Halloween Trick Or Treat Box

I think this should really be called “When Halloween Meets The Bush Tucker Trial!”

The idea for this box started when I found a bag of chocolate frogs in Marks and Sparks, reduced to £1.50 for a bag of 12 but with a use by date in January 2012 so I knew that they would be perfectly fine for Halloween.

 

I’ve used a small papier mache box from HobbyCraft and coloured it with a green Promarker pen. On each side I have handwritten  “Trick or Treat”, adding a pair of googly eyes for extra creepiness and on the top the message “Dare You Eat One?”.

Sitting comfortably inside the box  are two of the frogs padded out with a bit of green tissue paper.  Done and dusted! 

If you can’t find any frogs I am sure that there are plenty of other horrid Halloween foil wrapped creatures that could be used, as well as chocolate eyeballs and pumpkins!

Little Bird In A Tree

This card measures 5ins x x 5ins and is made using ivory linen effect card.

 

There isn’t much to this card really, just a simple tree stamp (from Stamps Away), a very small Accessorize bird sticker and a scattering of small flat backed pearls.

Sticker Advent Calendar

I have lots of tiny leftover Christmas stickers from Paperchase and Accessorize and it seems such a waste not to use them … so I’ve come up with this idea…. a sticker advent calendar. It's an idea for a child/children, where they can choose a sticker/s and put them the on the calendar, perhaps with a bit of colouring in the days leading up to Christmas. 

I made the calendar part by creating table in Publisher, with spaces big enough to put a sticker, it was a bit trial and error taking  me about half an hour to get right.

 

I’ve mat and layered the calendar, first on silver and then red card and put adhesive magnetic tape on the back so it will stick on a fridge etc., but a loop of ribbon could be added instead. Finished, the calendar measures 6.5 x 6.5 inches.

Then I’ve taken an empty sticker sheet, put an assortment of my leftover festive stickers on it.  That’s it.  Naturally I’ve have gone all fiddle farty and added doodles to each space …. but that’s just me …..

If I were into scrapbooking … I think I would try to work a scrapbook/journal page around it after it was completed as a lasting memory.

Little Owl Cards

These cards all measure 5inx x 5ins and are made using white linen effect card.

 

These owl stickers came from HobbyCraft, but I am not sure how much they cost, I think about £1.99, but as owls are always so popular I just had to have them.

From the one pack I made four cards, but you could make an awful lot further….

…. I’m usually a less is more gal but for once just fancied using my owls with gay abandon ….

I've used my Stampin’Up bird punch for the branches and just love the way the leaf stickers from the pack fit perfectly over the leaves of the branches, giving extra dimension and bling.  It’s also nice to use up a whole packet of stickers at once … I have far too many half used packets in my drawers.

Beadazzles Skull Pendant

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear ………………….!!

A friend of mine is doing a Fine Arts Degree and we often natter about her various assignments and sometimes I tell her about different crafting materials she maybe hasn’t heard of,  anyway, she is making a very flamboyant dress using fabric with a skull print and it got me thinking …..

I had an idea in my head for a pendant, but wish I’d looked at some images on Google first before ploughing on regardless ….. I made a skull template from strong card, using a large and small circle punch to make the eyes and nostrils and then covered it with Suzie Weinberg’s Salsa Beadazzles and Ranger Glossy Accents, but I was disappointed with the overall result.

So I applied more Accents and an assortment of flat backed gems and pearls …

When it had all set hard, I turned it over, coloured the card with black Promarker and then more Accents and a pendant bail.

But the finished pendant is absolute PANTS, it was really hard to get a good picture of,  but it’s all wrong and I need to start again from scratch!

I found this picture (below) to loosely base my next attempt on,  some difference eh?  ……..

http://www.arcadiagifts.co.uk/cubecart/gothic/bejewelled-gothic-skull-/prod_440.html

Oh dear, not much better …… I’ve overdone the Glossy Accents, I’m going to give up skulls for a while, obviously they are not my thing, it;s enough to give you nightmares!

DIY Handyman Card

This card is A5 in size and is made using ribbed effect Kraft card.
 

This is a silly card I made for my brother who doesn’t really go a bundle on birthdays, but loves his DIY tools. I’ve used a mixture of self adhesive alphabet stickers and my own handwriting.  The check paper is from DCWV.

The tools started off as a free gift with a child’s comic,   the paper shop over the road takes the gifts off any unsold comics and sells them for 30p or 4 for £1.  I love going over for a rummage!  I struggle with “men’s things” but this sort of thing is brilliant for cards, adding to a gift tag or stuck on gift bags and boxes.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry!

I am so sorry, I offered the  pdf file for my baking tray Advent Calendar below .... and I have searched my computer and I don't think I could have saved the file!  I am so cross .... as it took me ages to do .... but I can't find it anywhere.  So I am so sorry to all the people who asked for a copy ....What am I like?

Baking Tray Advent Calendar

I have seen baking tray Advent calendars so many times while Googling,  but it wasn’t my intention to make one when I first started this project…… the idea in my head was for a bingo card on a bingo board! I first put the number sheet together in Publisher using my “Little Joys” digi set by Zoe Pearn from Sweet Shoppe Designs but as the idea changed, so did the proportions of the sheet! Aghhh

I wanted to use decorated magnets to cover up the numbers but I hadn’t thought it through properly as I had nothing for the magnets to stick to!  When it finally dawned on me that my original idea wasn’t going to work,  I suddenly remembered the Poundshop baking tray I had squirreled away and immediately set about spraying it white with car paint, bought from a local market  for a pound.

 

Next, I found some old buttons and proceeded to stick small magnets on the back, but it soon became obvious how dull they looked and the white spaces at the side of the calendar looked pants too.

So I raided my Christmas button box and replaced some original buttons with the large snowflake ones and then added the smaller snowflakes to the remaining buttons, and flat backed gems to the centres. All this chopping and changing was getting on my nerves, but I preserved and I was beginning to get somewhere. My next hurdle was how to fill in white spaces…….

…… which I did with quite a well matching 12 x 12 paper which has tiny stars on. I cut it into shaped strips to fit down the sides and added a few punched snowflakes to go with the snowman theme and was thrilled with the end result….. which I had to finish off with a bit of faux stitching on the tray rim.

….. but this is nothing like the idea I first had in my head!

 

Emergency Chocolate Biscuit

Well, they came up with emergency biscuits on The Apprentice this year and the idea was rejected …. but I have decided to run with it!  I like to make something funny for the beginning of the new school year and this is what I shall be popping into colleagues pigeon holes at the start of this term.

It’s only a two fingered Kit Kat from Poundland (in packs of nine) that I have rewrapped and then added my own printed labels on the front and back.  I wonder how long they will last, I think mine will be eaten by the end of the week!

Christmas is Coming with DoCrafts and Dovecraft

Yesterday, I nipped to our local garden centre where they also have quite a good craft section as I wanted this months DoCrafts Creativity Magazine, primarily for the free stamp set with it  (a smaller version of a new set of Christmas stamps they have just bought out), but I have to say that the  magazine has improved quite a lot. I used to think it was a bit old fashioned, but there are quite a few ideas in it that I want to try.

I wasn’t intending on buying any papers but  this pack of Dovecraft papers (£3.99) did fall into my basket! What impressed me was that the designs are small and the patterns quite close together.  I have been caught out so many times thinking that papers in a 6” x 6” pack would be scaled down, only to find it’s just the large paper/design cut down to size, if that makes sense.

But these papers are perfectly scaled to the size that I need to go with most of the Christmas embellishments I plan to use and there is not one design that I don’t like, so hopefully the whole pack will get used this year.

My paper design of choice this year is a small print red with white polka dots, I just cannot get enough of it, last year I was all red gingham …. but I have been swayed!

Daisy Card

This card measures 14.5cm x 11cm and is made using ribbed effect Kraft Card.
I have a niece called Daisy, this would make a lovely 21st birthday card for her!

Less is more today.  Very simple, so simple I don’t think I need to explain what I have done!

Cowboy Card

I know I don’t make enough cards for men, men’s embellishments, papers etc. are so boring ……

I’ve made up a patchwork of nine 1.25in x 1.25in squares using a DCWV papers.  Then from one of the papers I have cut out the hat, boot and gun …adding a bit of Ranger Glossy Accents on them all and mounting them on foam pads for extra dimension plus a few bronze stars for added bling.  Done and dusted!

Three Little Monkey Cards

These cards all measure 5ins x 5ins and are made using white linen effect card.

While I spend a lot of time on cards that people have asked me to make, the cards I take to work tend to be “quick makes” to get the most from my time and make the price viable.

These are three cards I made using a packet of foam stickers from Poundworld.  I thought they really didn’t need any backing papers etc. other than an extra punched branch on two and a sentiment, which is in my own handwriting. It often takes several attempts to get the writing  right (wasted card I know ….) but I am hopeless at getting it centred just right!

Poundland Crochet Coaster Set

 

You may think I’ve taken leave of my senses getting all festive with this jar of sweeties when August has only just ended….. but I was in Poundland yesterday when I spied this set of 12 crocheted coasters (that’s about 8p each)….. and my mind got to thinking …. and before I knew it they were in my basket …..

 

The coasters are a perfect fit for these little spice jars that I have found in packs of four in Asda and Ikea.  I bought mine in bulk when they were in Poundworld last year, which I am so glad I did, as they haven’t had them in since (probably because I exhausted their stocks).  But I just thought that with the season of fayres fast approaching it’s a quick and easy and inexpensive way of pretty-ing up a few small jars.

Robot Card

This card is A5 in size.

I think I’ve used a bit of everything on this card.  I have covered the whole of the card blank using a DCWV robot paper, then added large moulded robot and tool stickers from Poundland on top of it ….. and something then I haven’t used for ages …. gold peel off letters.  I find them impossible to get straight and evenly spaced, so sticking them at jaunty angles alleviates the problem!  There are also a few gold stars scattered around.

Patchwork Striped Card

This card measures 5ins x 5ins and is made using white linen effect card.

Very less is more today, just the sort of card I would like to receive.  Each strip measures approximately 1.25ins x 3ins, using papers from My Mind’s Eye, Stella and Rose, ‘Gertie’, 6in x 6in stack, that I have used my pinking shears on! The sentiment is from docrafts Tulip (Andrea Jayne) collection.

Docrafts - My Blue Nose Friends Stickers

How could I resist these stickers from Docrafts and costing only 69p a pack? 

These cards are a bit of an experiment and I feel like that there is some fine tweaking to be done.

The paper I used was came from one of those Payper Box stands, where you fill a folder for £4.99, as I loved the black/brown gingham effect so much I filled a whole £4.99 folder with it, just in case I couldn’t find it again .http://www.payperbox.co.uk/a4-printed-15-c.asp

The birthday sentiment circles are from Craftwork Cards.

I prefer the lamb card best as I think the Nestabilities frame on the donkey card is just fancy for fancy’s sake and is a just a bit too much.