Heartfelt Farewell Gifts to my Customers

It wasn't easy to say goodbye especially to people whom you've been seeing them regularly for the past 2 years. Today is my very last day in a cafe where I worked for, a place where I relearned a lot things and found new friends there. Most of them are my regular customers whom I've been serving them since day one I started work there.

There's so much memories created there and certainly these lovely customers indeed have made my workplace a better place to work in. To show my appreciation and gratitude towards them, I decided to do up something for them. At the same time, I'm submitting these projects for Heartfelt Creations Design Team Call. While I'm not expecting that much that I'll be able to make it to the semi-final round, I'm hoping I'm able to create some inspirations via this means. 

It's also my very first time using Heartfelt Creations products (of which most of them are generously loaned to me by one of my crafty friends, Pauline who owns loads of Heartfelt products) and realized how heartfelt these products are. They synced in so well in what I want to express, in particularly for the Coffee Talk collection as making coffee has always been part of bonding process with my customers. It's also through coffee I learned about the science and art of making a good cup of coffee. All thanks to Weranga, one of my customers who encouraged me to take up some courses to hoard my skills. To bid them goodbye certainly will bring tears to my heart. I'll surely miss them dearly. 😢  

I wrapped some teabags with some brown paper and secured them with some jute twine. These tea pouches came with tags that I die-cut them out using the Luggage and Tag dies (HCD1-745) and stamped with "a gift for you" using the Balloon and Bicycle stamp set (HCPC-3599). I made the sleeve with walnut cream cardstock using the Eyelet Oval die (HCD1-776). Because these are not coffee, I only added on some cup and spoon embellishments using the Coffee Talk stamp and die set (HCPC-3709 & HCD1-782).

What's coming next is the main focus of the farewell gift - coffee. Coffee is where all friendships are made. Neither would I be able to make coffee for my customers anymore, nor would I know when will our paths cross again, what I can do is to gift them some coffee beans; beans that I used to make their daily coffee. Well, instead of placing those beans in a bottle, I placed them into these mini suitcases and decided to pack them with some interesting idea that will "perk" my customers up a little.

Without me further explaining, as pictures do speak a thousand words. Introducing Heavenly Scent; stress coping coffee beans!! What I stated within this little "product insert" are true accordingly to scientific studies, but what comes after are some puns and kind warnings! Oh well, these are meant to be some sort of novelty gimmick to entertain my customers a little. 

The gimmicky product insert...

These are matchbox size suitcases which I die cut them out from Tim Holtz' matchbox Bigz die (which unfortunately has been retired) using kraft cardstock. Prior to assembly, I stamped the surfaces with coffee beans using The Perfect Blend stamp set (HCPC-3712) and coloured the beans using watercolour pencils. At the back of the drawer, I stamped some Latte Art (HCPC-3711). To provide some "packaging" to these Heavenly Scent beans, I made these mini paper bags as well using The Perfect Blend stamps. 

I penned down my heartfelt messages for my customers on ATC cards and everything I made went into a bigger paper bag, which ended off with a huge message "Thank you for making my world a better place" using My World stamp (HCPC-3663) right at the front.

Alas, as I gifted them away to my customers, I hope I've more time to talk to them prior to my leaving. However, this wasn't possible as I couldn't manage to catch some of them in time and have to go. I left my crafting identity within and hope they are able to find me online. Well, should our paths cross again, we will meet again in time to come.

Graphic 45 Throwback; An Unseen Project - Voyage Beneath the Sea Bathroom Decor

Alas!! As I flipped through the drafts, I took notice of this one project I had done up for Graphic 45 during my term with them. Oh how I miss those days with Graphic 45. Till date their various paper collections and staples still occupy more than 70% of my stash, thanks to their generosity. Therefore, for today's throwback I decided to do up a blog post about this unseen project that's long overdue and never get to share in Graphic 45 blog. 😢

Though I was very attracted by the steampunky mermaid on the main page of Voyage Beneath the Sea paper collection, I especially took notice of the seahorses and the arch frame instead. This gave me an idea of a pair of seahorses guarding a pearl. Eventually, I turned them into a piece of bathroom wall decor, which I think it would certainly look good when placed above the toilet bowl. Imagine the seahorses are splashing some glittering water each time you flush your toilet. Alright, it may sounds a little too much of information here. But, that's probably one unique aesthetic concept you could consider. I do find it rather cool, don't you think so? Oh well, to each of its own...

To hold the decor, I'd need some sort of hook. Instead of a usual conventional hook, I grabbed one of the shabby chic ornate metal key holders and improvised it so that it can be hang onto the wall. A final touch of some patina gilders paste certainly adds some marine feel to it. And it's all ready to be hang!

Sadly, it seems that most stores are not longer carrying this paper collection and we can only wait for Graphic 45 to relaunch them as Deluxe Collections. Nonetheless, below are a list of supplies (not a lot though and within what I can remember) I had used for this project with links to where to get some of them:

• Graphic 45 Voyage Beneath the Sea 12" x 12" Paper Pad
• Graphic 45 Shabby Chic Ornate Metal Key Holders
• Prima Marketing Shabby Chic Round Ornate Resin Frame
• GSL Miniature Steampunk Corners and Borders
• Baroque Art Patina Gliders Paste
• Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Brushed Corduroy (Amazon, Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Own Stash (brass chain, seashells and pearl)

Little Milk Carton Gift Boxes

Ever since I become a legitimate Christian, celebrating Christmas as Jesus being the reason for the season no longer hold any water within the Christian faith. I'm so glad to know there isn't such a stipulated "biblical" day to observe in order to be a Christian because such a "religious day" can be taken way too out of context. 

If you take a deeper look and do some research into the history, you'll be surprised to know it's actually derived from pagan roots and a holiday created by men. And for some, it only serves as the most depressing period of the year. Instead I'd much prefer to celebrate this day as a day of long tradition; a day of family gathering together to know everything from Charles Dickson to Christmas trees, or how St. Nick and Santa Claus came about! And why Santa wears red has an interesting origin. Check this out:

   

While almost everyone was busy shopping for Christmas gifts and decorations, as well as sharing holiday recipes on various social media platforms, it was perhaps one of the years I appeared not doing much about this Christmas. Maybe helping out my youngest sister to gift-wrap all the presents she had bought for her friends and colleagues. As usual, a little busy moment for this holiday season.

Although Christmas has just passed, it doesn't means gifting has to stop here. Rather I'd very much prefer to gift based on the heart to give and not restricted to such occasion(s). Hence, looking at the pile of Graphic 45 St. Nick paper collection lying around my crafting area, I decided to do some gifting using this collection together with the milk carton etched die I just bought from Spellbinders. Not something extravagant, but a little act of gifting makes your heart more fonder to gift. In actual fact, I just want to utilize my existing stash to create something. I just have too much! Guess as a crafter/artist, it always seems it's never enough to stock things up for whatever reasons.  

Therefore, I made these 8 little cute milk carton gifts for some of my friends and sisters-in-Christ from the Church. The 12" x 12" patterns and solids paper pad came in very handy for this project. It's probably one good idea to maximize your patterns and solids papers. 

These cute little milk cartons measured at about 3.75" tall, handy enough to be grabbed single-handedly. Puns aside, these milk cartons are just way too adorable. 

It took me some time to figure out what I should do to embellish these milk cartons. That was where I searched into my wafer dies library and found this Spellbinders Fleur de Elegance die set that has a little regal oval frame I could use. Using the gold metallic sheets I've in my stash, I die-cut 8 of them out. The effects it give on metallic paper is really amazing. It just gives a very special touch to the entire frame! Plus it goes really well with the papers I've selected. 

Each of them are thoughtfully named using the alphas from the stickers sheet along with this paper collection, and named them accordingly to the individuals I'm gifting. Thinking adding a little greens will be nicer, I decided to make some holy using the mini holiday green thinlits and placed them onto the labels. Since they're milk cartons to begin with, a little golden bell in front will perhaps jingle a little when the cartons are being shaken. Everything looked well and good, and I'm ready to gift (with some already been gifted)!

A full list of supplies I used for this project can be found listed below with links to various places I get most of my supplies from. This will be my very last post for this year and I hope to see you guys really soon with more tutorials and videos next year. Meanwhile, have a very good weekend ahead and Happy New Year!!!

List of Supplies:

• Graphic 45 St. Nicholas 12" x 12" Patterns & Solids (Amazon, Scrapbook.com)
• Graphic 45 St. Nicholas Stickers Sheet
• Bazzill Basic Walnut Cream Cardstock (Amazon, Scrapbook.com)
• Tim Holtz Distressed Ink in Brushed Corduroy (Amazon, Scrapbook.com)
• Tim Holtz Mini Holiday Green Thinlits
• Tim Holtz Kraft Stock Metallic 8" x 8" Gold & Silver Cardstock (Amazon, Scrapbook.com)
• Spellbinders Shapeabilities Milk Carton Etched Dies (Amazon, Scrapbook.com, Spellbinders)
• Spellbinders Nestabilities Fleur de Elegance Etched Dies (Amazon, Spellbinders)
• Tiny Golden Jingle Bells
• Own Stash (jute trims, seam bindings, gold trims, vintage binder clips)

Every Occasion Cookie/Candy Gift Box

Though the festive season is over, everyone seems to be busy shopping trying to grab great deals. It seems to me everyone is still in a very much holiday mood. For this very reason, for I'm a poor girl, so there's not much shopping for me to do. But I do have lots of junk and definitely Graphic 45 goodies. Nothing beats handmade and I can assure you the personal touch is something no amount of money can be bought. Here I'm showing a dainty gift box for everyday occasion which can be done with 2 large ivory tag, a few sheets of pattern papers and some ribbons. Click HERE to view the full tutorial.

I hope this tutorial can be useful for your everyday, any other day occasion or last minute gift packaging. To further expand my sweet treat labels, I've created more sweeter treats which can be purchased at my Etsy store HERE.  

Home Sweet Home Kitchen Rack Hanger

As my crate obsession continues, I just couldn't help getting addicted. How I wish I'm living in a rural country side owning a farm so that I can build more crate houses for my chickens. LOL! I can't get any crazier than this. So in order to fulfill my crate obsession, I'm building this kitchen rack hanger using Graphic 45 Home Sweet Home paper collection together with those wooden utensils from Ikea, as featured on Sunday's Graphic 45 blog post... 

Absolutely love rustic farm feel and I can't help falling in love with Elmer's white glue that creates those lovely crackle effects... Now I can use this Home Sweet Home rack hanger for my kitchen stuffs...

Caring Karie and Charming Mel Fairy Tooth Door Shrines

This month is not really a very smooth month for me as I was suddenly held up by a lot of unexpected things recently. My mind was very packed with quite a number of stuffs and have been taken up part of my time which prevent me to keep my projects updated on my blog. I hope I'm able to plan my time well enough. Nonetheless, I managed to find some time to update one of my DT project for Graphic 45, which is featured on yesterday blog post.

The inspiration actually comes from various shrines projects I've been seeing on various social media platform especially on Pinterest. That caught me thinking. Instead of finding stuffs to build the shrine up, I decided to use the various tags to create one. Something toy-like with a little whimsical fairy touch. The original intention was to do up something for my friend's daughter's birthday and this idea of building a fairy tooth door shrine popped up... And here I present, A Caring Karie tooth fairy for my friend's daughter. I've done up a video tutorial for this as well which I had further explained the inspiration behind this project.

I created another fairy tooth door shrine for my other friend's daughter using the sample I used for the tutorial demo in my video. I named this fairy the Charming Mel tooth fairy. The whole idea for this was Frozen inspired. I made the shrine that looks like an ice palace instead, especially build for a girl who has a cool personality. The whole shrine was actually glitter-ized, making it look "icy" and I added a little dish at the bottom for other treasure keeping.

My Official Return as Graphic 45 DT and A Crafter's Card Holder

Today is the day I come back to the Graphic 45 DT for the 2nd year. My first year with them was indeed a heavenly one and it's an experience that I'll never forget. Though there's a lot of changes in my life this year, it also means I'll have more work to do and there's a lot of adjustments to be made. While I'm "transcending" and adapting, I'm working hard to crack my brain cells more bringing more exciting artwork and projects in the near future.

As a start for my 2nd year with Graphic 45, I'm sharing here a tutorial for Father's Day or any other day which may deem fit for any other special occasion - a Crafter's card holder for the exquisite, rare and unknown. Beware of its size, it only holds a minute amount of cards exclusively where cards are only given to a few which make them uniquely rare.

Alright, I'm not exactly sure how many cards are usually given daily unless you are a salesperson. But in my previous work as a Innovator/Researcher where I held different level of position, sometimes I don't even issue one card within a day. I'd have to warn you that these card holders can only hold a maximum of 5 typical name cards and they are indeed for the rare and exquisite people. If you've gold plated or diamond cards, these are probably ideal.