Exploding Gift Card Holder

When Diane posted the Heartwarming Vintage/Crafty Secrets bi-weekly challenge on Papercraft Planet to create a gift card holder, my mind went immediately to this creation. I had seen the "exploding" boxes on different blogs, but completely fell in love with Elaine's Magic Boxes. Her designs and details are jaw-dropping. Mine is much more simplistic, and I really like how it turned out.

This box is for a friend of my daughter who is getting married 5/22. Still can't believe Jose is getting married. Jose is from Chile, and he and my daughter met and became friends in 8th grade. Many good memories that include him, but will write a brief of my favorite "Jose moment" at the end of this post. :)

The pictures aren't great because they were taken using a flash; no natural light because it was night time, so the colors are washed out a bit.

Using Versafine, I stamped each outside panel with stamps from Crafty Secrets "Cherish" and "Flourishes" sets, then embossed with gold EP. Inside each flourish I put the bride's and groom's initial using Justrite Font, embossed that as well. Used Deco corner punch and then inked the edges with Pumice Stone Distress Ink. Mounted those to metallic lavender paper, and then mounted to the box side panels. The lid was made from the same metallic lavender. Used MS Cornice edge punch for the sides. Cut and embossed a scalloped square Nestabilities and attached that to the lid. MS med and lg water lilly punches were used for the flowers on top. Ran them through a CB to add more detail to them, then attached to top. Some flat-backed pearls were added to the center of the flowers, and a tiny one in the center of each side of the top.

For the inside panels, I mounted this gorgeous gold embossed paper I've had in my stash for eons to the stiff backer board from a pad of decorative paper. This gave the box good stability, and also added perfect weight to give a good "flop" effect when the lid is taken off. I made and attached the stand for the card, then stamped and embossed the corners of a square piece of CS with a CS Flourish. Cut the square on the diagonal and attached it over the card holder. All the flowers and leaves were made from various punches, painted with Twinkling H2O's or sprayed with Glimmer Mist, and attached in various places with Stickles. One was attached to each panel. Four others were attached to acetate strips, with the other end being threaded through the flourished panels before it was attached. When the box opens, the panels flop down and the flowers on the acetate strips spring outward and sway. Again see Elaine's blog for more of those.

Okay, here's the "Jose moment": About five years ago I was in the grocery store checkout line with my daughter and six of her friends, getting supplies for a party at our house. All of these kids were in ROTC together, and all called me Mommy (still do). As I was about to pay for our goodies, one of the boys, Paul, was trying to get my attention and started bobbing up and down and saying "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" over and over. The others quickly followed suit, and soon there were seven teenagers bobbing up and down and repeating "Mommy....". Not loud or disturbing anyone. The cashier looked at them - and me - with a strange expression. I told them to shush and they all piped down right away. Jose happened to be standing right next to me. He flashed his brilliant smile at the cashier, and in his very thick Chilean accent said "we all have different daddies". Ay yay yay. I just shook my head, and then we all started giggling. Still not sure to this day that the cashier didn't think they were all mine, all from different daddies. : )

Tiny Note Cards

This is the other post that was supposed to go up over the weekend. Let's see if I got that scheduled post thing right this time. : )

I had such fun making these. I received a little card tucked into a gift bag and that is where I got the idea for this fold. The final size of these is 3x3, a tri-fold. I used Kraft CS. After folding I used the SU! scalloped border punch on the front edge. Martha Stewart Hydrangea pop-up punch was used for the flowers. I punched several out completely from scrap paper and used them for masks so I could emboss the background. Used part of the SU! French Flair BG stamp, stamped with Versamark and embossed with clear EP. Then I colored the flowers with chalk inks, and added Spica glitter pen to the edges of the petals. Also inked the surface under the top layer to coordinate with the flower petals. I made a set of eight, two in each color.

A Missed Post

I had scheduled a couple of posts that were supposed to go up while I was gone to Houston over the weekend. Or so I thought. When I realized that they hadn't posted, I thought maybe there was a problem with Blogger. Before I sent a message, I looked over few things and found out it was a PEBKAC error. I hate those. PEBKAC error = Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair. In other words...I goofed. So here is one of the posts that was supposed to post while I was gone. Grrrr... The other I have scheduled to post tomorrow, to see if I corrected that PEBKAC error. : )

While my daughter was home for spring break, she and I went to a concert at the Austin Rodeo. Before it started we were wandering around the vendor booths, bought some silly hats (and I will wear mine when we go tubing this summer!) and some pretty rings. We came to one booth that had some beautiful plaques done in sort of shabby chic. Shelbie looked at one she liked, but when she saw the price she was shocked. So was I! The lady was selling these plaques for $40-60. I told Shelbie I would make her one, and this is what I came up with. It was fun to play with different stuff. I think she'll like it. The picture on the left is a bit washed out from the flash, but you see the overall shot. The smaller one below is more true to color.

I got the pine plaque at Hobby Lobby, painted it with acrylic paint. Intentionally cut the DP so it would not match up perfectly. Scruffied that up with an emery board and then used Mod Podge to glue it to the plaque. Used the beautiful Maribel image, stamped with Ranger archival ink and colored with Distress Inks, and cut her out with deckle edge scissors. Made a rough mat with the same scissors and used Distress Ink on it as well. Then glued on various sized paper roses, punched some leaves and added veins with an embossing tool. Added Stickles to the tiny rosebuds before attaching those, then added the butterfly brad after I attacked it with copper Stickles on the wings. The sentiment I printed from my computer, onto plain copy paper that I "aged" by dunking into some water to which I had added a couple drops of Tea Dye Reinker. I tore the edges while it was still wet and then inked them. After it was dry I sprayed it with two different colors of Glimmer Mist. You can see the sheen if you click on the image. I glued on the Spellbinders Doodleparts flourish, added some flat-backed pearls. Used three different ribbons in different colors, one organza and two satins for the hanger, and threaded faceted beads onto the thinnest ribbon. I attached an eye-ring to the bottom center of the plaque and to that attached the filagree medallion. Another eye-ring, some tiny beads and more faceted beads, then an angel charm at the end, and that dangles from the bottom. Sorry so dark. I'm using a different camera and haven't made friends with it yet.

Blog Candy Winner!!!

I know, I'm late. Sorry! We went to the wedding in Houston and all was well...until Saturday, the day of the wedding. I woke up feeling like a truck ran over me - sore throat, cough, fever, aching. Ugh. Okay, I'll have a little cheese with my whine. : ) Made it through the day, through the wedding, and dropped like a rock after that. Got home Sunday afternoon, went to bed. Finally got out of bed yesterday, after missing two days of work. So here I am now, about 70% better and ready to give away some candy!!!!

I wrote all the names on pieces of paper and put them in a jar, shook it up and pulled out a name. No, I didn't take a picture of that process, because I don't have a cute little (anymore) girl to draw the name, and my cute 16 y/o son would have preferred doing housework than me taking a picture of him pulling a piece of paper from a jar and posting it on here. Stinker. : ) So without further ado:

The winner is....Debbi ! Yay! Clap, clap, clap! : )

Please e-mail me by 9 p.m. (CST) Saturday night, April 10, with your snail mail addie so I can get this box sent to you.