This Little Piggy is a Valentine Little Piggy!

When I first saw Hunkydory Box Pops (last year) I fell in love with them and bought two sets.  Farm and Jungle.  And … I bought them just to make for my Grandson, Little Cobs.

I made him one at Christmas (and forgot to share it with you!  tsk) – a Christmas Crocodile – in a clear box, to which I’d added a bundle of ‘snowballs’ – and he loved it.  (Who says you can only make Christmas cards for children with Rudolph or Santa on them?)

You can make these Box Pops as simple or as complicated as you like, and can use them for almost any occasion too!  For Children, they fit the bill and work perfectly.  But … I can actually see that they could work for adults.  They inject an element of fun into a card.

You make up your chosen animal using the die cut elements.  Then you can either press it flat and put it into an envelope (envelopes come supplied with the die cuts), or you can make an Acetate box and pop your card into it so that the recipient can keep the card held inside the box after they’ve displayed it – or you can seal the box shut so that the card will be held inside the box and protected.  (If you’re not good at making boxes then there are boxes, cut to size and ready scored, from Hunkydory).

In the above photo – I tried to light piggy so that you could see the folds of the ‘box’ which make the body of the pig.  Hence the reason they’re called ‘box pops’.

Once made up, you can simply press your animal flat and put it in an envelope – but it will pop back up when the recipient opens it up when they receive it.  The head is fixed to the body by a folded piece of acetate, which gives the card ‘nodding dog’ look. (or in this case nodding pig).  So cute!

This Little Piggy Loves You.  (Well it would ….  after all, it’s a Valentines Pig!)

I made the lid of the box out of acetate, so that the pig can be viewed from the sides and the top.  And … the funny thing is … when you look at piggy through the sides, he’s looking at you.  But when you view piggy from above …  he’s still looking at you!  How does that happen?  Is it magic?  Maybe piggy is  Super Pig  –  (like Super Man).

I added hearts and stars which I sprinkled around the inside, and finally added a ribbon handle, and ribbon around the base and the lid, and VOILA!  One Valentines Card, from a Grammy to her 5-year-old Grandson.

So ….  Happy Monday! 

I know Mondays can be drab sometimes, but give it chance.  You know they nearly always get better, even if you don’t feel the ‘happy’ straight away.  Give the day chance to show you the warmth, the smiles, and even the love.  Allow yourself to have a lovey day!

Most of all . . . whatever you’re doing today,  be good to yourself  …  and to each other.  It helps the world go around and makes life so much enjoyable and pleasant.  And the world could do with a lot more enjoyable and pleasant in it.

Have a truly blessed day.  Heaps of love and squidges from my corner, to yours …

 

Just to let you know … I don’t receive anything in the way of payment or remuneration from any suppliers mentioned in this post or any other post.  I will only recommend to you items which I’ve used and work for me and ones I’m impressed with. 

The Hunkydory products talked about in this post were bought by me.  No items were gifted from companies, and I have received no payment in any way or form, for chatting with you about them.

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Racing towards a Birthday

Guess who had a play in their craft room?  [grins]  I’m still not feeling 100%  and the mojo is still M.I.A.  and hiding somewhere in the craft room, but I’m still on the case and, with the help of our dog (an animal who can smell a biscuit crumb from 30 yards) I’m hoping to find that missing mojo very soon.

In the meantime I put together a Birthday card made with components from Hunkydory.

It’s a 3D card which folds completely flat, so no need for a big box.  When opened up (into an X shape) the middle sections are hung from invisible thread (from my sewing threads box)  and the two dimpled gold rings, and the central disc picturing the racing car, spin around – in a slight breeze (from opening a door nearby), or if you blow very gently on them.

below are three photos which show each ‘quarter’ of the card so that you can see it from all sides.

So – finally,  one card done!  That’s a big move forward in the right direction.  I’m off again to the craft room this afternoon, so fingers crossed …  there might be something else to share on another day soon. [GRINS a very hopeful grin!]

Happy Wednesday the 18th of January!  Did you know that … on this day in History:-

• 1644 –  Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America’s 1st UFO sighting
• 1788 –  The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrives at Botany Bay to set up a penal colony
• 1896 – 1st demonstration of an X-ray machine in US.
• 1919 – Bentley Motors Limited is founded
• 1944 –  The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert for the first time. The performers were Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden.
• 1964 – Beatles 1st appear on Billboard Chart (I Want to Hold Your Hand-#35)
• 1967 – ‘Boston Strangler’ sentenced to life
• 1973 – John Cleese’s final episode on “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” on BBC TV
• 1980 – Pink Floyd’s “Wall” hits #1
• 1981 – Wendy O Williams arrested in Milwaukee for on-stage obscenity
• 1991 – Longest tennis match at the Australian Open, Boris Becker beats Italy’s Omar Camporese in 5 hours & 11 mins

That’s just a little handful of things which happened on this day in history.  Wikipedia    have a huuuge list, and if you’d like to read more about todays date simply click on the name.

Hope your week is off to a good start and that the weather is treating you kindly, wherever you are on the planet.  But … if the weather is fowl and you have bills to pay you’d rather not be paying … just think … you’re in a better place than you could be.  So please look at what you’re blessed with, and have a truly lovely,  blessed,  rest of your day.

Sending squidges from me in my corner to you in yours.

 

 

 

Love is like a butterfly, as soft and gentle as a sigh . . .

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Before I get to talking about card making ….  I’m sorry about the invite above saying: ‘Follow my blog with Bloglovin’ … I had to insert a bit of computer code into a new post order to ‘claim my blog‘. I’m not really sure why I need to claim my blog, but I noticed some other bloggers have done this so, in order to find out what it’s all about, I registered with Bloglovin. Will see what’s so exciting about it.  You can ignore it … you don’t have to click to follow me on there – unless you want to, of course.

There are cards for every sort of occasion and every type of person, (or personality) and I sat for 20 minutes trying to decide on what sort of card I was going to make for a relatives 89th Birthday.  I’ve made her cards  (Birthday, Christmas etc) for a few years, but I felt that she needed something different this year.  Not so fussy, but still with something going on.  Hmm… something with butterflies I think.

I knew I had a little kit which made up two jars of either butterflies or sweeties so I went in search of them among the box of Hunkydory stuffs.  I’d forgotten how pretty they were and the moment I saw them I knew that I’d make her one of these.

In ‘kit’ form this is what you get:

The pink jar is the sweet jar, and the blue, as you saw at the head of this post, is the butterfly jar.  But … there’s nothing to say that you can’t mix them up and swap butterflies for sweets.

Now … I have a bit of a problem in making ‘kit cards’.  I ALWAYS feel like I’ve cheated and let the whole crafting community down.  I don’t know why I feel like that, I just do.  But, I know that there very much is a place for kits and also know my relative will love this card.  It’s very ‘her’.

You begin by popping out the ‘front’ central part of the jar, and then cutting some clear acetate  to match the shape of the ‘hole’ in the front of the jar, you then fix that to the inside of the card front.

showing the rear of the card and the acetate fitted and fixed to the front of the jar.

It’s when you get to this point in the making that you need to stop and think about how you’re going to write the card out when it’s made.  Yup… you need to do that now before you fix any of the butterflies into the jar, because once fixed in place, you’ll have a difficult time trying to write on the back of the card.

The reason the card has that 3D effect is because of the roundedness of the front.  And that happens because the front is cut slightly bigger than the back. So once you’ve fixed the butterflies into the inside of the jar you then fix that card (jar) front in place.  If you scroll up to the photo of the unmade kits, you’ll notice that on the one edge of the card front, there’s a little flap.  That little flap allows you to adhere the front to the back … but because the card front is too big it ’rounds out’ and so gives the jar it’s shape.  (The use of craft clamps comes into use for this part).

This is the finished card as far as the kit is concerned, however you can then add your own touches to it to make it yours.

I added some deep pink with white dots ribbon ‘ties’ which I made (look like bows but not bows), and a silver metal, dangly charm fixed onto a large white paperclip,   which had a little more of the ribbon looped onto the top of it,  which I attached it to the back of the card so that the charm was dangling down next to the hand-written message.

I totally forgot to take a photo of the extra touches until it was packaged and sealed inside its postal box so you’ll just have to imagine the end result.  [sigh…  I’d be terribly dangerous if I had a brain]

And, as they say, that was it!  VOILA!  It’s an easy to put together card, the majority of the time is taken up with trimming off the little ‘tabs’ from where the die cuts were still attached to the cardstock.  Other than that it’s a simple card to make.  But looks so pretty when made.

As I was putting this card together I kept singing the theme song to a lovely, gentle sitcom, called Butterflies,  which was made and shown on the BBC, here in the UK,  between 1978 to 1983, and if I find it showing now, I’ll actually sit and watch it, just to be reminded of a more gentle time.  The theme tune is the Dolly Parton song Butterflies, but for this programme it was recorded by a singer called Clare Torry, and I think this may have been because Ms Torry had a little softer and more gentle tone to her voice.

It’s only 38 seconds long, so I share it with you here:

If I’ve got an earworm I think I should share it with everyone so that you can have it too.  I was taught that it’s nice to share.  [grins]

Have a beautiful Wednesday, whatever you’re doing.  Thank you for coming and having a coffee with me, I love having your company.

Sending my love,  from here in my corner to you in yours.

 

 

A Celebration? Put it on a Pin Board!

I made a Pinboard Card for someone a couple of years ago and made it really personal to them.  I resized some photographs and made them small enough to ‘pin’ to the pinboard, along with a few other bits and pieces, so that the whole card was themed especially for this person.

I’ve been thinking about that card recently and remembering how much I loved it when it was finished,  and wishing that I’d taken a photograph of it at the time, (as usual, I forgot),  so I thought I’d make another Pinboard card, only this time I’d make it for anyone.  I’d make it in such a way that it could  eventually  be personalised by adding small photos or a note of love or … well – anything really!

This is a really easy card to make, so easy in fact that I can just give you photo’s with a few details …  you’ll see how easy .…

Made on a white 8″x 8″ white card, of a decent weight, as this has to take a few embellishments.

Mat and layer mirror board to the card, then before adding the next layer, cut your paper or cardstock to size and fix ribbons in place to make the pin board … then .. 

Next …  You have to punch holes through your ribbon and paper/card stock so that you can add ‘pins’ (brads) to the pin board.  If you don’t have a long arm punch (Mine is the Crop-a-Dile Big Bite you see in the picture) you could instead fix the ribbon in place on the cross sections using glue dots or double-sided tape, then put buttons as the pins instead of brads.  …

All my favourite brads are all by Kuretake (and I have a fair old selection of them too!).

I used to live a short distance away from the Kuretake head office and every year they would have one day set aside for crafters to visit them and buy from a large selection of their products all priced at a slightly reduced price.  Ohhhh they were the best ever days!  The people there are SO nice,  truly amazing people, full of advice and help.  Nothing is too much trouble and I can honestly say that because of these days I love the Kuretake Company.  And because of these wonderful days, I have rather a lot of Kuretake products – from specialist pens to embellishments to … brads!, and I love them all.

Aaanyway .. back to the card….   Once you’ve fixed your brads/buttons in place, you can then add your embellishments.

• If the person you’re sending the card to is poorly, then you could add a ‘fake’ little prescription and make a mini box of tablets to fix to the board.
• Or if someone is having a baby .. you could add paper booties (or tiny real knitted ones) and hang them on the board using a button.
• Getting Married?  Put a miniature card on the pin board, of their wedding invitation .. simply scan their invite and then resize it on your computer, print it out and VOILA!
• Engaged
• Anniversary
• …  or anything. (apart from sad occasions – this really wouldn’t work for those days) 

Such an easy card to make and such a versatile design.  You just choose the right colour(s) and personalise it and *there* is the perfect card!

Well now it’s time for a weather report from our new weather girl Cobs:- 

….  as I’m typing this I’m melting like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, who had the water thrown over her.  The weather here is too hot, very humid, very steamy (and not in a good way), and very sticky.  It’s the sort of weather that makes you want to get in the shower two minutes after you’ve stepped out of it.  It’s so blooming tiring too!   I was going to share the temperature with you, but I’m too worn out to walk out to the decking and check the thermometer. tsk tsk! (Is that lazy,  old,  or just heat affected?  Actually,  thinking about it,  it’s probably all three!)

I’ve had a word with God  (“Hello God, it’s me again”   . . .   is the way I usually start off and He doesn’t seem to mind me being so informal) …  and I’ve asked if He could please turn down the Heavenly thermostat which is labelled  ‘Earth’,  and so I’m hoping that things will be cooler tomorrow.

Well that’s me done and dusted, except to wish you a very happy Monday.  May your days this week be gentle, joyous and leave you smiling at bedtime.

Remember to make some happy memories as you go through your days.  Smile,  today.  Make that memory, today.   Make someone else smile, today.  Let’s do it to them before they do it to us  (smiling that is.).

Have a truly blessed day my friends ~

 

 

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