Day 12 - 12 Gifts of Christmas...

So we have finally made it to the 12th Day, and todays Gift is one I have seen about a lot lately (but I hadn't seen so many when I made mine)... have made it slightly different too as I thought it looked neater, it is an

Advent Calendar

I started off with 24 large matchboxes from Tesco, they must have thought I was mad buying so many, and now I dont know what to do with the matches now... but I thought I wouldn't be able to fit anything in the small ones, so big ones it is...

I took the inner and coloured the end in by rubbing 1/2 of them along an Olive Green Ink Pad and the other 1/2 on a Real Red Ink Pad, I then coloured round the edges using the Stampin' Write Markers.

I continued until all of them were coloured and you couldn't see any white when they were put back inside their outer covers.

Next I put double sided tape on the top of the matchboxes...

And stuck six in a row alternating the colours...

I did this 4 times until I had 4 piles of 6 boxes...

I next needed to cover the sides with Patterned Paper and yet again I used Patterned Paper from the I Wish Simply Scrappin Kit... I cut 4 pieces measuring 3 1/4" x 8 "

I used Snail Adhesive to stick them to the boxes...

I stuck them to the left hand side (when you are looking at them)... like this..

I know it looks like the right hand side, but it is definately the left... I did this for all 4 strips.

Next we need to make the base and top. For this I used chipboard and cut it 6 1/4" square. I covered the top of each with patterned paper again from the I Wish Kit and at 6 1.4" square.

I then stuck double sided tape to the top of each of the six columns and stuck them to the top chipboard piece, taking care to make sure they were central...

I did this until all 4 were stuck and they looked like this...

I then stuck the base on making sure the patterned side was the right way up.... and this is the end result..

I next added sticky strips and ribbon to the boxes so that they were easy to open and looked good. I also decorated the top and the sides, plus I stamped the numbers randomly on the boxes using the Square Serif Mini Alphabet and Numbers Stamp Set. The decorations come from the I Wish Kit too...

The Top...

And the sides... all it leaves to do now is to fill the little boxes up with treats, I was also going to put pieces of paper in for things like a trip to cinema etc

I hope some of these Gifts have inspired you to make some of your own, I enjoyed making them and I now have some little gifts to give away to people...

Sorry the posting is a bit late tonight, it is my little boy's sixth birthday, and we have had KFC for Dinner and birthday cake, and had to help him with his new Dinosaur Nintendo DS Game... hopefully we have worn him out and he will now go to sleep.... Here is a picture of him with his brother and Dad (my DH) at my daughters wedding in March... he is the smallest one... doesn't he look smart??

Well that's all for tonight, maybe I will get time to make some Christmas Cards now.... have so many to make and so little time... have a good evening all, take care xx

Day 9 - 12 Gifts of Christmas

So we are up to Day 9 already, today is a really nice one, made from something you would normally throw in the bin. I have not included measurements today as you can use any tin you would like and they are all likely to be different, as today we are altering an

Altoid Tin

First of all I took an altoid tin and some Patterned Paper (wahey guess where it comes from??) yep it comes from the I Wish Simply Scrappin Pack... I drew around the top and bottom and cut out.

I then covered the lid of the altoid tin in glue....

And then I stuck the Top piece of Patterned Paper to the top.... like this...

I then did the same with the bottom (as the bottom had a lot of writing on I wanted to cover it up.
I found it easier to glue a strip of 1/4" grosgrain around the rim of the lid, and then cut a piece of Patterned Paper to size to go around the sides of the base of the tin. I only put the paper up as far as the lid reached down so it wouldn't get scuffed when the tin was opened and closed...

Then we come to the inside. I again traced around the top and bottom of the tin and cut slightly inside the lines so that the patterned paper would fit inside the top and bottom of the tin...

And stuck double sided tape to the wrong side of the Patterned Paper so it would sit securely inside the tin...

The Patterned Paper was then stuck to the inside of the tin.

I traced around the top of the tin again onto vellum this time, and once again cut out slightly inside the lines.. this was then cut just over halfway up and decorated with one of the strips from the I Wish set.

and using strongbox adhesive was glued slightly around the edges and glued in place on the lid of the tin.

And as you can see I had decided to make the tin into a small sewing set as this is always handy to carry around with you in your handbag...

I then needed to decorate the outside of the tin, so again I turned to the wonderful scallop circle punch and a stamp from the Level 1 Hostess Stamp Set Best Yet. For this I used Very Vanilla, Old Olive and Real Red Cardstock.

I stuck some 1/4" Real Red Grosgrain Ribbon across the top of the tin and topped it off with our assembled scallop embellishment, and then further decorated it with some of the Stampin Up Buttons in Old Olive and Ruby Red.

And voila a very smart looking tin for next to nothing (the sewing set cos £1.99 from Tesco)... a wonderful give for just about everyone...

I also wanted to show you today how versatile the Rub-Ons are, and they have 20% off until 30th November, so if you would like them, please get your orders in quick to me before the 30th November. Just fill in an ORDER FORM at the top of this post (click on ORDERFORM/WISHLIST at the top of this post).

I bought this Frame from Tesco and put a beautiful photo of my DD, her DH and newly born baby (he was only about 30 minutes old when this photo was taken as I was there at his birth), and I decorated the frame with Rub-Ons to personalise it a bit...

And I also decorated a vase and filled it with baubles for a Christmas Decoration this Christmas..

For the photo frame I used the Rub-Ons Cherished Memories and for the Vase I used Hidden Garden Blossoms.

Will be back tomorrow with Day 10 of the 12 Gifts of Christmas, nearly finished now... take care, have a good evening xx

Day 7 - 12 Days of Christmas

I love Hershey's from US, but as not everyone is able to get hold of them, I thought I would adapt the box for Terry's Twilight Mints, I find that if you put 2 together they are only slightly bigger than 1 Hershey's nugget... so today I am making a....

Twilight Mint Box

To start with I cut a piece of textured Chocolate Chip Cardstock from the I Wish Simply Scrappin' kit to measure 4 3/4" x 6".


Score around all edges at 3/4" and then again at 1 1/2". Cut along the lines highlighted with white...

and then stick double sided tape onto the cardstock in the same place as shown in the photo...

Next snip down the edge top and bottom, left and right as shown in this photo...

peel off the double sided tape and fold together to make a box, all the sides fold down twice so that it looks neat inside... the mints will then fit in it nicely...

Next we need to make the mints look pretty, we can fit 6 of these mints in each box by putting 2 together. Cut 3 pieces of Patterned Paper (again I used the Paper from the I Wish Kit) so that they fit nicely around two of the twilight mints.

Then placing one mint on top of another, wrap the Patterned Paper around using double sided tape to seal it...

I then decorated the top of the mints using a Small Flower Stamp from the Season Of Joy Stamp Set, and the 3/4" punch and the smaller punch like this....

I the placed them in the box, but we now need to make a lid for it which is much simpler than the box. Take a piece of Patterned Paper (again the piece I used was from the I Wish Kit (are you noticing something here)) and cut it to 5 1/4" x 3". Score it at 1", 1 3/4", 3 1/2" and 4 1/4". I then cut out a scallop rectangle shape (using my nestabilities) from the middle section of the lid so that you could see the chocolates inside...

I then cut a piece of acetate slightly larger than the opening and glued it to the back of the Patterned Paper, a shown below...

I stuck a piece of double sided tape to a short end and wrapped it around my box with my mints in so that it ended up looking like this...

As you will see I didn't quite get the rectangle in the centre, but it didn't show as much once I had decorated the box. For this I used Chocolate Chip Grosgrain Ribbon, the scallop punch, the 1 3/8" punch and the 1 1/4" punch which cut out the Snowflake Image from the Season of Joy Stamp Set, and the finished item ends up looking like this.

A really nice stocking filler, or little gift for friends, office workers or even teachers.... and the twilight mints are much easier to find than the Hershey Nuggets (I bought mine in Tesco when they were BOGOF).

Hopefully the weather will be a bit brighter tomorrow and I will be able to photograph the items I used my Rub-Ons on... dont forget they have 20% off until 30th November if you would like to buy some...

I will be back tomorrow with Day 8 of my 12 Gifts of Christmas.... dont forget to check back...

Take care all xx

Day 6 - 12 Gifts of Christmas

Today is Day 6 and we are halfway to finishing.... todays is a little bit more complicated but I thought that as it was the weekend you would have more time to have a go.... again its a bit late, after being without our dishwasher for getting on for 2 months I decided this morning that we would go and buy a new one which we did, a nice shiny stainless steel one, and then we decided to have a takeaway for lunch so dont even get the opportunity to use it yet....

Anyway, back on course and today is a....

Candle in a Box

Step 1, I bought some candles from Ikea, but any candles will do for this, mine is quite small but makes a neat little present for teachers or friends. I took a burgundy candle and using one of the Stampin' Up! Rub-Ons (there's 20% off at the minute) I rubbed one onto the candle, I then stuck a piece of white ribbon around the bottom to finish it off nicely and added some little silver gems to different parts of the rub-on... the picture isn't very clear because I forgot to take a photo of it before I sealed it in the box DOH!!!

Now onto the box.... I used Old Olive Cardstock for this and cut 2 squares the same at 3 1/2" x 3 1/2". I scored at 1/2 " all the way round on both of them.


And then cut along the pencil lines that I have drawn. Next I used Tombow Adhesive and folded up the short bits and stuck it all together making 2 small little boxes like these...


I then decided that I needed to raise the candle out of the base slightly so made another smaller box, the cardstock I used was 2.8" square and I scored all the way around at 1/4" and then made the box as I did above.

I then glued all around the edge and stuck it into the centre of one of the larger boxes, like so....


Bit messy, but I used glue that dried clear so didn't show once properly dry. I then used double sided tape to stick the candle to the centre of this base.

I then had to make an acetate square to fit inside the base and go around the candle. For this I cut a strip of acetate 10 1/4" x 3.5" and scored it at 2 1/2" 5" 7 1/2" and 10", I then folded properly along these lines and stuck some double sided table along the tiny piece of acetate on the end. I then stuck this together to make a square and placed it into the box base. I cut 2 pieces of Patterned Paper 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" and stuck one piece inside the acetate and the other on the outside behind the candle. I then placed the top box on top of the acetate and using one of the strips from the I Wish Simply Scrappin Kit I stuck the lid onto the acetate. I also used some double sided tape around the top and bottom of the acetate to hold it securely in place. I then added some ribbon for decoration.



I also tied some ribbon around the sides of the box so it went from the top, down the side, underneath and up the other side. I made this look neat by using a scallop circle punch and a sentiment stamp.


And here is the sentiment on the top.

It sounds quite complicated to make but was really simple, but you really need to get your measurements exact for this, and be careful of the acetate, I used 250 microns and you could easily cut yourself on the edges.

I am off now to eat my takeaway, but will be back tomorrow with another gift...

Have a good relaxing evening, wrap up warm and take care xx