DIY Chinese New Year Red Packets

I started out very ambitious with the intention to custom make CNY red packets for my mom to give away during Chinese New Year this year. I thought she would need about 20 for family members which wouldn't be too difficult.

I ravaged through my supplies trying to find Chinese themed elements and couldn't find anything suitable. I was still determined to make them so I resorted to using Hero Arts Blossom Art and Trio Hearts stamp set. I thought the in blossoms looked a little like our CNY blossoms and the Hero Arts heart have a lot of flowers in it. As for the sentiment, I used my Happy Days stamp set from Papertrey Ink.

So I made two different packets first to see if they were nice and whether they were worth making. I embossed the sentiments and flowers / hearts using clear embossing, then accented using stickles / glossy accent. Once dried, I sprayed iridescent pearl mist to give them some shine.

After making one of each design, I found that the blossoms were too "heavy" so I decided to soften its look by omitting the clear embossing.

Well, making these red packets were much more time-consuming than I had expected. I also thought it was too much work and that most people are more interested in the content of the red packet rather than how it looks. So I ended up making only 9 for myself to give my parents and in laws.

Here are the 2 different red packets.

Items / Tools Used:

1. Paper - A4 Simili Paper in Red (Local bookstore)

2. Stamps: Papertrey Ink: Happy Days, Hero Arts: Trio Hearts, Blossom Art, Ink: Versamark

3. Embossing Powder: Stampendous Detail Embossing Powder - Clear

4. Embellishments: Ranger-Stickles in Diamond, Glossy Accents. 

5. Others: Martha Stewart Scoring Board, Maya Mist Water Based Pigment Pump Spray - Iridescent Pearl

Jerome and Joshua's Full Moon

During confinement, I spent a lot of time browsing Pinterest and was really attracted to desert table settings. Although I was really tired from all the breast feeding, I thought to myself that I only had one chance to do this so I should just go all out and try to set up a "table" for my twin's full moon.

I placed all the deserts on top of a side cupboard. Here are some pictures of the desert table:

Hersheys Nuggets

Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Zesty Orange Cupcakes

Double Chocolate Brownies

And finally, a picture of my lovely boys at 2 months old.

Jojo and Romy

Christmas Giftwrapping

Just wanted to share something different. I wrapped two sets of gifts for Christmas last year. One for my husband's family, the other for mine.

Theme I decided on then was craft paper. So for my husband's family, I used the typical christmas gift wrapping colour, red. For accents, I used newspapers. So I made some newspaper flowers to top the presents. Here are their presents.

I was gonna use the same theme for my family but I was inspired by Tiffany's paper bag and decided to go with aqua blue ribbons. Here they are:

I die cut some tags using scraps from my many failed Christmas Cards attempt and Papertrey Ink's tiny tags die. The tags are tied using silver strings to give the presents some bling.

I wrapped these presents so that they looked alike for each couple / family. My favourite are my elder bro's and his wife's present (first two from right). I was running out of wrapping paper and I was not allowed to leave the house (post baby confinement) so I resorted to stitching some scraps into paper bags. They ended up looking classiest of all.

As for my sister's daughter's present, I thought craft paper and ribbons wouldn't be attractive enough for a 2 year old so I stamped lotsa animals onto the craft paper (stamp set: Papertrey Ink Tiny Treats: Birthday). Didn't seem to make any difference though... I guess kids love presents and do not care about their wrappings.

Christmas Cards 2012

As expected, my mom asked me to make 3 christmas cards for our church pastors again and this year, I wanted to challenge myself to use Vellum Cardstock since I have a whole stack and realized I don't use them enough.

Here are the cards: