Pretty Pastel Christmas Gift Box

Hello

Hope you've had a good week.Have you finished your Christmas shopping? Wrapped everything?
Or are you like me.....

 It's the last Daring Cardmakers challenge of the year

It's another Anything Crafty challenge this week, and final theme this year is

Pretty Pastel 

We don't often use them at Christmas so we would love to see any kind of craft project featuring Pretty Pastel shades
Cards, tags, bags, boxes, table decor.....any kind of craft project is good- just tone down the colours and go for pale and interesting this week!

This week's challenge will remain open until we're back on January 10th.

 Visit the Daring Cardmakers Blog to see this week's DT creations

I made a small gift box just the right size for a set of 2 small Molton Brown bottles.  It's based on my favourite gift bag, but with the addition of a hinged, flapover top.

Info
The card used is by Tonic Studios and is beautiful! I needed one A4 sheet of the pearlised, embossed pale aqua card to make this project.
I made up the gift bag to fit perfectly just by measuring and using my score board. For the closure I made the curved from part by doing a partial cut using an oval die (also Tonic),and adhered the uncut,straight part to the  back of the bag. At this point the holes for the ribbon were added using my Cropadile.

 

I used left over card to cut the three trees for the front, and a further 3 for each tree in white card.  These were all layered up and glued together before adding them to the lower edge of the bag. Next I cut a bunch of small snowflakes using white and aqua glitter card and glued them to the bag, plus some silver stars to top the trees.
Finally I made up a bow using dies from a Simply Made set.  It was pretty close, but the dies just fitted onto the scraps of aqua card I had left!

 Anyway, that's all for today.

Thank you so much for visiting, I really appreciate your messages.  
Hope you have a great weekend and just in case I don't get back here before it, A Very Happy Christmas!

Happy Crafting!

 

Three Trees

Hello

Hope you've had a good week. The high point of my week was a visit to our local cinema, for the Live-Streaming of the ballet Coppelia from the Royal Opera House.  The weather was so horrible that it wasn't easy to leave the warm cosy house, but we were glad we made the effort because it was such a fab event.  
If you've never been to one of the Live Stream events then they really are worth checking out - they are streamed to cinemas all over the world

 Friday is Daring Cardmakers Day so here's 

this week's challenge:

It's another Anything Crafty challenge this week, and our theme is
O Christmas Tree
We would love to see any kind of craft project featuring one or more trees this week - but they don't have to be Christmas Trees, it's up to you!  We'd love to see your cards, tags, bags, boxes, table decor.....any kind of craft project as long as there's one or more trees

 Visit the Daring Cardmakers Blog to see this week's DT creations

Info
The trees are made using instructions and die set from Concord & 9th.  The die set is called Take a Bough
The die-cutting takes ages and is a bit tedious, but otherwise they are fairly simple to put together, its what to do when they are finished that caused me the most faffing-time! 
After a couple of false starts I made a base for each tree using several layers of Bright Rosa snowflake border dies glued together and some blu-tak and layered up chipboard pieces with Cropodile holes in to stabilise them.
I added lots of white snowflakes around the base as it all looked a bit dull.
At this point the display looked like this

The white background didn't work, and the trees looked rather less than festive, so I cut up some strands of silver thread to drape over the trees, and attached some red stars on some threads too.  For my photos I tried out a few blue shades for the background,my favourite being the dark shade on the top photo, but here's another with a lighter blue background

I think I'll put my little tree display on the hearth for Christmas, or maybe on the mantelpiece.  Anyway, I hope you like it.
I really wasn't happy with the card I made for last week's challenge so at the beginning to this week I pulled it apart and reassembled it without the patterned paper, and with more twine.  I think it looks so much better now, what do you think? 

new version:

original version:

 Anyway, that's all for today.

Thank you so much for visiting, I really appreciate your messages.  
Hope you have a great weekend

Happy Crafting!

 

Red and White for December

Hello

Hope you've had a good week.

As ever, Friday is Daring Cardmakers Day so here's 

this week's challenge:

This week we're back to a 'Just Cards' challenge and our Elemental Inspiration Picture for December
For December we have a very festive mood board for you to play with.
Remember, you just need to pick a minimum 3 elements  from the picture to use when making your card.  If you choose to use the colour palette, then that would count as one of your elements

 Visit the Daring Cardmakers Blog to see this week's DT creations

I chose to incorporate the Snowflakes, Greenery and Twine, and to use the lovely red and white colours as the basis for my card.

 Info
The torn red and white patterned paper is from a digital download collection
I added a Poinsettia made using an old Spellbinders die set 
 I've still got a whole load of snowflake,  leaves and 'greenery' dies and die cuts out on my desk, so used some of those to add the snowflake and greenery elements.  I tied a double bow with some twine and added a loop of silver twine for some extra sparkle, along with some silver snowflakes and a few stars.

NOEL is another die from Spellbinders

 That's all for today, I hope you like it. 

Thank you so much for visiting, I really appreciate your messages.  
Hope you have a great weekend

Happy Crafting!

 

3 Candles and Some Christmas Scavenging!

Hello

Its been a bit of a gloomy week, weather-worn, but today the sun is shining and the sky is blue.  I'd almost forgotten what a blue sky looked like.
This week I even managed to add a midweek blog post - please scroll down and check out my Jaffa Cake box!

As ever, Friday is Daring Cardmakers Day so here's 

this week's challenge:

It's another Anything Crafty challenge this week, and our theme is
Shining Lights
Please join in and Light up the crafting world with us
We're thinking Stars; Candles, Lanterns, Chandeliers,
Candelabra, Fairy Lights.... 
We'd love to see your cards, tags, bags, boxes, table decor.....any kind of craft project is welcome.

 Visit the Daring Cardmakers Blog to see this week's DT creations

I gave my old Memory Box candle die an outing for this one.  I don't use it often as its so fiddly! 

Info

I started by using my favourite ever stencil (by The Crafters Workshop), with some Imagination Crafts glitter gel.  I'm not sure what's happened to this company, or even if they still exist - if not then that's a shame, because they created fabulous paints and other crafty goodies.

This lovely stuff dries quite quickly so by the time I'd die cut and built the candles, and cut the basic snowflake base I could get started on the rest.

I used red card saved from last year's Christmas Crackers for the candles, adding another chipboard layer behind for extra dimension.  Next I cut the shape again in red glitter card just for the wax runs.  The little candle flames were cut in gold card, gold glitter card, and the tiny red bits were saved from the step above. 

To give a bit of extra shape to the candles I ran a large ball tool on the reverse of each candle 

The curvy snowflake border die set by Bright Rosa is my favourite new Christmas die purchase this year.  I just keep coming back to it as its so versatile. 

This time I cut the 5 star base section from an embossed gold card (Tonic), and the extra separate snowflakes from various white and gold card types, plus a few in red.

I also added in some extra die cut and punched snowflakes

At the moment I've got a whole bunch of leaves and 'greenery' dies and die cuts out on my desk, so I thought I'd add some of those into the mix - I like the splash of green, it seems to lift the whole wreath.

For the holly berries I used a few different dies and a mix of cracker scavenged card and glitter card, plus some red half pearls and some red gems too.

To finish I tied gold twine around the top and made the gold tassel to hang from it.  I made a banner for the sentiment and glued it over the joins!

 That's all for today, I hope you like it. 
I would love to know what you save from things like packaging to use on your crafting projects - crackers are my favourite to scavenge from - the card itself is usually lovely and there's often ribbon and berries etc tied around them too.  My OH thinks I'm mad when I go through the cracker rubbish, but hey, why wouldn't you?

Thank you so much for visiting, I really appreciate your messages.  Hope you have a great weekend

Happy Crafting!

 

It All Popped Out!

Hello

I'm still trying (and to be fair, largely failing) to catch up on blogging some things I've made over the last month or two and failed to share on here.

This time it's the card I made a few weeks ago for my cousin's birthday.  He loves Jaffa Cakes and for him, one box is never enough...... so I made his card a special 'box' stuffed with them!

Info
Firstly I made the pop up box-card using Bazzill card, echoing the colours of the Jaffa Cakes boxes.

I hunted out suitable images on the internet and after a bit of resizing I printed them out onto glossy photo paper (to get that shiny chocolate effect) and glued them onto scraps of brown card.

Next I cut out parts of the images and arranged them on to the hinges of the card.  Some were glued directly onto the hinges, front and back pieces, others were attached first to pieces of card so that they would stand higher, or at different angles.

It's important to keep folding the box flat to check that most of the pieces can't be seen when the card is closed. 

This photo shows the card closed up and ready to go in the envelope

I kept the outside simple, just using coloured squares.  The band that keeps it closed is a strip of card wrapped around to fit closely enough not to fall off of its own accord, but loose enough to be easy to remove.  I die cut matching stars to decorate it, along with a banner and the sentiment cut a bit like the wording on the Jaffa Cakes box

I had fun making this, knowing that my cousin would like it, and knowing that he'd open it then shake his head thinking: "She's got way too much time on her hands.  She's completely mad!".  Part of the fun is knowing that he'll open the envelope thinking "Okay, lets see what's she done this time"

Anyway, that's my lot for today, thanks for visiting, leave a comment and I'll pop over to visit your blog asap!

Happy Crafting!

Natural, Gold and White

Hello

I hope you've had a great week.  So much for being a better blogger - it got to yesterday afternoon and I realised that contrary to my good intentions I'd not managed ablog post since last Friday. 

How's the Cword shopping going? Hopefully better than mine....

At least I've managed a few Cword cards this week, though not as many as I'd hoped.  

As ever, Friday is Daring Cardmakers Day so here's 

this week's challenge:

Natural, Gold and White
This week 'Anything Goes' and its a Colour Palette challenge
So, feel free to share any kind of craft project you
 fancy making, but with the beautiful
Natural, Gold and White colour palette, please!

 Visit the Daring Cardmakers  Blog to see this week's DT creations

I made a gift box and then, inspired by seeing some of the things the rest of the DT were making, I thought I'd make a card too.  I went on to make more cards, but as I sneaked a tiny bit of red onto those ones I'll share them another day

Infor

The ribbed Kraft cardstock I used for my box came from PDA Woodward 

The box die is by Spellbinders.  Its one of their steel rule dies and cut really well, I've had the die for ages, but shame on me, I've not used it till now. Whil;e the pieces were still flat I gut the snowflake aperture in all 4 sides and glued gold glitter card behind each face.

 My problem came when trying to tuck the flaps through the slots to close up the base  of the box - I just couldn't get them to fit in and sit neatly.  Maybe because this card is quite a thick one, I should try again with a Bazzill type card.  In the end I cut a square of scrap card and glued it to the base rather than throw it across the room in frustration!

I used my current favourite die set, the snowflakes set from Bright Rosa to add different gold and white snowflakes in the apertures.  I sealed the box with white satin ribbon, then made some snowflake streamers to hang from the bow.  Just more snowflakes, plus a couple of stars, glued back to back with gold twine between the layers.

Card Info

From the leftover Kraft I cut a strip to fit across the white card blank

For the tree I used a top layer of white glitter card and a lower layer of gold mirror card using an old Memory Box die.  I didn't want the tiny insert pieces to come out of the gold layer, so I kept them in place with some clear tape before removing the shape from the die.  I glued the layers together, offsetting slightly so the gold shows down the side as well as through the holes.

Yo finish I cut a gold pot shape, added a box on top, then decorated the tree with a variety of gold stars.  The JOY letters are from another Memory Box die set from a few years ago

 That's all for today, thank you so much for visiting, I really appreciate your messages.  Hope you have a great weekend

 

Happy Crafting!