Graduation Explosion box

I made this really cool graduation explosion box for my nephew a few years ago.  It held a gift card inside, and when the hat (lid) was removed, the inside had the words "You did It" floating above the card, waving in the breeze.

Each letter of the words was on its own piece of clear acetate so they would sway in the breeze easier, and each word was stair-stepped in front of each other.  It was a work of art.  He loved it, everybody loved it, it was awesome!  (One of those things you think twice about giving away because you want to keep it for yourself.  C'mon...admit it...you've done it too).  But...nobody got any pictures!  Duh, what's wrong with me??!!

Or so I thought.  This week I was purging some of my pictures from the hard drive...and what do I see?  Thaaaaats right.  My work of art explosion box.  Sometimes I don't know how I manage to put one foot in front of the other sometimes. 

The tassel is made with several strands of embroidery floss, and the letters were cut with the CTMH Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.

When the lid (hat) was removed, the front side of the box fell open (kinda like a drawbridge) to reveal the magic inside.  The double layer of red/white paper on the "drawbridge" made it heavy enough to fall on it's own. 

 

 

This project was actually pretty easy.   I used 1 sheet of 12 x 12 black for the base, and 1 1/2 pages of 12 x 12 black for the hat.  The hat was very sturdy and kept it's shape.  The button used to hold the tassel was held tightly in place with a piece of florists wire underneath the hat.  That whole contraption was completely hidden with the red/white papers placed inside the hat.  

I used the stamp set A1139 Congrats Graduate, which I just love because it's the perfect size for everything!  The numbers are varsity looking, so I have used it many times on my son's sports pages  projects, and team treats.

We each signed and wrote little notes to him on the white pieces and made it personal.  I think I wrote something heartfelt like "If you ever throw this away I'll purposely forget to buy you presents at Christmas".  Just a little something meaningful between a loving Aunt and her nephew.

Stamps:  A1139 Congrats Graduate

Inks:   Black, Cranberry

Paper:   Black, Cranberry, White Daisy, Honey, Indian Corn Blue, Cotton Candy

Cartridge:  Art Philosophy

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2014-15 Annual Inspirations Catalog

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We're Baaaaaaack!

Wow, has it really been that long? I could say the holidays kept us busy, but I don't think anyone will buy that.  So, the whole truth is this blog thing is a little scary.  I was hoping Mom would do it...she was hoping I would do it...and before we knew it, we were eating ham and hiding Easter eggs and somebody asked "How's your blog going?"  Mom and I had a stare-off.  She won.  I'm blogging.  Let’s just move on.

We've been having fun with the new Spring/Summer 2013 Idea Book from CTMH and creating all kinds of projects.  Half of them are unfinished due to what we like to call "crafters block", but we all know what that translates into: "this stupid project isn't working!".    Maybe someday we (Mom) will finish them and we will get them posted for you to look (laugh) at.  

Moving on.   
                                                                 
I don't even know where to start.  We've worked on projects ranging from Weddings to Movember. Yes, I said MOvember....we'll explain that later.

This week we've been playing around with making flowers.  More accurately, I've been sending pictures of flowers to Mom saying "Do you think we can make this out of paper?" and 20 minutes later she’d send a picture back saying “Look what I made!”  Makes you sick…doesn’t it?

easterLilys

CTMH materials used:

  White cardstock
  Sweet leaf cardstock
  Buttercup cardstock
  Olive ink
  Autumn Terracotta ink
  Art Philosophy cartridge

buttonflowers  This morning we called them "Flowers".  By 3:15 they became Button Flowers.  Pretty creative.  I know. 

A while ago I asked my son's teacher if I could help out in the classroom, she said "Would you like to read to the class or do a craft with them?".  Inside I was thinking "Did she really just ask me to choose between reading and crafting?"  

My son rolls his eyes and grunts a heavy sigh when I ask him to work on a craft with me at home, but for some reason he transforms into Crafty-Crafterson at school.  Forget Fridays at 5...Wednesdays at 2 pm just became my favorite time of the week! 

If a group of 4th graders can focus long enough to do this project then you can probably whip one up while your TV dinner is in the microwave.  What...doesn't everyone eat those?

I used 5 strips of 10" x 3/4" patterned paper, and 4 strips of 6" x 1/2" coordinating solid paper.  Each strip had 3 holes punched in them:  One in each end, and one in the center.   I then took some floral wire (at school we used pipe cleaners) and thread it through the button and twisted the 2 dangling ends to make one stiff stem.  

Next, just start threading on the pieces starting with the 6" pieces first.  Thread the stem through the middle hole, then thread the ends.  Once all pieces were threaded, I finished it off with a 1 3/4" scallop punch and glued it to hide all the ends.  We twisted the wire around a wooden skewer, stuck a leaf on and called it done!  (For the school project, we had the kids write a sentiment to their Mom on the leaf).



paperroses  Mom made these.  You can tell because they're perfect.  She said they are a work in progress...I think she's planning on inking the center bud still.  Whatever.  They're still perfect.  

I'm not sure how she assembled them, but I do know that she cut each petal out by hand.  I know this because that's all she did on a recent road trip we took as a family.  Trace trace snip snip.  Cant she just eat, sleep, and sing obnoxiously loud to the radio like the rest of us? 

papercake  Last year this was called the cake that she never put down 'cause she was never satisfied with it and kept adding flowers.  It's been here so long we now call it Gus.

It's one of those cakes where each piece is actually a box for "take-home" cake (funny...like there's ever any cake left), or party favors.  She put a lot of work into this last Easter and swore she would take us out if we ever messed with it.  So I think Gus is going to be around for a while.