Cocoa for two

Only a few more days until the October Papertrey Release. Today I'd like to show you a fun holiday gift made with Heather's new Warm Happiness stamp set. Be sure to check out Heather's blog for yesterday's sneak peek of this fun new set. Whether you like coffee, tea or cocoa, it seems that we ALL like the cups and mugs that hold the delightful concoctions. Heather(I call her Pine) has designed a very fun stamp set that you'll be sure to use for the holidays and all year round.

My gift project for today is a *Cocoa for Two* box that holds two packets of instant cocoa drink mix. For the box I used Papertrey's clear card box and embellished the outside with lots of glittery snowflakes and dressed up buttons. Two lengths of Sweet Blush Ribbons were adhered to the outside of the box with double sided sticky tape.


For the main image, I used the mug and the shadow image along with three separate word sentiments(warm, cocoa, wishes) from the Warm Happiness set. To help speed the process along for mass produced holiday gifts, I used a circle punch and the Giga Scallop Circle Punch to out my images. Once assembled, I traced along the outer edge of the white circle with a fine tip glue pen and then sprinkled on some glitter. I added more glitter to the cocoa mug too. Stay tuned to my blog..I'll show you soon how I used the masking technique to create the cocoa mug with shadow images. For the inside of my box, I cut out a piece of delightfully fun Polka Dot Parade patterned paper that is being released this month. I cut it to fit snugly inside the back of my clear stationery box. I then stamped some more circles with a cute friendship sentiment from the Warm Happiness set. The word *cocoa* was stamped separately, as there is an option to add the words cocoa, coffee or tea to this sentiment. Clever! I cut out my circles using Spellbinder's Circle Nestabilties. While the metal die template was still on the cut out circles, I traced the inside of the circles with a fine tip glue pen. I then added some glitter for a little extra sparkle. I stuck the circles with sentiments onto two cocoa packets using foam pop dots. Then the cocoa packets get nestled into the stationery box with some iridescent filler. Be sure not to fill the box too full with filler or else the polka dot paper won't peek through.
Here's a closeup of the fun accents on the outside of the box. I'll show you how to make the glitterfied snowflakes, they're so much fun!!
First, you punch out snowflakes using the Extra Jumbo Snowflake punch being released this month at Papertrey Ink. If you've been following Heather's blog, then you've seen that one of her new sets coordinates with a bunch of new snowflakes punches coming to Papertrey Ink this month.

Next, place the punched snowflakes onto the surface of The Essential Glue Pad. You'll need to add just enough glue from the refill bottle that comes with the Glue Pad each time you plan to use the Glue Pad. This re-moistens the pad for just the right amount of stick.
Using craft tweezers, dip the glue covered snowflakes into iridescent glitter and allow to dry for a bit.
Do up some extras while you're at it so you can have plenty for holiday projects. Once you have a little heap of snowflakes piled up, get creative. I used buttons and embroidery floss to adorn my snowflake centers. To attach your fanciful snowflakes to your project, simply add one foam pop dot to the back of the snowflake.
I'm almost wanting a little colder weather to be here so that I can start giving out some fun *Cocoa for Two* gifts. These would be perfect little treats for a friend or coworker or teacher. Since there are two packets, you could invite a friend over for cocoa and give this gift to them as a little favor. You could also attach a note to share the cocoa with a friend and then pass on the little gift box....kind of like the gift that keeps on giving. You might want to make one for yourself though because they're almost too cute to give away!

Be sure to visit Nichole's blog to see more sneak peeks of this month's releases. The excitement is in the air!