Long Time No Blog Post

 Life has been so hectic (and stressful) since i last posted, but I am back, with a renewed determination to blog more regulalrly. 

I am currently working on some small gift items to sell at my next charity craft fair. The charities I raise money for are Breast Cancer, in memory of my late mum and Dementia UK, in support of my Auntie Linda.

The photos below are a selection of hand crafted gift boxes that contain six scented tealights. I think they make lovely small thank you gifts or table gifts for dinner parties and I am pleased with how they have turned out.

I will do a photo tutorial on how to make one of these at some stage, but I have a couple of craft allocations to work on for Crafters Companion. I can't share what they are as yet, but as soon as I can I will.

Hope you like the photos ... please feel free to ask any questions or leave a comment on this post ... I do read them all. Happy Crafting x

Xmas Wreath with Crafters Companion Double Sided Triangle Box Die

To create this project you will need the following:

Crafters Companion  - Dimensionals Triangle Box double sided die set

The speciality plates for use with the double sided dies and your Gemini

A plain wreath, 

A selection of good quality card stock in colours of your choice 

Strong adhesive such as Collall Quick Dry Tacky Glue, or red liner tape, or a glue gun

Numbers 1 to 24, 

Selection of ribbon

Diamond headed pins or other dressmaking pins of your choice

My basic wreath was purchased for a couple of pounds from the Crafters Companion store in Evesham. I used a moss covered wreath but you could use a polystyrene one covered in crepe paper, a natural twig wreath, or even just a circle of card

Using the smallest double sided triangle box die, die-cut 24 box lids and bases. I used Kraft card for the bases of my boxes as these are not really going to be seen much, and it saved using as much of my speciality/glittered card stock. All of the card stock I used in my project came from Crafters Companion as the quality is superb and the gsm is ideal for box making.(you could use Crafters Companions acetate as that also die-cuts beautifully)

Please note - There is no need to cut triangle shaped pieces of card stock, I just dont like wasting my card stock, so I always trim it down before I run it through my Gemini)

Assemble your box bases and box lids as shown on the packaging, Use a  strong adhesive as you dont want your boxes coming apart. For my wreath I made eight boxes in each of three colourways (green, red and gold) but you can make it in any colour theme you like to match your decor.

Once you have your 24 boxes prepared, arrange and then attach them onto your wreath.

I used a hot glue gun to attach my boxes but a strong wet glue would work just as well

I then attached my advent numbers. Mine were purchased premade, but you could die cut them yourself ,if you have a set of small number dies.

The next stage is to make your ribbon decorations. 

Take one diamond headed pin and 3 strips of ribbon approximately 7 inches long.

                                     Push the pin through the middle of the ribbon

Take one of the free ends of the ribbon and push the pin though the free end

Take the other free end of the ribbon and push the pin through this end also.

Repeat with the other two pieces of ribbon

You should end up with a sort of flower shape made out of ribbon as shown below

Push your ribbon flowers into your wreath where you feel there is a bit of a gap that needs filling. Then make and add more ribbon flowers until you feel you have enough

If you wish, tie a loop of ribbon around your wreath at the top so that you can hang it up.

Then add goodies or treats of your choice inside each box.

The finished wreath

If you make one of these please let me know as I love to see photos of other peoples creations. If you have any questions about this project - add your question to the comments section and I will come back to you as soon as I can.

Baubles Galore ...

About a year ago I attended a Christmas Bauble making class taught by the totally amazing Kathryn Rudd at Crafter's Companion in Evesham. I enjoyed the class so much that I recently attended it again! Having been inspired by Kathryn once again. I have had a wonderful weekend creating a set of 6 baubles. The fabric I used is from the Moda Morris Holiday fabric range, based on William Morris fabric designs that are in the V&A museum in London. I absolutely loved making these. Thank you again Kathryn Rudd for patiently and expertly teaching me how to make these. xx

Teepee Style Christmas Card

Yes ... I am back, after almost a year of not blogging at all. I have been crafting but life has been so hectic I just did not have time to blog. Lots has happened over the past twelve months but the highlight has to be that as of September 2018 I was invited onto the Crafters Companion Design Team. I still cant believe that I was actually chosen and will admit it was a real buzz to see some of my DT samples being shown off on the television, on Hochanda in the UK and on HSN in the US. This week I sent off my 3rd lot of samples and I have to say that they are my favorite ones so far. I cant't share the photos of what I made just yet but I am convinced that the new items are going to be hot sellers.

Anyway as I said I am back with a blog post and a tutorial on how to make a Teepee card. It is very simple to create but looks very impressive on the mantelpiece.

You will need 3 pieces of square cardstock to form the base card. You can use any size square, but the one pictured below was made using 3 pieces of 6 x 6 white cardstock. I also used 2 pieces of 6 x 6 paper from the "A winter's Tale" Signature Collection by Sara Davies. which I trimmed down to 5.75 inches square.

Take the three pieces of white card stock and score a line from one corner to the other. I used the fabulous Crafters Companion Guillotine/Cutting Board that has an integrated score board built into it, to score my card stock.

Then burnish your score lines and fold the pieces of card in half

Take two pieces of card stock and stick them together, using a wet glue or a strong tape runner as shown in the picture below, 

Then take the third peice of white card and also stick that in place as shown in the picture below

Take your patterned paper and cut each piece in two from corner to corner. You will only need three of the four pieces you end up with.

  Stick the paper to the card stock as shown, again with either a wet glue or a strong tape runner

Pick up the card base and stick the none decorated side to the underside of the triangle next to it, to form a pyramid or teepee shape, as show below. The card base should stand up very easily.

If you wish to be able to post your card flat, then use a velcro dot to stick the two sides together and pop a little note in with the card so that the recipient knows how to put ot together.

Decorate your card how ever you wish. On mine I cut a sentiment fromgold mirror card using aed a Merry Christmas die from Crafters Companion, which was mounted onto a couple of die cut oval shapes

 I used the same ovals to create a space to write a personal message underneath the sentiment, but if you wanted to you could leave one side of the card blank to write your message on.

I then added a few gems and a ribbon bow

 Hope you enjoy the tutorial, as always if you have any questions please do not hesitate to leave them in the comments box.

Scandinavian Christmas Card 2017

Many years ago (in my early crafting days), I used to make individual Christmas cards for my colleagues. But it got to the stage where I could not remember which card I had made for which person. So now I make it easy for myself, I make a batch of the same card and keep one and label it up as a reminder of what I made that particular year. This year I have kept it very clean and simple. I die cut the Scandinavian Christmas tree from white card stock, matted it onto some fine red glitter card (which was actually an A6 card cut in two!) , this was then matted and layered again onto white card stock and then onto the gorgeous Scandinavian A3 cardstock. I finished off by adding a few adhesive gemstones to the tree and hey presto I have some super 6.75 inch by 8 inch Christmas cards for my colleagues.

The 4 Weeks of Advent - part 2

Continuing on from my last advent gift post, this is another  very quick, simple and inexpensive gift idea, that I will be giving to colleagues in week 3 (of the 4 weeks up to Christmas)

The material/tools used to make these gifts are as follows:
The Big Score Board
Die Cutting/Embossing Machine
A Paper/Card Trimmer
Strong wet glue
Christmas Eve  A3 Double Sided Centura Pearl card stock
Leaves Are Falling Die from the Autumn Morning collection by Sara Davies A pack of Moser Roth White Mousse au Chocolate (£1.69 from Aldi - there are 5 mini bars in each pack)
Cinnamon Sticks
Red Berries
Dark Green Card stock
Some glitter glue
Merry Christmas peel offs

Cut a piece of card 9.5 cm x 12 cm

Score at 4.5 cm, 5.5cm 10cm and 11 cm

burnish your score lines and wrap around your mini chocolate bar

using strong wet glue on the last section thin section of your wrap, glue into place

cut and emboss a leaf from dark green cardstock

adhere a cinnamon stick to the top of the wrap.

add the leaf, carefully bending it around the cinnamon stick

add 3 wired berries (poking the wire under the leaf)

add some glitter glue to the leaf to add a bit of frosting/sparkle

Christmas Boxes

I adore the with A3 Cardstock from Crafters Companion, it is simply perfect for creating all kinds crafty projects and gift boxes.

Yesterday I made a set of five boxes using a collection of their Festive cardstock. The largest box measures  6 inches x 6 inches x 3 inches and the smallest is 3 inches x 3 inches x 1.5 inches

I added a few of Sheena's new Christmas Word dies to the front and back of each box ( the word snow was made by trimming down the word Snowflake) and then I popped on a few adhesive pearls and gems. I finished off with some cream ribbon and a xmas floral embellishment from my stash

I'd love to get a stack of presents like this!

The 4 Weeks of Advent - part 1

I have a small crafting tradition, in that I like to make small inexpensive hand crafted gifts for my colleagues for the 4 weeks up to Christmas. Last year I was in an open office with 40 colleagues, so the gifts had to be VERY quick and simple. This year the company I work for has relocated us to another floor with a different office set up, so now I share an office with 12 colleagues. This means I can put a little more thought and effort into the 12 gifts I make.

The first gift I have made, which will be given as the main advent gift (in week 4) is a small handcrafted box containing four christmas scented Yankee Tea-light Candles. The boxes were made with Crafters Companion (CC) A3 double sided Traditional Christmas cardstock. I adore this cardstock, as it is the perfect quality for creating boxes and other projects with.

The boxes I made measure 3 inches x 3 inches x 3/4 of an inch when finished, which is the perfect size to  hold 4 Yankee tea light candles.  I used acetate, (which actually came from some CC  Die'sire packaging) to form the window in the centre of the box and added a Merry Christmas sentiment, die cut from CC's gold mirror card and a bow made from CC's  Traditional Christmas luxury ribbon pack.

Hope you like them xx

PS I know there are only 8 in the photo, I have made 12 but four were repeats!