Graduation Gifts

So two of my most favorite cousins graduated recently from Northwestern University.  Isn't that such an accomplishment?  We are so proud of them and I can't wait to see where life takes them next, professionally and personally.  

I knew Sunghee's Graduation Cap Box and Almost Square Bag with the Mini Album would be perfect gifts for them once I personalized them.  Note:  Sunghee is closing her store TODAY at After Five Designs and her templates won't be available.  Grab them while you can.  

So here are the little hats!  They turned out so cute!  The little top/cover comes off where you can put a little gift inside.  I made the tassels with embroidery floss and attached with brads.  It's funny that I have almost 2 boxes of embroidery floss from when I used to cross stitch but I didn't have the right color orange or white so I bought new ones.  They aren't expensive though and really adds to the caps.  They are different colors to represent the different colleges they graduated from.  

These are the little boxes.  The pink one has crocheted handles and the flower in the middle was made with the garland die that I had won from Sunghee.  You just roll it up together and smash it down.  I have to say PTI makes some strong paper cause I really had to put some strength into smashing it down.  Either that or I need to work out more.  I attached a little button in the middle.  The kraft one has a handle made of raffia (I had that in my storage room too) that I just twisted together.  The flower is from some blog candy that I had won.  And the leaves are rub-on.

These are the mini albums with TGF's Grad Anya.  Aren't they cute?  I attached some pages with inspirational quotes that I found online. 

 

Some inside views.

 

I sewed the pages to the cover of the mini album with embroidery floss.

 

On the last page of each album I attached a ring that's inscribed with an inspirational saying too.  Overall, I thought these albums turned out cute.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Penguins & Flowers

In the quiet of darkness, while my kids are sleeping, I've been making this little project for my daughter.  It uses Sunghee's (from Creativity in Progress) template called Almost Square Bag.  You can find it HERE.  When I first saw this template, I thought it was the cutest thing but didn't really know exactly what to make it for.  I usually need some occasion or person to inspire me to create something.  Then I thought of making this for my daughter.  But it took me a while longer cause I could only work on it at night.  I had some of these leftover double layered flowers that I had crocheted from a PTI tutorial (HERE).  Then I just crocheted a simple chain stitch to make handles.

My daughter loves, loves, loves penguins so I stuck one in the middle.  This penguin stamp is from Dandelion Designs.  I punched it out with a half inch circle punch and stuck it on a button and placed a clear epoxy sticker over it.  That was also something that I had read over on PTI.  I used some leftover felt and rhinestones to finish it up.

I also made this little Matchbook Album from Sunghee.  You can also find it HERE.  This is the cutest little book.  But I decided to do something different with it. 

The book opens up just like a matchbook would.  You can see a little of what I placed inside.

Typically, you can add multiple pages into this template like a book.  Sunghee stapled hers in but since I didn't have a stapler big enough, I made my page slightly longer and scored it to leave about a half inch section in the middle where I could attach the page to the cover with flower shaped brads. 

Yes, there's another penguin too!  This is the full size of the image.  I attached flower shaped earrings onto the penguin like he's wearing them.  Hahaha.  My daughter will think that is funny.  I bought these earrings some time ago to give as a gift, either birthday or Xmas.  I tend to buy things early and save them for special occasions.  Her birthday is still some months away so hopefully I can hide this until then. 

All the felt flowers were die cut with PTI's Beautiful Blooms die set.  The "h" is also from PTI's Outlines Alphabet.

Thanks for reading.  Have a great day!

Gift Cards

Hi!  Here is my last post for PTI's Make It Monday Challenge to partially emboss/deboss.  My other entries can be found HERE, HERE & HERE.

I made a frame from fun foam.  This one used three 2 mm thick fun foam layers cut to 3x3 inch squares.  That was the size of the gifts cards I wanted to make.  I posted about using frames to partially emboss HERE.

I had some leftover Stampin' Up 3x3 cards so I used the colored ones as the base and used the cream ones to emboss and stamp on.

Here's a close up.  My stamping is a bit off.  But I think it's still cute.  I used PTI's Book Print impression plate.  I can't believe how many projects I made just with that one impression plate.  I just ordered the numbers one so I can't wait to get that one.  I have a lot more I want to order too.  The flowers are from PTI's Beautiful Blooms 2 dies and stamp set.  I used the medium sized flower die set for these cards.  The sentiments are from Tag-its #1.  They are the perfect size to fit in the center.

I made a set in blue too.

A closer view of the blue one.

I stamped some envelopes too.  The To/From is from Fillable Frames #9.  I used the little heart one from Tag-its #1 as a postage stamp.  At the top you can see the little box that all these cards/envelopes fit into.

This is a template called Almost Square Bag from Little Potato House.  It is the cutest box and one of my favorite templates that Sunghee has created.  I just printed it and cut it out.  Placed a simple label on front and done.

What I love about this box too is that you don't have to worry about using adhesive or anything to close it.  There are 2 small little tabs that tuck into the sides.  So smart!  So you can open and close it as many times as you want to.

Well, I think I've exhausted most of my ideas for this challenge.  I had one other but it's going on the back burner for now.  This challenge really did open up so many possibilities and variations for embossing/debossing.  

Thanks for reading!