Day 8 - 12 Days of Christmas

Today can be a gift or I am going to make a few to decorate my table on Christmas Day, what are we talking about... a

Christmas Cracker

Its very easy to make, I started off with a 12 x 12 piece of patterned paper from the Holiday Treasures set (yep no I Wish today) and cut it down to 5 3/4" x 12".

Score the long side at 5 5/16". Then you will need to score the both short sides at 2" 2 3/4" and 3 1/2".

Fold both ends into the centre along the 2 3/4" lines.

Next you will need this template, make sure you cut it at 100% and it should be the right size. Cut it out and place it so that the spikes are level with one folded edge and paperclip in place.

And cut out the bits between the spikes.... do the same the other end making sure you line the edge up with the same side as you did before... at the end cut across the rest of the paper at a 45 degree angle.

Open out and put double sided tape all the way along the small fold which is along the long edge of the cracker like this...

I then decorated the middle before I stuck it together, I took a strip of Very Vanilla and stamped it with the snowflake stamp from the Season of Joy stamp set and then mounted it onto some Real Red Cardstock...

Stick it firmly in place along the centre of the cracker using double sided tape..

Next you need to roll the cracker, it is easier to stick the middle section first, but it is a bit stiff because of the extra card you have added, I did this by just peeling the middle section of double sided tape first and sticking the middle into a round, you then need to get your fingers up inside to push the tape together so it seals really well. Next do the same with one end and then the other....

Pinch one end closed and tie with a piece of red ribbon, then add whatever you want to the inside of the cracker and then tie the other end with a piece of matching ribbon.

You can make these to match the colour of your table decorations and can put a personal gift in each and maybe hang a tag off with the persons name on it.... although it has lots of stages, this was very quick to make...

Will be back tomorrow with Day 9 of the 12 Gifts of Christmas...

Have a good evening all, take care 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

Day 5 - 12 Gifts of Christmas

Sorry its a bit late today, but I had a meeting this morning that I had forgotten about until the middle of the night, when I lay awake and remembered (dont you just love these times.... lol). My Stampin' Up! order arrived, so had to get that packaged up and posted off to everyone too, so start stalking the postie from Monday onwards girls if you ordered from me with free P&P.

So today, what are we going to make I hear you all ask... well it is a

Tissue Holder

Nice and cheap and ideal for this time of the year when everyone has snuffles and sniffles and the cold wind doth blow....

So this is what I started with...



A piece of Real Red Cardstock measuring 6" x 5". I then scored it across the short edge at 2 1/2" and 3 1/2" and using the bone folder folded them along the lines leaving the red cardstock as shown in the photo. I then cut some of the Patterned Paper from the I Wish Kit to size to fit on the front, back and spine, this was cut at 2 1/4" by 4 3/4" for the front and back and 3/4" by 4 3/4" for the spine.

The next step was using my snail adhesive to glue the Patterned Paper to the outside of the Real Red Cardstock like so...

I later decorated it a bit more. Now we need to make the inside part that holds the tissues in place. The tissues I used were Kleenex Original Travel Pack, you may have to alter the inside part slightly to accomodate different size tissues.

I used Real Red Cardstock again (you could use a co-ordinating colour if you wished) and cut a piece measuring 5" by 3 1/4". I scored the 2 short sides and 1 long side at 1/4" and then again at 1 1/4".

You will then need to cut along the lines that I have drawn on the cardstock, cutting the corners out on the bottom of the cardstock, the opposite end to the non-scored long edge as shown above. It will then look like this....

The next step is to put the double sided tape along all the small scored edges, peel of the backing and stick it into the cardstock folder making sure that the sticky edges are touching the right hand side of the folder, these need to be tucked under.... and the finished result will look like this (I hope)...

Using Old Olive Grosgrain ribbon I cut a length of 14". I then stuck a line of double sided tape across the middle of the outside of the folder from one side to the other side and stuck the ribbon all the way across the middle of the folder...

I then decorated the inside and outside, I only did the small bit on the inside as I didn't feel it needed to be over decorated, so just used a small piece of the Patterned Paper measuring 2 1/4" by 1 3/4", I then stuck on a sticker from the I Wish Simply Scrappin' kit.

All that was left to do was to decorate the outside, I used a Real Red Scallop Circle and a snowman image from the Level 3 Hostess Set "Window Dressing" which I coloured in using Stampin' Write markers. I used dimensionals to stick the snowman image to the scallop circle just to give it a bit of, well, dimension!!! lol This was then stuck over the Old Olive ribbon and this was the finishing touch. I didn't want to decorate it too much because it would get scuffed up in a handbag, so kept this to the minimum, but a very nice little gift for teenagers to give to their friends at school, or just for anyone really to keep in their handbag, a good conversation starter to introduce Stampin' Up! to people...

Have fun making and wrap up warm, it is freezing here, might just need these tissues myself.

I will be back tomorrow with another Gift idea.... have a good evening all xx

Day 4 - Gift Tags

So not exactly a Christmas Gift today, but you may well need some tags for these little gifts that you are making, and what better way to compliment your gifts than with some tags that will stand out from the rest. So today we are going to make

Gift Tags


So this is what I started with, an Olive Green, Real Red Scallop Tag (from sizzix) (cut from textured card) and a Scallop Tag cut from the patterned paper, from the I Wish Simply Scrappin Kit, some stamped images from the Old Fashioned Christmas Stamp Set and some ribbon and gold elastic. I coloured the images in using the Stampin' Write! markers and used some of the heat and stick and glitter to colour in the beard and white fluff of Santa's Jacket, just to bling it up a bit. To make my patterned paper go a bit further, I cut the patterned tag in half and used half on each of the coloured tags.

I then needed to make some Happy Christmas's to go on the tags, so one I stamped the image from Old Fashioned Christmas, and the second one I used an alphabet set Square Serif Mini Alphabet & Numbers and the punch which fits it exactly which is the 1/4" square punch.

I then needed to make something which read "To" and "From", and for this I used the Tags for all set, only inking up the To and From with markers and stamping it onto cardstock. I then cut this out using the 1 1/4" punch and matted it with the 1 3/8" punch, and finished it off with the ever popular scallop punch.


I cut out the images and stuck them onto the card as shown above. I finished them off by tying ribbon through the holes and finished one off with a piece of gold elastic. Below is a close up of the tags so that hopefully you can see the sparkle on them.



Hope these inspire you to make your own tags this year and I will be back tomorrow with Day 5 of 12 Days of Christmas... isn't it going quickly, glad I did some of my Christmas Shopping today, although I have loads more to do yet.

Take care all xx

12 Gifts of Christmas - Day 3

Today's is a simple one as long as you can get the template right, I will post a picture of a template and you can print it at any size you like to make different sizes.... of what you ask?? Well today we are going to make a....

Pillow Box

So I will just tell you that this was really easy for me as I cut out the Pillow Box on my cricut expression, so that made life so much easier, but I will include a template for those of you who have to cut by hand. You can also download a PDF file from here... The black lines are where you cut and the red dotted lines need to be scored.

Here is the cut out pillow box, it is a bit hard to see as it is see through..


Next you need to fold along all the lines and then add a bit of the double sided tape to the edge piece so that we can stick it together as shown here...

It is a bit tricky to line it up properly as the acetate has a mind of its own, but stick together with the flap on the inside, then make sure you run your fingers along the flap on the inside so that it has stuck together properly. It should then look like this.

Fold the flaps in at one end, I stuck a small amount of double sided sticky tape to one end to make sure it didn't come open, and then decorate. I did this very simply using the I Wish Simply Scrappin Kit where there are lengths of sticky patterned Paper, I then cut a scallop circle, and matted it with a 1 3/8" circle and then stuck the 1 1/4" circle on that which I had decorated.

I then filled one with Smarties (hence the sticking one end, would be a tragedy if they all fell out) and put twilight mints in the other.

These are ideal for putting on the branches of your Christmas Tree incase someone turns up who you haven't bought a present for, you can just hand one of these out, or to give out in your office. You could put a mini first aid kit in one or a sewing kit, the ideas are endless.

I will be back with Day 4 tomorrow...

I just wanted to show you a card I put together really quickly yesterday as my neighbour wanted it for her daughters 26th birthday, I didn't use all Stampin' Up! stash as my other stash is feeling a bit neglected lately, but I cannot stay away from this awesome Stamp Set...


the patterned paper is Basic Grey Sugared, the lace punch is a Martha Stewart punch, the pink ribbon is actually velvet although you cannot see that from this photograph, and the A Rose is A Rose Stamp Set was stamped using Rose Red and Bravo Burgundy Ink Pads, the leaves were Sage Shadow and Old Olive, I used glamour dust on the rose, it isn't really as glittery as it looks in the photo, it is more of an irridescent glitter, but the flash on the camera made it all sparkle. The Sentiment is from the Fast Notes Stamp Set and I cut it out using the scallop punch, I fitted the sentiment into a scallop on either side and cut out, I then used a ruler from one side of the scallop to the other and cut with a craft knife, I then did the same below the sentiment, see no need for the US's Word Window that we so desperately wanted...