Attic.