Japanese Gift Bags with Tags

 These Japanese design gift bags were purchased from HM Ben Franklin Crafts (or was it Daiso?).  I really loved the grafic designs on them.  All they seemed to need were matching tags. 

Because I feel that Hanafuda cards have great graphic designs, I decided to incorporate them into tags for these Japanese designed gift bags.  

I chose Hanafuda card designs that I thought matched with the bag graphics and glued them onto simple die cut tags.  

I stamped appropriate Japanese characters on the backs of the tags and heat embossed them with metallic embossing powder.

These tags were then tied onto the bags with unique yarns from my ever-growing yarn collection.

Even the backs of these gift bags were decorated with gorgeous designs.  The bag backs are so lovely they could actually be the fronts.

I hope that you'll take a look at the spectacular Japanese themed gift bags at HM Ben Franklin Crafts and Daiso.  I'm sure they'll inspire you to make some matching tags or maybe you'll fill them with Japanese goodies.  The Japanese man bag is going to my son who loves anything from Japan.  The more feminine bag is for a just born baby girl and it will contain a kimono.  I think these bags will add to gifts by making the presentation exciting. Arigato!

Halloween Welcome Sign

Rather than making another Halloween card, I decided to try something different...a Halloween sign.  It came together rather quickly because I had some embossed and stamped papers already in my 'Halloween box' of supplies.  It was so simple to use the Sizzix texture impression folder on black construction paper and then rub it with metallic cream.  The Whimsy 'Zombie Herd' stamp was used with white embossing powder to make the zombie images. Color pencils were used to color in the faces.  The stamped zombie paper was trimmed and adhered to the embossed animal skin textured paper.  Next the 'WELCOME' words were formed with 3D sticker letters.  This square was adhered with double stick tape to a square of faded red card stock.  A hole punch was used to make the holes that were used with twine to make a way to hang the sign.  This was a very simple and fast project to do and I think it shows a bit of horror humor which is what I really like about Halloween.  Welcome to my House of Zombies!

Baby Dragon Birthday Card

I've posted three photos of this very sparkly, glittery card because it was impossible to get a good image due to all the shiny papers I used.  I decided to make a departure from Halloween for awhile since I just received the super cute Whimsy dragon stamp set and scalloped window dies. 

I used the window dies on many sparkly, glittery papers until I found just the right combination.  HM Ben Franklin Crafts has many shiny, sparkly, glittery papers for sale. After layering and gluing the card base together, I proceeded to stamp the dragon and selected words. The baby dragon was colored in with Copic pens.

Next the words were enclosed with a bubble balloon using a Copic pen.  Both the words and dragon were adhered to the card with adhesive dots.  Finally, Glossy Accents was applied to the front of both the dragon and the word balloon. Before the Glossy Accents dried I sprinkled on fine clear glitter.  (Don't get too heavy handed with the glitter.) I'm not sure exactly who I will give this card to but I think it will be suitable for someone whimsical and young at heart.  Is that you?

Halloween Shaker Card with Vampire and Mummy

This card does not look anything like the one I had planned in my mind.  It was supposed to be an origami pumpkin/cat shaker card.  It turned out that the origami paper I had was too small and the folding instructions a bit too complicated.  Since I had already made the shaker portion of the card, I decided to dress it up with some monster stickers and words.  You can see that inside the window the paper was embossd with leaf impressions which were rubbed with metallic ink.  It was my hope that the impressions would provide a bumpy surface which would impede the sequins a bit.  It didn't work; the bits and pieces swooshed around like ususal.  Oh well, I like the final outcome of this card and I will practice to make origami cat/pumpkins to put on future Halloween cards. LOL!

Meoween Scream!

This is truly a spooky Halloween card.  The background images were made by accident.  It looks like there are three ghostly skeleton-like faces. (They sort of remind me of the Edvard Munch painting, 'The Scream'.)  They appeared on a paper that I used to blot an ink sprayed card stock sheet.  Really scarey....even the black cat howled.  I wrote the word 'meoween' on a piece of vellum and cut it out to look like a frosty breath emerging from the cat.  The Tim Holtz die set is a really old one but you may be able to find it for sale somewhere online.  I hope this accidental Halloween card makes you look for spooky images everywhere......BOO!

Monster Birthday Sprinkle Cookies

I know these cookies look normal sized, but each one is about 5" across and 6 oz. in weight.  One batch of cookies ( recipe in Bake from Scratch magazine July/August issue) yields only six monster cookies. My cookies are a little darker than the ones shown in the magazine because I used whole wheat flour (for more nutrition).  I chose to make this recipe because I've embarassingly purchased many bags of baking sprinkles (from HM Ben Franklin Crafts and other sources) and this recipe uses 1/2 cup of sprinkles per batch. YAY! (I do LOVE confetti sprinkles...both edible and the ones used for craft projects. LOL!)  This cookie recipe is very easy to mix up and bake. I think each cookie would make an excellent birthday party favor. You would only need a pretty cellophane bag tied with a ribbon to make a departing guest super happy.  These good looking colorful cookies are easy to bake and definiely delicious to eat. Go make some cookie monsters happy with Monster Birthday Sprinkle Cookies!

Secret Fairy Meeting Card

Here is my second Lavinia stamp card.  Again, I used a scrap of watercolor test paper from my stash (refer to my previous post). I found just the right yellow gold scrap (with metallic highlights) to die cut (Spellbinders) a moon.  I glued the orb onto the mulsticolored watercolor paper before placing it into my Misti stamp alligner.  Using permanent black ink, I stamped the log and leaves to get a clear impression.  I took off these stamps and then positioned the fairies.  After inking the fairy images, I stamped them repeatedly to get dark images.  The inked fairy image on the edge of the moon had a faint line because the moon was slightly higher than the background paper.  Careful coloring in with a permanent black marker solved the problem.  On this card I flicked on gold Liquitex ink with a stiff brush.  The little specks of gold added the magic touch....fairy dust!   As with the previous card, I am enthralled with the finished look of the Lavinia stamped images. I can't wait to purchase more Lavinia stamps...perhaps mushrooms or mermaids. Crafty ideas keep blooming in my head...so many beautiful images!