Pillow Boxes for Gift Cards and Cash

There are just a few more days until Christmas and Hanukkah begins tonight.  Everyone is trying to finish their list of things that must be done before the holiday.  I did a lot of wrapping yesterday and now I am just waiting for a few more packages to arrive.  This year most of our gifts are things that come in boxes but there are a few gifts cards too.  These usually come with some sort of folder but I think they deserve to be wrapped in style. 

A couple of years ago, I showed these little boxes that I made to hold some gift cards and cash.  There are pillow boxes on several cartridges - these happen to be from the Wedding cartridge.  You can see more details about them at THIS POST (there is also a yummy recipe for roasted vegetables in that post!)

I cut the same pillow box shape that I used for the blue boxes, however, I hid all of the lines except the curved lines at the ends that help to form the pillow box shape.  I don't like the cuts, but it is tricky to score smooth curves for folding, especially with this heavy glittered cardstock. 

I assembled the box with 1/4 inch  Scor-Tape.  This is a very aggressive adhesive and it works well even with the glittered cardstock.  When you fold in the ends of a pillow box, be sure to fold down the ends with the thumbnail cut first.  This makes it easier to open the second flap and also allows the solid flap to show when the box is closed.  You can see the white edges that are exposed by the curved cuts - you could ink these if they are too distracting.

I put together a few poinsettias from Prima and added a pearl brad from Creative Charms.  I colored the brad and pearl red with a ProMarker.  These pearl brads come in the Vintage Velvet Poppies and I often change them and add a different center brad so I have lots of extras sitting around.
 

The flowers have slits cut to insert the brad but I had to add my own slits to the leaves.

There were also some little embossed ornaments in the Prima tin so I added one of them to the flower cluster.  I tied a gold ribbon around the entire box and attached the flowers with a large glue dot.

I thought I'd like the ends of the ribbon to stay loose, however, in the end I decided to tuck them under for a rounder shape.

If you have a lot of "small, flat and folding" (as in cash) gifts to share, you could put all of the boxes on a tree and let the recipients search for the box that was personalized for them.  I put this one on the front hall Santa tree to take photos.

The traditional colors blend in nicely with the tree.  If you like the way the boxes look on a tree, you could even create a group of them to use as ornaments each year.

I had another gift box to share with you but, unfortunately, I dropped my camera while I was taking these photos and I am having trouble getting it to work properly.  The lens came off when the camera fell and now it is not consistently recognizing that the lens is on the camera.  This camera has been my constant companion for over four years and I hope I can get it sorted out to work as it normally does.

Hanukkah begins at sunset today so I want to say Happy Hanukkah to all of you who will be celebrating for the next eight days.

Subscribe to Capadia Designs

Cricut Designs - Endless Variations

A couple of years ago when we went on a trip to Italy I left a series of posts with cards that were all made from one element on the Wedding cartridge.  If you go to THIS POST and work your way forward for eleven days you can see all of the variations.  There are endless possibilities when you work with the Cricut Designs and the Design Studio software or the Gypsy.

This is our last full day - and we'll be spending it on the beach with a big green bug!

Subscribe to Capadia Designs 

 

Confirmation Card

We had a weekend filled with family activities.  Our niece's Confirmation was on Saturday and there was a big family get together.  This week is Spring Break for public schools - tomorrow is Patriot's Day and the Boston Marathon.

I designed this card using the Wedding and Beyond Birthdays cartridges.

The cross is from the Wedding Cartridge.  I also used the square place card (last key, second row from bottom) to create the A2 card shape, hiding the two score marks.

 Here is the preview of the full card.  I used "Hide Selected Contour" to eliminate the outer line of the cross and create an inset cut in the front of the card.

One of the "quirks" of the Design Studio software is that you can not hide a single line and have it stay hidden when you close and reopen the file.  In order for the outer line to stay hidden, you need to use two crosses and hide the outline and at least one more line on one and then hide the rest of the lines and the outline on the other. Then you position them directly on top of each other, using the "x" and "y" values.  There is a step by step explanation of the process at THIS POST.

For the inside of the card, I used a guideline rectangle in the correct A2 size to help plan the size and placement of the image and words.

 The dove is sized at 2 inches and is located as shown in the screen shot above.

The sentiment is also from Beyond Birthdays and can be found on the key shown on the keypad screenshot above.

Once I had everything planned, I cut the images for the inside of the card from another mat where I had placed them to conserve on the amount of paper I used.  I cut them from glitter cardstock, using multi cut 2 and the glitter cardstock cut very easily.

Here are the pieces of the card that I cut with the cricut.  The card itself is cut from a piece of cardstock from the DCWV "Luxury" stack.  I also cut a piece of plain pink cardstock at 5 1/4 x 8 1/4 to create a liner for the card.  I did this with a paper trimmer.

The liner is attached to the back side of the card with a line of adhesive tape from my ATG gun.

Here you can see the taped liner inserted into the card.

This view shows the card opened.  The extra layer is very effective in making the card interesting and hiding any writing you want to add inside.

The sentiment is very tiny and I did manage to misplace the dot for the "i" - so I improvised and added a tiny pearl.

Here is one more view of the card.  I like the way the light shines through the cross.

I think I have given you enough information to make the file on your own.  If you need help or would like to use my file, please leave a comment.  I can add a link if enough people are interested in this card.

Download Link Added 4/24

Confirmation Card


I hope to be attending a parade tomorrow morning.  The prediction is for the rain to stop and a cool and overcast day.  Please cross your fingers - it was in the 40s and hailing today!

If you'd like a little more information about Patriot's Day you can read THIS POST from last year.  Our cousin who ran in last year's marathon is not running this year  - she just had a baby so she will be sitting this one out!

Boxing Day (and money boxes)

Today was Boxing Day - not a holiday here in the States, but celebrated in many countries around the world. Here is a LINK to the Wikipedia entry about Boxing Day if you are not familiar with this holiday.

It was a very busy day for me. Tomorrow my mother and father in-law will celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary.  We usually have all of the family here on their anniversary, but this year we needed to do it a day early since our older son is leaving (already!) to go back to San Francisco early tomorrow morning.

Just so you won't think that I have totally abandoned my Cricut during the holidays, I thought I would quickly show you the "money holders" I used for some of the teen to young adult Christmas gifts.  They are tricky to buy for and we tend to end up giving the gift that always fits...

Instead of making a flat money holder, I used this pillow box from the wedding cartridge.  There are two swirls that reminded me of winter storms.

By using Design Studio, I could quickly determine the largest size that I could use and still cut four boxes from a sheet of 12 x 12 cardstock.  I used the five inch size and cut the boxes exactly as they appear on the cartridge.

I normally do not care for the "tick marks" or score lines and eliminate them using "hide selected contour," however, in the case of pillow boxes, they do make the folding of the ends much quicker and easier.  I used a heavy textured Bazzill cardstock for the boxes.  It is important to use a strong adhesive for the flap that connects the long side of the box.  I use Scor-Tape for most boxes - it is very strong and quite a bit more economical than the red liner tape.  Here is a LINK to the Scor-Pal site page for Scor-Tape.

I measured the opening and cut squares of a coordinating patterned paper to adhere inside the boxes.  To give the boxes a bit more pizazz I added a snowflake punched from glitter cardstock.

 On the way home yesterday we enjoyed all of the Christmas lights - this house is not far from us and always has an "over-the-top" display.

 Most of today was taken up with preparing food and enjoying time with family - over 2 dozen people!  We had lots of yummy food.  My husband and sons found a recipe for a root vegetable salad and did an enormous amount of peeling, chopping, blanching and roasting to make a triple batch.

Here is a closer view of the root veggies - they were absolutely delicious!

We had quite an assortment of desserts.  Fortunately, I was able to send lots of the leftovers home with various people so I will avoid some of the temptation - there are still dark chocolate peanut M and Ms left in the house so I'd better start walking with my friends again!

If you are interested, here is the recipe for the root vegetable salad:

Marinade ingredients:
2/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 cups olive oil
2 1/4 teaspoons chopped garlic
3/4 teaspoon fresh basil - chopped
3/4 teaspoon fresh parsley - chopped
salt and black pepper to taste

Salad ingredients:
Butternut squash - 1/2 inch cubes, 8 ounces
Rutabaga - 1/2 inch cubes, 8 ounces
Carrots - 1/2 inch cubes, 8 ounces
Golden beets - 1/2 inch cubes, 8 ounces
Red beets - 1/2 inch cubes, 8 ounces
Celeriac - 1/2 inch cubes, 8 ounces
Fennel - Julienne, 8 ounces
Shallots - Julienne, 4 ounces
Balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup
Olive oil, 1 cup
Mesclun greens, 8 ounces

Prepare marinade by combining all ingredients
Blanch squash, rutabaga, carrots, beets and celeriac in boiling water, drain well, shock in ice water to cool quickly.
Combine blanched vegetables, fennel and shallots in a bowl.  Toss with marinade.  Transfer to a sheet pan in a single layer.  Roast in a 350 degree oven until tender (but not soft) and lightly browned.
Toss with balsamic vinegar and olive oil to taste
Arrange on mesclun greens.

Tag Star

This afternoon I saw a post by Kathy on the Cricut Message Board which gave this LINK to a star made from a tag punch. (please use the link to see the photos - I can't post them here since they are not mine). I loved the idea and instantly thought that something similar could be done with the design studio software that would actually be quicker and easier to produce, once the original file was created.

Unfortunately, I could not make this an adjustable file, because individual elements need to be turned at various angles and we don't have a true "grouping" function available to us yet in the software - it is something I wish for many times every day as I try to think of ways to create designs that can be easily resized, copied and pasted and otherwise manipulated in full.

The basic idea of this design is to overlap silhouetted tags to form a subsidiary design which looks like a star. The original star was made using flat top tags which produce a square center (well, actually more of an octagon with tiny corners). In checking the various carts for silhouetted tags I remember that there were some on the Wedding cart and decided to try this rounded top version.

Here is a screen shot of the finished design - the overlapping of the tags produces a flower like image. I added a small circle to make the center more even since the tags do not align perfectly to produce a circle.



Be careful when the design is cutting - since there are so many passes around the center, the circle actually came loose from the mat in all four test cuts that I made - you should be sure that it is removed when you unload the mat and that it does not get caught in your machine somewhere!



Here is the cut as you would lift it from the mat



Two tiny snips at each point will create the star - it is best to snip from the center outward to get the neatest cut.



You can cut four of these on a 12 x 12 sheet of paper - cut one, unload and turn and reload the mat. Then remove those cuts and turn the paper 90 degrees and restick it to the mat so the top left area is uncut paper and cut, unload, flip and cut again.

The 12 x 12 sheet of paper will look like this and you could use it for a scrapbook layout (I hate to waste perfectly good paper and this is an interesting design in the offcut).



Below you can see the final star on the left and the image that the file cuts on the right - for some purposes you might want to use the design without trimming. There will also be offcuts that look like little houses that you can save for another project (from the outer area - I forgot to take a photo but will add one when I can).



If you check out the link above be sure to click on the link in that posting which shows the card the designer made - it is beautiful! You can use this design as is or adhere vellum or another pretty paper or even glassine (like I used for the Halloween lantern) and create lovely cards and ornaments.

Tag Star

Even more Beautiful Hearts

Here is the last one of these for now - I added four small hearts at the four compass points to make this lacy background.

Here is a photo of the mat after the cut is finished



Remove the outer area of the cut and the mat will look like this



The off cut you have removed will look like this - you could use this for another page



Work very slowly and carefully - this is quite a delicate cut, you will be able to remove the lace without tearing it if you take your time.



You can see my "super scraper" on the table - I use this to loosen all delicate cuts.



One more photo of the cut on a red background - I just love this heart!



Eight Beautiful Hearts (and four small ones)