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. : )

Adventures of a Table Decoration (this is long)

Grab some coffee/cocoa, get comfy. :) This began as what I thought was a cute idea, but... I started out with the sleigh template, reduced the size so it would be more fitting to these gorgeous Flourishes reindeer. I stamped eight reindeer and embossed with gold EP, colored them with Prismacolors/baby oil. Then I started cutting them out with my craft knife. Took a break after cutting out two, cut out the sleigh (scissors). I inked the runners with silver Colorbox ink. Attacked the sides and base of the sleigh with Versamark, then sprinkled copper, a bit of irridescent, and then gold EP, shaking off between each sprinkling, hit them with the heat gun. The raised flourish is a Tim Holtz Grungegoard Element that I cut in half so each side would have it, embossed with a couple layers of gold EP, stuck them on the sleigh after it was put together. Cut out two more reindeer, then decided to see how they looked with the sleigh. Argh...the reindeer were too small. When I sized the sleigh to the reindeer I held the main part of the sleigh up to the stamp - DUH, not taking into consideration the runners. Double DUH! So out of frustration this got put to the side for, oh, about three weeks, covered with lots of other stuff. After an archeological dig (you haven't seen my desk) looking for something else, the reindeer were excavated. After all the work so far, I told myself "The Night Before Christmas" does say eight tiny reindeer ~grin~. At this point I didn't feel like cutting out the other four, so I attached the gold cord "reigns" and a tiny little jingle bell to each deer - they actually jingle, sounds so cute! My son asked how I got them to stand. Well, by sticking them to my fingers of course! Initially tried attaching one to a manila folder base and I got stuck to its hoof, I don't know how. Pulled myself off, and it flopped over like road kill. Here's where the recycled acetate packaging comes in handy. Cut some tabs, folded them up, and attached the hooves minus my fingers to the tabs. Wheeee, it worked! Used some red Stickles to attach the sprigs to the harnesses. Mounted the whole thing to cardboard base, glued down artificial snow. This sleigh is hauling some Hershey's Hugs! :) I will have this on my dining room table, at least until Christmas dinner. It has the raw edge on the cardboard showing here, but I will be putting it on some very fine sparkly white tulle and that will cover the base and provide more "snow".

Stamps: Flourished Christmas.

Paper: The Paper Studio, manila folder, cardboard.

Ink: Colorbox Queues, Versamark.

Accessories: Gold cord, tiny jingle bells, Stickles, MS branch punch, acetate, Tim Holtz Grungeboard, EP powder, snow, vacuum, threatening the cat when she jumps on the table to check it out.

Whiff of Joy Challenge 10

This was a fun challenge this week on the Whiff of Joy blog! They expanded the challenge from a bookmark to anything but a card. I used my all time favorite WOJ image, Willow With Cocoa, stamped her with StazOn and colored her with Prismacolor pencils blended with baby oil. Cut her out and embossed with an oval Nestabilities, chalking around her while still in the die. The mug was printed onto Kraft CS, cut out scored with my Scor-Pal. I used stamps from Filigree Fantasy by Verve. I stamped them with Versamark and embossed with copper embossing powder.

I put two packets of cocoa in the mug, along with a baggie of mini marshmallows, and four individual chocolate dipped peppermint sticks. The pic to the right is the back of the mug.

Stamps: Verve Filigree Fantasy.

Paper: The Paper Studio, Kraft CS.

Ink: StazOn, Versamark.

Accessories: Mug template, embossing powder, Prismacolor pencils and baby oil.