Gone Crackers

 

 I hope you've had a good week.  
I'm afraid that once again its been one of those weeks of many projects started but very few getting completed.  I really need to pull my finger out and get on with my crafty to-do list,  At least the Christmas shopping is well on its way - when the crafty muse fails to show up, there's always retail therapy - even if is for things for other people!

Anyway.... I did manage to get my DCM project completed and photographed ahead of Friday morning for a change so that was good.  The fact that its now Saturday and I've just started writing my blog post, we won't mention, eh?!

Countdown to Christmas Week 4 for the Daring Cardmakers has us moving right away from cards for our projects

This time we're not making cards at all!

Boxes and Bags

A handmade box or bag can make even the
smallest gift special and they are fun to make.
We'd love to see what you can make
to present a gift in

 

I made a cracker, using an old DoCrafts Xcut die which I've had for years and really love. Sometimes, if I want to put something inside which is too long for the central portion of the cracker, I cut the whole thing in half and add an extra length of card between the cut ends - its easy to disguise the alteration, or just use a toning or contrasting strip and it looks like a design element!

This one doesn't have any alteration though

 

Info  

The paper design is from a digi set called Cute Christmas II by MaishopDigitalArt 

The die does all the hard work, so all you have to do is roll the card a little to give it some shape, pop the tabs into the slits and squish the ends in at the cleverly cut 'hinges' (sorry, I'm sure there's a proper word but I can't think what it is!)

To decorate I tied the gold and turquoise ribbons to rubber bands, which I added to those 'hingey' places to keep it all in shape. 

Next I printed off a couple of A5 pieces of 2 more of the paper set designs. From the striped one I made a band to go around the middle of the cracker and used an EK Success border punch along each edge, then added a narrow strip of the dotty paper on top.  Once this was secured, I made the rosette (Spellbinders) from more of the dotty paper and added a couple of glittery die-cut snowflakes on top.

To finish I glued a gold gem to the centre of the snowflake

The rubber band means they are easy enough to fill, and the cracker is big enough for a couple of chocolates or a mini shower gel type bottle. They would make great place settings for your table.  To give a small sized gift in, you might want to add that extra strip to the centre. I'd say the tube is about 4-5cms in diameter

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe