Occasionally I'll get an idea, an idea that seems so good, I can't help but to follow it down whatever rabbit hole it takes me, and that is what I did X3 this weekend.

Rabbit Hole #1

Bookmarks. I saw these super cool book marks on someone's web page somewhere. Small, about 3 inches by 1.5 inches with a flap to grip the page- genius! I designed a quick piece in Make the Cut, slapped some of my painted bristol on the Crapcut and yeehaw, bookmarks! The came out neato.(I'll write about how well the crapcut did and didn't do in another post.)

Rabbit Hole #2

Secret Santa Gift Exploding Box. A few years ago I found a template online for a box with an attached lid that sort of screwed down on top of the box. I cna't find the one I made years ago. So I searched and searched and searched. I found a template for "wedding boxes" in the Make the Cut archive. It was pretty in accurate. I made 5 copies with tweaks to the file before I made 1 that worked properly. Also it doesn't help that the provocrap crapcut can't make accurate cuts. I ended up making a 3.25×3.25×4 inch box with lid attached. Ilike exploding box better than wedding box. After I made the 4 mock ups I made 2 in colored paper.

No,, I'm not going to tell you what's actually IN the box, not that my workplace secret santa reads my blog, but I'll tell you it's local and cute.

Rabbit Hole #3

X's and O's. Or my handmade Christmas Paper. If you've been following me for any period of time you know I make my own Christmas paper. Usually I scrounge up packing paper and what not, butthis year has been pretty thin on the packing paper front. So, I bought a cheap pad of newsprint for about $5. I then started to design a variety of stencils. X's, O's, some cool squares and what i'm calling black eye'd peas. I don't have pics of all of them since I spent 2 days designing them and not cutting them.I certainly didn't have time to use them making paper, go figure. This weekend Christiw and I will clean off the kitchen table, get out the paint and sharpies and attack some newsprint to make our own wrapping paper. (I have to say I've also convinced a bunch of my friends to do this with their kids, or so they claim.)