Ringing In The New Year

Thought it would be fun to turn some of our new New Year's designs into little standing displays...for your home or your co-workers' desks, maybe?





Click here to get a pattern to make the projects in this post. To make the display table...cut along solid lines and fold along dotted lines. Apply double stick tape to the 4 tabs and adhere:



There's also a little strip pattern...cut out and fold along dotted lines to form a cube (above, left). Use a glue dot to attach to table (above, right).



I stamped, colored and cut out the kadomatsu arrangement (cutting out duplicate pieces and mounting on foam dots for a 3-D effect). Then simply adhere the arrangement to the cube on the table top. Next, I used the same idea but made another pattern a little bit longer to accommodate a calendar:



Follow the same directions for the smaller table...but this time cut out a piece of card stock (pattern included) to mount the calendar on. Score 1/4" from bottom edge and apply double stick tape to this tab...mount kadomatsu with a foam dot, below:



Attach to table:



Thanks for stopping by!!!

Arigato

You can never have too many thank you cards...all stamps are from our new Keiko set.

New Stamps!!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! Please forgive my loooong absence...I've been struggling to recover from a particularly bad case of blog burnout!! But, hopefully, some new stamps will make up for that. First up is Keiko...she comes with an "extra hand" to allow her to hold a variety of items:



This set also comes with a branch stamp and a bunch of cherry blossoms to decorate the branch. Helpful hint: the flowers are really tiny, so I tried to line them up in a way that you can cut a couple of them together like this:



That way it will be a little easier to handle. (Sorry, I should have taken a photo of the rubber before I did a ton of stamping with it.) And here is a sample of the project that comes with each set:



As you open the card, the scenery starts to pop up:



Once the card is fully open, you see Keiko standing on a bridge surrounded by cherry blossom branches!!!



Also new for 2012...Year of the Dragon stamps:



and New Year stamps:



Mochi and "kadomatsu" are local traditions used to bring in the new year...bamboo signifies growth and strength...fresh pine represents long life and endurance.