February 8, 2016

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year

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Happy Chinese New Year! I think it is very important for my boys to grow up learning about customs and celebrations for other countries and faiths. My husband and I want our boys to grow up with open minds and hearts towards everyone. We try to share a treat or something fun, along with a little bit of info about the celebration. Chinese New Year {and Hanukkah} is one of their favorites. Today, they will enjoy some red candies in a take out style box and some crackers filled with small fireworks inside. We will also go old school and watch a slide show of photos from their grandparent’s trip to China several years ago.

I shared the DIY for the crackers in the Spring 2016 issue of EPM. However, my kiddos are also getting candy in their take out boxes, so I put small fireworks in the crackers instead.

I made the take out style box using my Cricut. I simply cut it out, glued it together, filled it with red M&M’s candies, and a paper fortune cookie with a little message for each child inside. Then, I glued a Happy New Year Tag to the outside of the box to finish it off!

Supplies for the take out box:

Cricut

Card stock or poster board

Red M&M’s

Glue

Paper

Free printable tag (below)

This box is $0.99 if you don’t have a monthly subscription to Cricut Access. I made my box just about 11″ x 9.5″ (keep the scale locked)

The Cricut will score the lines that need to be folded and cut out the rest. I would probably not use poster board for it again, but it worked for this purpose. (You can see where it almost tore off some at the old lines…)

I hot glued the box together to keep it more stable. It was a little bit of overkill, but I did it anyway.

Once it was filled candies, I added a tag to the front. Sunny Duran Illustrations drew the monkey and a few other pieces of clip art for me and I LOVE them! So much so, I made an additional free printable tag for fun.