Christmas Card Holders

Tonight I revisited a craft I did a little while ago - but I've given it a Christmassy twist:

Peg Card Holders

I've stuck a strip of sparkly silver ribbon on the top with some snowflake stickers and I've added penguin stickers (from Papermania) on the bottom.

A fun, quirky, easy and modern way to display your Christmas cards!

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Cadbury's Choccie Snowman

Thanks to Helen of Its All Fiddle Fart for this idea.....

It's a snowman with a Cadbury's Chocolate bar inside.  I have made two, one for each of my boy's for Christmas.

They are quite easy to make but you need to think about what stage the glue or double sided sticky tape goes down (hard on the ol' brain matter at this time of night - Midnight!)

You start off with bars like this:

Long, thin bars of Dairy Milk, these were 20p each from my local newspaper shop.  

First wrap them in white paper and use DST to stick them to the wrappers of the bars on the back.

This is the clever bit, you use a 'Magic Glove' for the hat.  Cut off the fingers!:

No sewing required :D  Just roll up the finger for the brim of the hat and add some holly sequins (mine were £1 a bag from WHSmiths).

To make my face I used a Sharpie for the eyes and cheeks and a thin marker for the mouth. I used a Paperchase circle sticker for the nose and touched up the details with Glossy Accents.

The scarf was stuck on with DST and further dots for the buttons were made with the Black Sharpie and Glossy Accents.

Fun to make, and look great too. Now, where can I hide them so they are not found before the Big Day?

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Tutorial for Paper Christmas Bauble

A Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and followers in America, hope you are having/have had a great day!

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This is my christmas bauble:

..made from half a piece of scrapbooking paper. It can also be made from old christmas cards or paper you decorate yourself.

To make it you cut up your paper into 10 strips:

Mine were 6" by 1" (but they could be slightly narrower)

Make a punched hole in both ends and insert a paper fastener in each (I couldn't find my normal ones so used flower shaped fasteners)

Then 'fan' out the pieces into the bauble shape:

Tie some thread around the paper fastener and hang:

Another simple decoration for your tree that only takes about 5 minutes to make.  I think a collection would look good made with different coloured papers.

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Bauble Characters

Nice simple idea for a decoration. Make characters out of baubles using googly eyes and other christmassy bits.

Apologies for my hands in the reflections, but the baubles are so shiny they are difficult to photograph. .

This is another idea that children might like to do, for themselves or for Christmas fairs. 

The idea for these came to me just as I was dropping off to sleep last night, strange how some things just 'pop' into your head!

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Craft Stall Goodies & Xmas Doodle

I've been to the Christmas Lights Switch On in our town this afternoon and evening and they had a wonderful craft stall there with loads of lovely toppers for cards.  I don't normally buy other people's but these were really good and ever so reasonable in cost, how could I refuse?  The stallholder says she doesn't die cut her designs, she gets them printed/made up at a print shop. What a great idea, I'd like to do that. 

The design you see above has paper with 3d spots and stars on it (£1.99 for 10 sheets of different colours) and the angel set with the sentiment and additional stars was 99p.  It's so 3d, it would probably suit being framed, rather than being on a card. 

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As for my craft tonight?  I had a quick go at doodling:

(Oops, not quite finished neckline)

Haven't done any doodling like this in a while...

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Sequins are the New Black!

If you go in any card shop (well, maybe not any), but you will probably find Christmas cards that have been made using sequins.

So, dig out your box that is in the back of your craft cupboard somewhere (you know the one, that has stuff in it that you think you'll never use again), grab some tweezers and start having a play with your sequin collection!

To make these, I have drawn the basic shape with pencil (OK, I used a stencil) and just filled in the space to make the Christmassy shape.

Once you have got your positioning you can then start sticking down.  I got some embellishment glue when I was in Germany, but you can probably find some on 'the' auction site.

You could use them to make decorations, tags or cards.

It is also something that you may like to get your children involved in during the Christmas holidays.

Thanks for looking and for any comments,
See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Christmas Choccies

Mmmm Choccies!

I'm having a trial run tonight at trying to make some of my own chocolate treats for my boys and maybe a few friends for Christmas.  I like trial runs because I get to be the chief taster! lol.   

I haven't ever used Candy Melts before, but have heard of them quite often on other crafty sites so when I saw them in Hobbycraft, I thought I'd give them a go. Each packet was £3.99. 

Following the instructions to melt them using the microwave (50% power, stir lots),  I have so far done half a packet of the Red and will be doing the Light Cocoa ones next (this is a work in progress post!). 

 I am putting the melted chocolate into a previously used (but well cleaned) advent calendar mould and I want red for the shapes and brown for the squares.  Not sure its going to work out (did I tell you I am not a cook?!) but they are setting at the moment.  Will let you know how they turn out....

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Update: They have kinda worked, but also not...

This one, which was all one colour, worked reasonably well (apart from the little hole)

The others? Lets just say I won't be giving up my (non-existent) day job anytime soon! I should have separated the colours better...

..And some of the shapes are easier to tell what they are than others.  

(Think I might just keep this batch  'in the family', and no-one else ever need know!)

Also, a few little tips I've learned for myself:

 1. DON'T come on here blogging the process when red chocolate is hardening in your Pyrex jug (making it very difficult to get out!) and next time you do it don't forget to..

2. DO this kind of craft in daylight so you can at least see what you are doing! ;-)

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave