Home Made Gift Box

It's gift week at Heart 2 Heart, they want to see what we can make or dress up as a small gift for someone.

Well, PERFECT TIMING!  Who doesn't have little gifts to package up at this time of year? I have many small things, from perfume to ornaments as well as homemade goodies which need to be gift packaged. I like to give things in packaging that can be reused, I've kind of boycotted gift wrapping because it seems like such a waste of pretty paper. I much prefer reusable gift bags, or in this case a gift box which can be used as a decor item as well :)

Here's what I came up with:

Front

Back

And just when they think the house is the gift, they figure out that there is something inside:

Ta Da!! This one is full of cookies! 

I made these White Chocolate Cranberry oatmeal cookies,

and this little house holds them beautifully.

This looks difficult, but really isn't that hard. I've made quite a few of these now, and the possibilities for decoration are endless.  It starts with a template that you just print out onto your cardstock and then cut out.  Then you get to have fun with the embellishing.

The  reusable digital TEMPLATE for this little house can be found HERE.

To make this little house I used mostly CTMH products:

Cardstock in Desert Sand, Holiday Red and Topiary.

 Stamps D1377 Around the Block for doors and windows

and C1363 Beary Best for trees.

Inks in Topiary, Cocoa and Versamark

Z1366 Cocoa Ribbon Collection

 Embossing powder in White Daisy

Craft Heater

The white lace edging is from my stash.

The wreaths were made with paper shavings and Liquid Glass.

The snow is white glitter sprinkled over white craft glue.

I used strong Scor-Tape to adhere the parts together, this baby is going to last.

For more packaging inspiration, head over to the Heart 2 Heart Challenge blog for some fabulous ideas!

Thanks for visiting today,

Lorrinda

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This little box made the Friday Five this week!  How flattering to get chosen from among all the beautiful entries.  Thanks ladies!  Everyone's projects were so unique and inspiring, must have been a tough one for the judges.

H2H#25 Ready for a Sketch?

It's week #25 over at the Heart 2 Heart challenge blog! It seems like just yesterday Mary started this weekly challenge to showcase CTMH products, and it's been 1/2 a year already! If you would like some inspiration featuring fabulous CTMH products, you really should check out this blog. There are some very creative people sharing their art there!

This week is a sketch challenge!

Here is the sketch we are to use:

My kids are already talking about Halloween costumes, so that's where my inspiration came from today. I rarely give out Halloween cards, but I couldn't resist breaking in this stamp set:

Recipe:

All products CTMH

X7122B You Rock Level 2 Paper Packet for printed papers

Olive cardstock for card base

Black cardstock for mats

D1442 Thriller stamp set (skeleton, hearts and sentiment)

D1311 October Word Puzzle retired stamp set (bats random stamped background)

Black embossing powder and heat gun

2 black Photo Hangers

Black Organdy Ribbon

Scissors to distress edges

Inks in Black, Olive, Pansy Purple, Goldrush and Versamark
Techniques: embossing, masking, sponging, scissor edge distressing

Thank You  for visiting my blog!

Lorrinda

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Edited to add:

Guess I should be making more Halloween cards, this one was chosen for the Friday Five! Thank you ladies! H2H is one of my favorite places to get inspiration for CTMH products, it means a lot to me to have my card chosen by you!

H2H Challenge - How fancy are your folds?

I've missed playing along with the H2H challenges this summer!  I've been following along and there have been some fabulous challenges that I really wanted to join in, but I just never seemed to be able to find the time.

I'm baaaack!  I was so happy to send the kids off to school this morning so I could play! The challenge from Heart to Heart this week is to include fancy folds on your project. Not sure if this gatefold can be classified as a "fancy" fold as it is actually very simple...

...so I made the inside fancy to compensate!

Here it is fully open,

Recipe:

All product CTMH

Felicity paper pack (special promo, not available anymore :( so sad, I love these papers)

Stamps D1266 Baby Steps and D1262 Express Postage

"clothesline and pins" out of Waxy Flax in Colonial White

Inks in Twilight, Bamboo, Barn Red and Cocoa

I colored the images using a Blending Pen and ink pads

BabyBlue safety pins hold up the clothesline,

Cuttlebug and Sizzix texture plate in Harlequin for embossed background.

What do you think? Does this qualify as a fancy fold card?

 I'm entering it for this weeks' challenge at H2H anyway!

Thanks for popping by,

Lorrinda

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I wasn't sure this qualified as "fancy folds", but I guess the gals at H2H liked it anyway, because they chose it as one of their Friday Five this week. Thank you so much! I would sure hate to be one of the judges, I don't know how they choose just 5 from all the wonderful entries...

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

Happy 143rd Birthday Canada!

It's also the 1st of the month, which means a new challenge at Paper Cubed!

The challenge this month is to create a celebration table decoration!

I chose to decorate for Canada Day! 

Pop on over to P3 to see what the rest of the uber-talented design team has come up with! Don't forget to check out their blogs and leave them some love. While you're there, why don't you play along with our challenge? You could win some fabulous Tim Holtz products!

I am also entering this for the H2H challenge this week, which is "to get patriotic and use stars and/or stripes". Well, up here we celebrate Canada Day on July 1 and I used stripes! Canadians are patriotic too :)

(Click on the picture for a larger view)

Recipe:

CTMH papers from X7107B That's Amore and X7115B Jingle paper packs

CTMH D1291  Celebrate Canada (Retired) My Acrylix Stamp Set

CTMH Z2166 Tulip  and Z2114 Cocoa Exclusive Inks

CTMH Z679 Liquid Glass adhesive

CTMH  1385White Daisy and X5753Tulip Cardstock

4" styrofoam ball

wooden dowel

empty peanut can

florist oasis

hot glue gun

toothpicks

white satin ribbon

This topiary centerpiece was fairly easy to make, although time-consuming...

I started with a styrofoam ball and an empty peanut can stuffed with florist oasis with rocks under it to weight it (the ball can get top heavy when it's done).
I used a narrow dowel to suspend the styrofoam ball into the decorated can. Everything was secured with a hot glue gun.

Then I made many, many paper roses with various CTMH B&T duos papers in shades of Tulip and Cranberry, and white.
There are several paper rose tutorials on youtube, I modified mine to glue a toothpick into the center of each one so it could be stuck into the styrofoam ball.
Once the ball was full of roses, I filled in some of the open spaces with maple leaf stamped paper strips, also stuck in with toothpicks.

I then covered the top of the can with crinkled paper strips, and stuck in the heart shaped flags.

I plan to use this for Valentine's Day too, I'll just switch out the Maple Leaf stamped items for ones stamped with hearts!

As I post this, I realize I have been neglecting my blog for the past 12 days! My apolgies! June has been such a busy month, and we took the kids camping on the last day of school so I've been having internet withdrawal :( 

Thank you so much for continuing to visit my little craft blog!

Lorrinda

EDIT to add: I have had several requests for a paper rose tutorial, I found a very good photo tutorial HERE and a video with some shortcuts HERE. I combined the two to make my roses. I'd like to add that cardstock is too heavy to make these, printed paper works much better. If you have some that is printed on both sides (like CTMH B&T duos paper) even better!

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This project was chosen for the Friday Five at H2H challenges!  I was hoping a Canadian entry would make it into the "patriotic stars and/or stripes" challenge finalists. Thank you so much ladies!

H2H Challenge #6, Rockin' Birthday Card

The Heart to Heart Challenge this week is a "techie" challenge, meaning to use a technique on the project. You must check it out if you haven't already, this week's entries are full of new techniques and tutorials!

This also fits with the "masculine" challenge at TreehouseStamps.

I made a "Heavy Metal" Rock card for my son's upcoming birthday.
See if you can spot the techniques I used:

If you guessed 1) off-stamping, 2) embossing and 3) edge distressing, you'd be right.

1) Off-stamping is when you stamp the image several times without re-inking. In this case I stamped the rocker dude 4 times to imply motion. I think it turned out nice.

2) Embossing: I used a Sizzix texture plate with my Cuttlebug to emboss the silver metal in a "manly" way.

3) Edge distressing can be done several ways, here I used my scissors to distress the edges of the white cs, and inks to distress the edges of the orange cs.

I also layered the stamped images on the sentiment, but I'm not sure if that is a "technique" with a name.

RECIPE

My Acrylix Stamps:

D1432 X-Treme

C1257 Happy Birthday

D1320 Shining Star

X7122B You Rock Level 2 paper pack
CTMH Exclusive Inks in Outdoor Denim, Goldenrod, and Orange


Also, EK Success Silver Architexture Sheet Metal and Sizzix embossing plate

This card is for my baby's birthday on Monday, he'll be 9! (He likes Heavy Metal music when he works out with Dad)

Thanks for visiting my blog!
Lorrinda
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My card was chosen for the Friday Five this week,
Thank you ladies!

H2H Challenge #5

The Heart to Heart challenge this week is to make a Mother's Day Card. I already made one for last week's challenge to use ribbons, but I really wanted to play along...so I made another one!  I just LOVE this stamp set...I altered the sentiment with the word "mother" from the retired May Word Puzzle stamp set.

Recipe:
X7124B Splendor Level 2 paper pack
X7121B Caboodle Level 2 paper pack
C1398 Love You Forever My acrylix stamp
Z1114 Piercing tool kit
Z1123 Sorbet ribbon collection
Z1284 Winter craft buttons
4275 Black My Legacy Writer pen


All product CTMH except for DMC floss #352

Now I can't decide which Mother's Day card to give to my Mom, I like them both! (see post below this one) Which one do you like better? Leave me a comment with your vote :)

Thanks for visiting my blog,
Lorrinda

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I Made the Friday Five this week with this card! I'm so flattered!

P.S. I chose to give this card to my Mom instead of the ribbon one. She loved it.

H2H Challenge #3

The gals have come up with a sketch challenge this week:

Here is what I came up with:

Here is a close-up of the details:

Recipe for this card:

Topstitch Level2 paper pack

Heavenly blue and white cardstock

D1407 Piece of Cake My Acrylix Stamp Set

CTMH Exclusive Inks in Chocolate, Heavenly Blue, and Blush

Liquid Glass 

punched paper flowers

brads and eyelets

"candle" made of small white beads

"flame" made of ribbon scraps

Ribbon and ricrac

The "crystal" in the center of the cake stand is a glass bead, adhered with Liquid Glass.

If you haven't checked out Heart 2 Heart challenges yet, what are you waiting for? The design team is creating some very inspiring pieces for us, and judging by the entries, there's alot of talented Close To My Heart fans out there. If you're looking for some inspiration to make the best use of your Close To My Heart supplies, be sure to check it out!

Edited to add:  I realized after posting this card, that it matches my blog background perfectly! LOL it was not planned.

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Yipee again! I made the Friday Five with this card!

Heart 2 Heart Challenge #1

If you {heart} Close To My Heart and challenges, then there is a new challenge blog just for you! Or, if you're not up to being challenged but need to be inspired with some CTMH artwork, then check it out!

There will be a variety of challenges posted and Close To My Heart products are required to enter. Don't have any CTMH products? Then Beg, Borrow or BUY from your fabulous CTMH Consultant!

Sponsored and created by Independent Consultants for Close To My Heart, all challenges will be posted on Monday mornings with the deadline to enter each week on Sunday at 10:00 pm EST.

If you're feeling up for a CTMH challenge check out  http://heart2heartchallenges.blogspot.com/  and play along!

 Heart 2 Heart CHALLENGE #1

(Apr.5,2010) is a Color Challenge:

Here is my entry for this challenge:

It's a cute little hanging birdhouse to celebrate Spring!

BIRDHOUSE RECIPE

All product CTMH:

*cardstock: Sweetleaf, Sunflower, Chocolate, Colonial White

*B&T duo paper: Emporium kit

*Inks: Sweetleaf, Sunflower, Chocolate

* My Acrylix Stamps: D1418 Felicity, D1377 Around the Block, C1366 Fringed Phrases

*Black brads

*Waxy flax, colonial white

*Sunflower dots orgunday ribbon

Other tools used:

*Bird Box template from Nicole Heady, PTI can be found here:

*Picket fence punch from Martha Stewart
*Nestabilities Labels One die cut shape


Thanks for visiting my blog!
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Yipee!  I made the first  Friday Five with my little birdhouse!