Yesterday we crafted...

Yesterday was the first of my festive days for 2010, as a group attended my Christmas Craft Day! It was really good fun - this is how the table was set up...


Each person had a kit full of the Stampin' Up! Christmas Jingle kit, a brown gift bag, a notepad, brown ribbon, green ribbon, gold cord, brads, extra sheets of red, brown and green card and of course... some refreshments!

I borrowed this idea from Natalie O'Shea, my team leader for Stampin' Up! and decorated a water bottle and a muffin wrapped in celophane with some SU ribbon to tie it up.

This is a photograph of the kit up close - this is my favourite Christmas paper set in the catalogue as its so modern and lovely design of papers and die cut stickers.

And here are the lovely goodies we made! Eight square cards, a red gift box which holds the cards, a scrapbook page, a gift bag and a shopping list note pad. Would you like to join us in making these? I am running this class again in November (Saturday 13th) and I have just a few places left so if you would like to come along, just drop me a line!

Christmas Gift Bags

I'm seeing Christmas craft inspiration everywhere and it is really getting me in the mood for Christmas preparations! I'm going to be making some more gift bags like this one from last year I think...

This was a simple brown gift bag from Paperchase, stamped with some simple Christmas stamps in Chocolate Chip and Real Red ink pads from Stampin' Up!. To create the centre I've inked the edges of a square of Whisper White card, and then punched the flower petals using the Oval Punch. I layered the six petals together and then completed the centre by stamping a circle Christmas Joy design in Chocolate Chip ink, and punching it out in a circle. I attached it using 3D foam pads for a little dimension. I love this brown stitched ribbon, it's so thick its perfect for things like this. So quick and easy to make, I'll definitely be creating more!

**New cardmaking and scrapbooking classes coming soon**

I am going to be holding new cardmaking and scrapbooking classes from July, so if you live in Essex and are interested in finding out more information please email me for details at

They will be held in Barking, so easily accessible for anyone in Romford/Gidea Park/Goodmayes/Ilford etc.

I have shared this project before but I just came across the photographs again and realised how much I just loved, loved, loved this project - so thought I'd share it again! I think I have different blog readers to what I used to, so it might be new for many of you.

This was a project I created for Crafts Beautiful magazine, using a blank brown Paperchase album. I used BasicGrey papers and fibres, and some chipboard letters for the title.

Each double page spread has patterned papers and a month of dates printed from the computer, all with inked edges. The right hand page of each spread has a stitched pocket to hold birthday cards for those marked on the left page. I just love this range of papers, so gorgeously girly. The letters for each month were die-cut on the Big Shot machine.

The final page has a page for notes and any general cards that might be needed throughout the year. The pages all come out of the spiral bound book, which enabled me to stitch onto each one. I'll share some cards that I made to coordinate with this book in my next post.

Dedication crafts

Our friends are having their baby dedicated on Sunday morning, and we were a little stuck for ideas for a present. Should we take a traditional present, or will they end up with lots of similar gifts? The only solution seemed to be - make something!

I took a plain white candle (just a few pounds in the supermarket) and printed a baby photograph onto a sticker sheet, along with the name (blurred out here) and date and simply peeled and stuck them onto the candle. Voila! Completed in just a few minutes.

I love money-saving ideas and these personalised candles can cost a fortune in the shops compared to what it really costs them to make them. So do it yourself! It's really quite cute, isn't it? It does of course help that he is the cutest baby.

For a while now, I've been a converted fan of 'Safmat' - which is a clear sheet of sticker material that you can print onto. The packaging is shocking and totally doesn't do justice to the multitude of uses for this little simple item. It's perfect for all sorts of crafts!