Cooking With Cricut Sweet Shop Blog Hop Up, up and away with our second day

Welcome to Bouncyflouncyfunfunfun and the CookingWithCricut Sweetshop Blog Hop! If you’ve never enjoyed a blog hop before, it’s where you ‘hop’ between blogs following a chain of links, with each blog in the chain posting something exciting for the event! There will even be some great blog candy (giveaways) to win along the way! More on that in a moment!


If you've come from visiting Anita, you're in the right place! If you've just happened across my blog and would like to play along with our fun hop, you can go to CookingWithCricut.com and start at the beginning. Go HERE .


With Valentine’s Day just a few days away we are sharing some wonderful ideas and inspiration for your viewing and crafting pleasure! Each Design Team member will be featuring an original project each day (Saturday & Sunday) made especially for this hop. Make sure to check out each DT member's blog and collect the special letter there. There will be prizes along the way at our DT members' blogs, AND there will be some nice PRIZES with a few different ways to win at CookingWithCricut.com!

For today's project I thought it would be cute and kind of fun to make a Hot Air Balloon Box.  It's perfect for those yummy chocolatey treats.  I also included this adorable card.

Details on the card: 
I used Mini Monogram cartridges for the scalloped square and rounded squares.  I embossed the red panel using my hearts folder and cuttlebug.  Those adorable images are Love Bandits and they're from PageKits.com.  I colored them using copic markers.  The banner was created using Shout Out from Shannon's Sentiments and the sentiment circle is from Stampin Up's Love Ya set.  To add some texture I used white liquid applique and the heat gun on the raccoons hair.  Their noses and the key were made shiny by using glossy accents.  The papers I used were black and red card stock from Recollections, and white card stock.

Details on the Hot Air Balloon Box:
I cut out hearts each of black, red and white card stock using my George cart.  The black hearts are 5.  Red hearts are 4 1/2 with the shadow setting and the white hearts are 4 1/2.  I scored each of the hearts down the center and folded them and glued them together in layers.  I then glued each layer of hearts back to back making a circle stopping before I had glued the last hearts together.  It was time to make my box.  The box is 3 7/8 inches squared.  Before gluing the box together I made an insert to fit into the bottom by cutting a piece of card stock 3 7/8 inches by 5 7/8 inches.  I folded this piece in half and then added a score line inch on either side so when it was folded it had a peak.  I punched a hole in the center to thread my cording through.  I attached this piece to the inside bottom of the box.  I then pulled the cording through the center of the unfinished "balloon" and glued the last of the hearts together.  This  wasn't enough to stabilize the basket so I punched holes in each corner of the basket and two of the balloons on the side and ran cording through them and made my adjustments until the basket hung level.  To accomplish this I used two holed buttons on each of the corners.  All I had to do was sinch it like you would do a belt.  All that was left to do now was decorate and fill with candy.  This one's filled with my favorite chocolate, Lindors.  Yum, yum!

I hope my directions were clear enough but if they weren't I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Here is a close up:

In addition to the chance to win prizes from Cooking With Cricut, Melin  at Pagekits.com has so sweetly offered this wonderful prize for me to give to one of my lucky viewers.  All you need to do is leave me a comment by Sunday, 12:00 PM CST and you could win this fabulous cut file or digi image, it's your choice.

Remember, this prize is seperate from the other prize package being offered.  To be eligible for that you need to collect your letters along the way.

Here is the “secret” letter you need to collect to be eligible for a prize package at CookingWithCricut.com. My secret letter is N.


Now it's your turn! Let’s see your sweet Valentine projects. Be sure to include a Cricut or other die cut machine cut on your project and link it up at CookingWithCricut.com. The Design Team will pick their three favorites and one lucky sweetheart will be chosen randomly to win one of the six prize packages being offered in this hop.


Next stop... Cathie!  Go see what she has in store for you today.


And don’t forget, when you're done, make sure to head back to CookingWithCricut.com and get entered to win one of SIX prize packages! Here’s how:


1. Link your sweet Valentine project and be one of the top three chosen by our Chefs.
2. Link your project and be the randomly drawn winner.
3. Collect all the letters and unscramble our “secret” phrase correctly and leave it in the special comment section on CookingWithCricut.com.
4. Or just leave a comment at CookingWithCricut.com and let us know how you liked our Sweetshop Blog Hop.


Here is our Hop line-up:
1. CWC-Melin
2. Abby
3. Anita
4. Me
5. Cathie
6. Christel
7. Dalis 
8. Deb
9. Erika
10. Gaby
11. Jean
12. Jenna
13. Jennifer
14. Jenny
15. Karla
16. Madison
17. Maria Elena
18. Melissa
19. Michelle
20. Nicole
21. Raven
22. Roberta
23. Ronnie

Until next time, have a great day and thanks for stopping by!  TTFN

Hugs, Becky