Small Treat Box with the Cameo!

Hi folks!

My name is Ian and I am a new designer for The Bugbytes.  I come to you from A Newbie Crafter!  A little about me before I get into my project...  I am originally from Wisconsin, but work at a small college in upstate New York.  I am hoping to move back to the Midwest in June/July though as my contract is up and I'd love to be closer to friends and family.  Now, onto my crafting.  I got into crafting when I finally gave in and purchased a Cricut in January 2011.  I have been hooked ever since...and my credit card hates me, or loves me?  I hate my credit card...bill.  :)  Anyway, I love to make paper crafts and am always looking at new techniques.  Recently, I caved and purchased a Silhouette Cameo. I was destined not to spend more than $200 on it and I found one for $196!  I couldn't believe it so I HAD to purchase it.  :)  I have only used it a couple times but I am in love with it!  So many possibilities.  Anyway, today's project comes to you from the Cameo in conjunction with svgcuts.com.

I supervise a staff of 13 Resident Assistants and try to make them something small for breaks and special holidays.  I recently made them a piece of pumpkin pie filled with Puppy Chow...it was so much fun!  I wanted to go bigger this time around so I found this cute book shaped box and started about 24 hours before it was due.  Let me just tell you, you would think making 13 staff members something would be easy...well, only if there were about 2-3 cuts!  haha.  Anyway, I made them this book.  I really wish it turned out as nice as this one...  it didn't.

I wanted to take pictures of each step along the way, but that got to be too time consuming and I was on a time crunch so you will see the first few steps below and then the finished product.  Again, I was VERY crunched for time and on top of that had to clean my apartment before they came over.  Eek!  Anyway, here are the pictures.

Here are all the pieces cut out.  The 3 dark brown pieces are glued together to form the book.  The tan piece is the book cover.  

Here's the book glued together.  It's starting to take form!

This is a side view of the book.  Here's where I made a mistake.  The ATG tape that I used is probably not permanent and they were literally falling apart as I was making them.  #mad.

Here's the front cover of the book.  There were a lot of steps in between the last photo and this one but I had 13 of these to make and could not waste a single moment, sadly.  I am upset at myself for not inking the edges of the corners, and embossing them to give them a winter look.  I also should have added an image...next time I will have MORE time.  :)

Side view of the book.  Instead of Merry Christmas, I chose Season's Greetings from the Tanenbaum stamp set from Close To My Heart. 

Here's a side view of the book.  I embossed the sides of the pages with a wood grain to give it some texture.  I like it!  

Another view and yes, as you can see the top of the book is coming off of the frame of the book.  Ugh! I was so happy to see them take these out of my apartment just because I was so frustrated with them falling apart.  :(  

Here's a close up of the box part of the book.  Cute idea!  

It's finals week here at the college.  They are studying their butts off and I thought they could all use some Ghiradelli Peppermint Bark to get them through the week.  I also saved some for me as it's my favorite Ghiradelli.  :)  

Craft on,
Ian