And I'm glad! But sad to see my mini vacation coming to an end.  Easter is really a big deal here in New Zealand, and if you time your holiday/paid time off just right, you can have up to a week or more off from work without dipping into your annual leave too deeply!

Before Easter, I was busy both at work and home.  At work, busy with an important project, and at home busy with projects for very important people.

Finally finished, is the exploding box I was making for a friend's mother's birthday! It was her 65th birthday and she needed a special card indeed!  Never having done one of these before it was a new learning experience.  I had a few "patterns" out there but all involved painstakingly measuring and cutting card stock - as I'm horrible at measuring this didn't really appeal to me as I was sure to get it wrong.



Luckily the Silhouette Online Store had a few patterns for the exploding box, and chose one with a shallow lid.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the pattern from My Mind's Eye Union Square papers in her favorite colours and added butterflies - another of her favorites.

Not shown are the various photos that my friend chose to go on each of the box's flaps, and the stamped "happy birthday" - I wanted to show the box in its "clean" state to inspire others to create one as well and a blank canvas to fill in with their own photos!

Click through to the picture to be taken to the Two Peas in a Bucket gallery to see more detailed and up close shots of this project!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="193" caption="Exploding Box Top View"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="262" caption="Exploding Box Inner View"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="239" caption="Exploding Box Butterfly"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="242" caption="Exploding Box Top Detail"][/caption]

Special project for a special lady!
Hope she really enjoyed her day and the presents she received :)