Gift Pick - Day five

We hope you're enjoying our gift pick series so far and it's helping you out with a bit of gift inspiration.  

Today's pick is from Natalie who says "My friend had pinned a project to her Pinterest board using old jars for pretty storage with chalked labels - I thought these may make her project one step closer to reality, without the need for messy chalkboard paint!!"

My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio Chalk Label Stickers - £1.99

We'll be back tomorrow with another gift pick!

Gift Pick - Day Four

Today's Gift Pick is from Jen G, who says:

"Some of my teacher friends would love any of these paperclips. This Allison Kreft pack is the perfect price for Secret Santa at work too!"

 

Allison Kreft Designs - It's Christmas! Bubble & Star Paperclips - £4.49

 

Check back tomorrow for another great gift pick!



Gift Pick - Day three

Today's gift pick is from Tracie who says "Because of the time of year i have gone with stocking fillers with my granddaughters in mind".  We think this is a great fun choice as a stocking filler for kids who love stationary and crafts.

American Crafts Amy Tangerine Photo Op Roller Date Stamp - £4.99

Check back tomorrow for another great gift pick!

Gift Pick - Day Two

Today's gift pick is from Helen, who says:

"One of my friends is getting married - this would be the perfect gift to display her photos"

American Crafts 12"x12" Postbound Cloth Album - Grey with Embroidered Damask - £23.99

Be sure to check back tomorrow for another gift pick!

Getting festive!

Hello ladies, Tracie here!

With Christmas getting closer by the day I've come over all festive!
These lovely wood veneer journal cards from studio calico really caught my eye, although I had something other than journalling in mind for them!

I started off by painting them white with acrylic paint

I then glued them together along the edges, and added a bit more glue and lots of lovely microbeads -

by popping it over a candle (to be on the safe side I used one of the battery operated ones that are widely available now)  I had myself a cheap and easy Christmas decoration.

As is usually the case, when my daughter saw it she wanted one too, so I set about making a gift box to put it in!
This is where the pizza boxes that my yummy stash arrives in comes in handy!!

This was a very basic box, as I was going to be covering it with paper anyway I didn't worry too much about the sides being perfect and literally just stuck it together with some tape

the photo isn't brilliant but this was my basic shape

the lid was made in the same way
 *note, I made the lid larger than it needed to be because I wanted to add some lace under it, if you aren't using lace trim you'd need to adjust the size accordingly*

I chose the lovely Amy Tan papers to cover the box, along with some trim, MME enamel dots and decorative buttons

 and topped it off with one of these adorable cotton reels from Maya road threaded onto some wire.


and of course every gift box needs a tag!

So that's all from me for now, but I would love to see all your Crafty Christmas makes, so please feel free to leave a link to your work in the comments box so we can all have a look!

Gift Pick Day 1 - Let the countdown begin!

Hello lovely readers!  

To help you get ready for Christmas, we'll be posting one great gift idea a day until Friday 20th December to help provide some gift inspiration.  Our team have chosen their favourite gift ideas covering all price points, be sure to check in each day for some great gift ideas!

Day 1 is from Ifa who says: "I am getting a set of Simple Stories Sn@p! stickers for my friend Amanda. She would enjoy labelling her jars and her folders."

Simple Stories Sn@p! Label Stickers - £4.99

See you tomorrow for more another gift pick!

Anyone for coffee?

I love coffee and I love cute coffee jars like this one.  I often wash them out with intentions of doing something crafty with them, and for once I have. I washed out this little cutie and soaked off the labels.

Then I gathered together some of the new Christmas supplies from the shop:

My Mind's Eye Mistletoe Magic Decorative tape.  

American Crafts Glitter Tape

Basic Grey 25th & Pine Wax Seals

Divine Twine

In no time at all I turned that cute coffee jar into this Christmas Gift Jar.

 With a little tag made from Kraft card and an eyelet it is ready to fill with sweeties, mints or hot chocolate mix.

  The whole process was so quick and easy that I decorated a second:

then filled it with Wine Gums especially for a special friend of mine who happens to love Wine Gums.

I need to finish another jar of coffee before I can decorate a third jar in this way, but I also have a stash of these tins:

 Yes I know - I have a coffee problem! 

Anyway.

 This one needed to be covered in masking tape first as the MME Decorative tape is quite delicate. Once I had covered the tin with masking tape I covered that with the MME decorative tape along with some other washi tapes from my stash.

I covered the lid with a circle of tape covered card and added some coordinating sticky gems. This tin is big enough to house a gift card for my son. Much more fun than a boring envelope and I can surround it with Jelly Beans. 

I hope you like my little Christmas project. If you have any you would like to share with us please leave a link in the comments. I'm off for a coffee or three!

Polka Dot Party with a Dash of Thrill

Hello lovelies.  Have you bagged yourselves something wonderful in the Black Friday sale ?  I haven't looked...haven't had the time.  I am trying to sneak this post in before I have to dash off to my son's 18th birthday party.

I have worked with Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party by American Crafts.  I am going through a period of loving pink and pastel.

Isn't it the prettiest range ?  I have only ordered 3 or 4 of the papers from the range.  Having used a fair bit up, I am considering getting a few more.  Because I love a lot of patterns, each in small quantities, I ordered two papers that features multiple patterns organised as journalling cards. 

First I made a layout about my son's ( the other one, who was celebrating his 15th) birthday cake.

Next is a layout about our roller coaster ride that was his birthday treat.

Do check out the die cut shapes. I adore the pink camera, the pink cat, the towing caravan etc...

That is all from me this time.  See you next month.

Lift yourself

Hi Tracy G here with you today. From time to time I think we all suffer a bout of creative block. Well I have been suffering this month, and whenever I sat at my desk my mind just wandered, even though I had all my supplies in front of me I couldn't find any inspiration. I didn't know how to get myself out of my scrappers block and started to get quite stressed out about it. It was then I looked up at my bookcase and decided to have a look through one of my albums,  I came across the layout I taught at the 2012 retreat and decided to scrap lift it. I rotated the page 90 degrees and without too much thought I created a page I was quite pleased with. So if you're ever stuck for inspiration, have a look at what you've created in the past and hopefully it will help you out too.

Here's the original layout,

 and my scrap lifted version.

All the papers I used on my scrap lifted layout are from this pack.

Happy Go Lucky

Hi folks. Jen G here again. Just a quick post before I knuckle down to the Christmas Crafting that I have planned. Before Halloween took over my craft table I had these lovely Fancy Pants Happy Go Lucky Frames to work with.

They were perfect for these multi - photo pages that I had planned of my 7 year old son. One featured pictures of his birthday treat day. Two of the photos were of him and his friends, but I wanted the focus to be on the one of him by himself. I did this by popping a frame over that photo then raising it up on foam pads. 

For the next page I wanted to use a picture of him being soaked on a Summer day by my husband and the garden hose. The picture wasn't a great one, but by popping a frame over Josh as he ran into the water the eye is draw to that part of the picture. I can't help but giggle every time I look at his expression!

Lastly I had collaged together 4 photos from his sports day. I popped the frame around my favourite one of the four as he is actually looking towards the camera on that one. I added a ticket from the coordinating ticket roll and a title using stickers from the fundamentals sheet.

The Happy Go Lucky range is a lovely one to work with. Have you used it yet?