Halloween Countdown - Day 4

We celebrated my daughters 1st birthday this weekend with a Halloween-themed bash. It was a great party and we were happy to celebrate the special day with family and friends.

These are the cupcakes I baked for the party and here is a hilarious photo of my daughter eating the cupcakes. I guess this is that quintissential first birthday party picture with the kid shoving the cake into her mouth. It was really funny though. Not sure if I'm going to get that orange icing out of her clothes though...

Tonight's project is a really simple and classic box - the 2,4,6,8 box. This is a great Halloween treat box because you can get two boxes per 8.5x11 sheet of paper and it fits a perfect amount of candy. You can decorate these however you want or even leave them plain in an assortment of Halloween colours. I like lime green, orange, purple and black...

Take a piece of 8.5x11-size cardstock and cut in half so you have two sheets of 8.5 x 5.5" cardstock. Score lines at 2, 4, 6 and 8 inches then turn 90 degrees and score at 1.5 inches.

Cut out the tiny corner piece and cut the short length up to the horizontal score line.

You can decorate the box however you would like. Add stamped images, patterned paper, a background stamp, glitter or whatever catches your fancy. I like to add a bit of texture to my boxes by running them through my Cuttlebug embossing folders. Its best to pick a folder that has a repeatable pattern. This is a new Halloween themed folder.

Keep sliding the folder down until you've covered the cardstock. Make sure that you orient your paper in the folder the way it will be in the final project. The horizontal score line will be at the bottom of the box. After you've finished embossing and/or decorating, fold along the remaining score lines.

I decided to add some colour to the box by putting a band of contrasting Halloween themed patterned paper across the top of the box. The paper is 1.5" wide but 9" long. Make it slightly longer than the box because it will shrink up a bit with the score lines. Glue it to the top of the box and fold along the scorelines again.

You can leave the box enclosed or you can add a viewing window to the front to see the treats inside. I find that the Stampin' Up! punches work perfect for this. If you bring the punch in from the side where the very short tab is (the one you cut the notch from), the punch will be almost perfectly placed in the centre of the panel. Use any punch you like - circle, square, tag, etc. Do not throw away the negative because you will use that later.

Add a piece of clear transparency behind your punch space to make a window. Then use a strip of red sticky tape along the narrow tab, fold the box around itself and stick it together.

Using a couple of additional pieces of sticky tape, fold the box bottoms up and stick them together.

Now that the box is formed, pinch the front and back together, gently folding in the sides of the box. You can put packaged candy directly inside the box, but if you are using loose candy as I did, I would suggest that you put them in a food safe pinch bag. A 2x3-inch bag will fit perfectly in this box.

You can use a hole punch to punch a couple of holes in the top of the box through all layers. I find that this works best with a Crop-o-dile because it can be tough to get through all the layers of cardstock. I add a couple of eyelets at this point as well.

With the leftover negative from your window, make yourself a tag and attach it to the holes at the top with a coordinating ribbon. And you're done!

Halloween Countdown - Day 2

So, before I get to tonight's Halloween project I wanted to post a photo of my little girl who turned the big numero uno today! It's hard to believe it's been a whole year since she came into our lives. I'm so happy to see her grow and change every day - she truly is a joy.

We're having a big birthday for her this weekend but we had a little family dinner and cake tonight and I gave her one gift to open. Actually, we had a hard time getting her to open the present because she spent about 10 minutes playing with the curly ribbon that was attached to the bag. Here's a photo of her playing with her new airplane.

I think she was very excited to have her own "little people". They have them at her daycare and she loves to play with them. Mind you, they spend about half their time in her mouth...

So, tonight's Halloween project is a very, very simple one. I can usually put together a couple dozen of these in an evening. These little slider boxes hold three Hershey's nuggets. About two weeks before Halloween I like to put a basket of them near our door for guests that might stop in to say hi. I sometimes take them to work as well to give out to co-workers. Three nuggets is a nice treat without being too much candy (though, can you ever really have too much candy...).

There are about a million nugget box templates on Splitcoaststampers (okay...maybe not a million...). They come in all shapes and sizes so you can make these as big or as small as you like. These are about three inches long. You can find the template I've used for these boxes here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84914. If you are planning to make a lot of these, cut out all your box pieces first and put them together assembly line style.

When I cut out the box templates I also cut a strip of coordinating patterned paper that is about 1/2" narrower and slightly longer than the lid template. I glue the paper down and then score both sheets together. Its important to make the patterned paper slightly longer as it will shorten up a bit when you score it. You can decorate these boxes any way you like. I've added a simple ribbon and a Making Memories epoxy ribbon tag but I've also put on stamped tags, stickers and other embellishments over the years. Its a pretty small surface so you will want to keep decoration to a minimum. Inside, wrap you nuggets in a coordinating Halloween paper (3"x1" strips will cover a nugget), or use a mailing label stamped with Halloween images.

Supplies: Cardstock (Bazzill), Patterned paper (Carolee's Creations, Reminisce), ribbon, epoxy tags (Making Memories)

Bloglift Tuesdays...and Additions to the Yarn Stash

Today's Bloglift came from the beautiful card at Scrappin' Extras. Apparently she cased the card from another crafter at Splitcoast so I guess its been CASED twice removed...

This lift was perfect for me for a few reasons...

One, I needed to make a birthday card.
Two, I just got this set from Stampin' Up! and it hasn't seen ink yet.
Three, I have owned this Cuttlebug folder for eons and I've never used it.

The inspiration for the colour combo came from the ribbon I used (Maya Roads). I used my anywhere hole punch to punch the balloon tails. The sentiment on the tag came from my "new to me" set of Verve Visual stamps which I got in trade for redesigning my friend Cindy's blog.

Supplies: Paper (Bazzill, Stampin' Up!), Stamps (Stampin' Up!, Verve Visual), punch (Stampin' Up!), Ink (Stampin' Up!), Embossing Folder (Cuttlebug), Embossing Powder (Stampendous), pearl dots (Stamping Bella), ribbon (Maya Roads)

Here's another swap card that I did for a penguin themed card swap. Really - there's not much "penquiny" about this card but I love these Memory Box stamps and this is one of my favourite colour combos. I got some new Bella Baubles yesterday that went perfect with this paper.

Supplies: Paper (Bazzill, Papertrey, Daisy Bucket Designs), Stamps (Memory Box), Ink (Brilliance), Bella Baubles (Stamping Bella), ribbon.


So, I did manage to go to Fibrefest on Friday and picked up a bunch of yarn which I really like. I am first and foremost a colour person so I'm attracted to things by colour, but with yarn, texture is really important too so some of this was selected by texture. I will probably do mostly socks, hats and scarves with this selection, but I haven't finalized my projects yet.


This is a beautiful wool/nylon mix. I think it will make a nice warm scarf and mitten set. I also got it in a red mix colour.




I'm going to knit a little carrot hat for my daughter with this yarn. Its so soft.







I have no idea what I will knit with this...I just fell in love with the colour combination. This is a silk yarn which I've never knit with before. There is a lot here - maybe enough for a sweater so I'll have to really think about this one.




This merino/bamboo mix is unbelievably soft. Its probably destined for socks because of its weight but I want to find a funky pattern because its a natural colour yarn.





This is definately destined for socksville. I love the colours in this yarn.





These are the coolest socks! I got these from the Funknits booth in a kit. I loooovvveee them. They are called Allsorts Socks because the colours and pattern are like Licorice Allsorts. I love the way they are knitting up so far - the spiral pattern is very cool to knit. I can't wait to finish these. So far this is the cuff, leg and beginning of the heel.

I also picked up a few great books which I will share with you in another entry. For now, I bid you good night!