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

 

All Dressed Up (Countdown to Christmas 3)

 

 I hope you've had a good week.  
Its been a week of many crafty 'starts', but few projects reaching the 

finishing line for me!

Countdown to Christmas Week 3 for the Daring Cardmakers is a Card Challenge:

This week please share your cards on a theme of
All Dressed Up
We'd like to see your Christmas Jumpers, or Mittens, boots, hat or scarf.... or if you'll be somewhere warm this Christmastime maybe you'll be thinking Christmas T-shirts, flip-flops and beachwear instead - its up to you

 

 
Info

I used a stencil and a few shades of blue embellishing Mousse, plus silver (Tonic Studios) to make the off-the-edge circle, then a Memory Box Snowy skies stencil and Stamperia Silver Glitter paste over the top

The snow family are made using 3 x punches and white glitter card/

The scarves and the top hat are cut using a very very old QuicKutz die. the other hats are hand cut.  

The various sizes of circles are holly or mistletoe berry dies and the moustache is made using waste from a scallop edging punch!

I added some shiny red thread, a pc generated sentiment and some punched red glitter stars to finish

   

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

 

 

 

Gorgeous Gifts - A Gift Card Holder

 

Hello

Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

The news that a Covid19 vaccine might finally be within touching distance at last gives us all some hope for feeling more confident about the future

 and a 'normal'  life.

I'm not sure how soon it'll be before I'm happy to sit in a busy restaurant or get on an aeroplane for a 'Greek-fix', though - I'm rather risk-averse!

Week 2 of the Daring Cardmakers Countdown to Christmas series is an 'Anything Crafty' Challenge with a Gifts theme

Gorgeous Gifts

It simply means that we'd love to see anything on a theme of Gifts this week.
So it could be a card featuring parcels all wrapped up, a gift you've made for a friend, or how about a card and gift combined? This could be a bookmark, gift card or a little chocolatey treat as an added extra on your card.

 I made a Gift Card Holder, as I often buy those kind for things for our various nephews and nieces and its so much nicer to put them in something other than an envelope

Info

I cut the card base from double sided gold card, then used some fabulous digital papers from MayTreeDesignStore which I resized and printed onto white Bazzill card.  I love the versatility of Digital papers!

I used one design for the front and back of the card. These were adhered in place with one end of my pieces of ribbon stuck between the layers.

To decorate I made a parcel shape from some spare digi paper and topped it with a glitter card 'lid' before gluing it onto a recycled clothing tag.

The tag was adhered to the card, and embellished with another piece of ribbon and some tiny stars cut from the gold and blue papers. The letters were cut from a shinier gold card using an alphabet die set 

For the inside of the card I used 2 of the paper designs. Two equal pieces to got on the left and right, and a design with wording on to make the holder section. The gift card tucks inside the folded holder piece

I'll probably add a panel to the inside for writing my message inside

 

   

These are quite easy to make, especially if you use digital paper as you aren't constrained by how much of a design you've got left ;) and if it all goes wrong, you can just print some more!

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

 

 

 

DCM Countdown to Christmas wk1: November Inspiration

 

Hello

I do hope you are keeping safe and well and getting to grips with the Lockdown 2. To be honest,  I don’t hold out much hope that all those selfish people who’ve ignored all the advice and carried on socialising in large groups because they don’t give a toss about anyone but themselves will behave any differently. At least a lockdown means that those of us who are trying to keep those we care about safe can do so. 

This week on the  Daring Cardmakers  we're kicking off our Countdown to Christmas series and over the next few weeks we hope to inspire you to get crafty with a variety of projects and themes.

Some will be cards,Some other papercraft projects, and some will be for absolutely anything you want to make and share.
Although the themes will be Christmassy, that doesn't mean you can't 'think outside the box' and make non-Christmas projects too!

We'll stick to cards this week, and as usual our first challenge of the month is our
 Elemental Inspiration Challenge.  
 For November we're kicking off our Countdown to Christmas with a mood-board stuffed with loads of ideas for you to choose from.
 Remember, you just need to pick a minimum 3 elements from the picture to use when making your card, The colour palette counts as one element

 

 From the picture I chose the colours, the squares and the tree and made this card

 

Info

Starting with a white card blank, I used washi tape to mask off the borders and filled the centre area with a turquoise shade of Tonic Studio’s Embellishment Mousse. Next I used a stencil to add gold stars over one corner. 

The overlapping squares we’re cut in different types of gold card using two sizes of Scribbled Squares dies - also Tonic Studios. 
The trees are all unbranded dies that I saw on Amazon and couldn’t resist as they looked so cute. I cut them in various card types in gold, white and turquoise 

 

 

I added a few punched gold stars and tiny red gems to the trees, then a pc generated sentiment with a gold thread faux loopy bow

   

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