Cherry Coke Gift Box

YAY! School is officially over! I am so ready to start summer vacation. I am having a garage sale this weekend (please come over if you live in the area), so will be getting ready for that and then hope to start doing some creating Monday. The boys are headed to TX early Saturday morning, so I'll have lots of time on my hands. Ü

This week Tombow is partnering with Graphic 45. Be sure to visit both the Tombow blog and the Graphic 45 one for chances to win product. There are some super fun ideas on both blogs too!

Do you ever make anything and love it so much you have a hard time giving it away? This is one such project. I had so much fun making this. The idea actually started out as a baby basket using this paper, but didn’t have any baby items to fill the box AND I didn’t know anyone expecting. LOL!

Then I remembered this fun paper I had received from Graphic 45 with the cherry drink on it (paper with the circles) and thought it would be fun to make a Cherry Coke themed box for a friend or graduate. (aqua), (cream scallops), (polka dots), (swirls), and (circle cherry drink paper).

Okay, let’s get started with all I did to make this fun box as there are a lot of details. I’m going to break up the details in numbers to make it easier to read. (I hope Ü)

1. The box. This is a 2-drink carrier from McDonald’s. (seriously!) We went to McDonald’s drive thru asked for 2 waters (we did order their 3 chocolate chip cookies for a dollar…okay getting off the subject here) in the 2-drink carrier. As soon as we pulled away, I had my son get the cups of water out of the carrier and put it in the back so I could use it later. I brushed all the edges of the box with tan ink.

2. I traced the sides onto scrap cardstock to make my patterns to cover the box. After I had decided on my theme, I went through the papers (and there were a LOT of them…Thank you Graphic 45!) that I had received and chose 5 coordinating papers.

3. I cut my pieces as I wanted them on the box and stitched around each piece (except for the scallop edge) and took a tan ink pad and brushed each piece WITH the ink pad to grunge it up. I went with the grunge look as the Cherry Drink paper has a vintage image on it.

4. For the scallop edge, I used my new favorite EK Success punch.

5. I adhered all the pieces with Tombow’s Mono Adhesive Power Bond.

6. Several elements of this box is inspired are inspired by my friend Michelle Wooderson (you SERIOUSLY have to check out her blog if you aren’t familiar with her work!) First element is using old pattern tissue for tissue paper. I found some old patterns at a shop for 5 cents each. Pretty inexpensive tissue paper! On one side of the carrier is a bottle of Coke and a Twin Bing candy.

The candy has a cherry nougat center. This candy is only found in a few states. It has a nutty chocolate outside. Very yummy!

7. On the other side of the carrier is this cup that I found at a local store for $1. How cool is this???!

The colors match my paper perfectly. I was looking all over for a Coke glass and found this AFTER my box was made. I was tickled pink…I know, doesn’t take much for this farm girl to get excited. I included a cello bag of chocolate covered cherries (if I would have had the time I would have made homemade candy, like Black Forest Fudge)

8. Another inspired item on the second side is a recipe card. Mish decorates her recipe cards so cool. I can just imagine how cool her recipe book looks! You can buy Cherry Coke, but I thought I’d Google a recipe for making your own and found this simple recipe and what fun that it uses cherry Kool-Aid…another decorating element I can use for my gift box. (hey did you know that Kool-Aid got it’s start in Hastings, Nebraska? I live some place famous. Ü You can read about it here.)  

I stamped on the recipe with Stampin' Up's Canvas (retired) stamp to give it a grungy look. I punched a scallop circle in aqua and hand cut a circle (dots) and taped it to the recipe card. (oh yeah, you can use this recipe for Sprite too. kids used to order cherry Sprites when I worked at Dairy Queen.

9. I couldn’t figure out how to decorate the front and it finally came to me to use the Kool-Aid packet somehow. Mish came up with a pocket card a few years back and recently has been making paper bag ones. BINGO! I have a BUNCH of “smaller than lunch bags” sized sacks and knew they would be the perfect size.

10. I folded the bag into a “pocket” shape and machine stitched the sides, then brushed edges with ink and inserted the cherry Kool-Aid. I used buttons to represent cherries and drew a stem. I hand cut a leaf from felt and sewed down the center.

11. To hold the pocket to the box, I used a clothespin (yet another Mish idea…I told ya she was creative!). I cut paper to fit both sides of the clothespin and distressed with ink. Using crochet thread, I knotted two Basic Grey buttons and glued to clothespin with Mono Aqua Liquid Glue and WA-LA ~ a lovely gift basket to give.

Congrats Graduate!

We are done with graduation here (May 8th) and had our first son graduate. I had lots of graduation cards to make for his friends and this is one of them. I used more paper from Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend line and chipboard letter "g" from Maya Road to create this card. I'm going to be sad when I'm out of this wonderful paper!


I cut the star with my George Cricut cartridge. I cut 4 from scrap cardstock and one from the patterned paper from Cosmo's Early Bird line. I hand wrote "congrats graduate!" with the fine point tip of Tombow's black Dual Brush Pen.

Supplies:
supplies: Tombow's Dual Brush Pens #856 & N15, Mono Adhesive Dots, & Mono Liquid Glue; Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend & Early Bird patterned paper; ribbon and ric rac, Maya Road chipboard letter and Basic Grey buttons

congrats

It's been a long time since I've made a long card. This size (4" x 9.25") fits into a business size envelope. I used Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend line. This line is perfect for any projects relating to school.

I colored the alphabet black with Tombow's Dual Brush marker and the stars yellow. With the fine point of the black pen I doodled around the large cut star. The star was cut with Cricut's George Cartridge.

Supplies:
Tombow Mono Adhesive Dots, Multi Liquid Glue, Dual Brush Pens #N15 & #985,
Maya Road David Chipboard Alphabet
Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend patterned paper

Graduation and etc..

Hello! It seems that lately, I've been apologizing for not posting regularly here. I apologize again. I've been sick since the day before graduation and am just now starting to feel better. I ended up with bronchitis and because I'm now down to one antibiotic that I can have the dr. wanted to try something different. I think I would rather had the antibiotic! It's been a very LONG week.

Well, my 435 cookies got made AND not only that but it only took a little under 3 hours!!!! Can you believe it? Bet you don't, but it's the truth. I have a friend that has a convection (sp?) oven and we were able to bake 3 dozen at a time. We had a system going...fill cookie sheets, put in oven, take out, cool, put in boxes, repeat. Ü Now THAT'S the way to make cookies!

Here are a few pictures of our senior. He was one of 6 students that have been 4.0 since 9th grade, so he had to give a speech. He was the only one that stepped up to the mic and that could be heard and understood. For family that doesn't know...he is planning to attend Chadron State and major in medicine. Right now his goal is to become a doctor, so he has a lot of school ahead of him. Good thing he loves school! LOL! We are so proud of you Benjamin!!

Here are some pictures (alot of them didn't turn out and are blurry)...

table with diplomas

here he is handing out flowers. He had already given me mine. good thing there isn't a picture cuz I was crying. he is hugging his great grandma in this picture. my MIL is wearing black and white and mom is in pink

receiving a medal for 4 years of having a 4.0 GPA

receiving his diploma

I was so busy working that I didn't get alot of pictures taken at the reception. DH took this. this is of the food table. The "trays" the cookies are in are hubcaps (my idea Ü) from his Mustang (his idea)

this is my nephew "helping uncle Bruce make ice cream"...translation playing in the salt. Ü

I want to brag on Aaron too. He received honors for all A's for his freshman year and was chosen as one of four 
Students of the Year by classmates and faculty. We are very proud of you Aaron!!

Finals start Thursday, so it's going to be busy and crazy around here thru next Tues (the 25th) which is the last day of school.

I was able to get some stamping done for Tombow this weekend, so be watching my blog for when those projects go live this week and the next few weeks.

Teacher Appreciation Week

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week and I have a fun project to share with you. I found this fun tutorial on Shannon's blog.

I used fun papers from Cosmo Cricket's Early Bird and The Boyfriend lines. These papers are perfect for a teacher gift. I used Tombow's MONO Adhesive Dots, MONO Aqua Liquid Glue, MONO Glue Stick, and MONO Adhesive Power Bond.

Here is a tip for how I cut the curve for the carton closer flaps. I inserted my piece into an oval punch like shown below. Super easy!

For the ruffles on the chipboard circle, I just hand-sewed a running stitch along one edge of ribbon and then gathered up and knotted and placed behind the chipboard. I glued it with the MONO Liquid Aqua Glue.

This was so much fun to make that I think I will make some more. I filled these with paper clips, erasers that go on the end of pencils, and candy! Ü

Graduation Count Down

Six days til Benjamin graduates! YIKES I'm not ready!! We ended up going and seeing Bruce's grandma yesterday. I didn't get as many things marked off my list this weekend as I wanted, but it was good to just relax for awhile. Now, I'm ready to get busy. Wish I didn't have to work as it only gives me very FEW hours a day to work on things.

Tonite is the senior slideshow. I've never been to one and am looking forward to it. I will have 2.5 hours after school to work on things, so hope I have a very productive time.

TTFN