It's a Creative World

Enjoy the delicious aroma of Beeswax candles

It's candle making time in our home right now. This is really my husband's domain although I do enjoy making candles too.

Sometimes he makes poured candles using candle moulds or containers, sometimes he makes dipped candles, but by far the easiest and most delicious smelling candles he makes are the rolled beeswax kind. 

We celebrate the festival of Hanukka in our house and every year we need 44 small candles for the eight nights of the festival. Rolled beeswax candles are easy to make in larger numbers and there is the benefit that they look and smell beautiful. 

If you would like to give this craft a try so that you too will enjoy the warm honey scent in your home, then you could check out some tutorials for making them on the web.

Here are a few links to get you started.

http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/projectsforbeginners/ss/ssrolledbw1.htm

http://www.mycraftbook.com/make_beeswax_candles.asp

http://www.letsmakecandles.com/Proj_Beeswax_903.asp

Have fun

Decorated Pot

Hi Debbie here with a quick and easy way to alter a plain plasic pot.

I had some pots, and decided they would come in useful one day. As I have bought a couple of small Christmas presents I wanted them to be beautifully gift wrapped and thought the pot could be used after.

 

First I covered the base of the pot with paper.

I covered the lid by snipping around and sticking each tab with strong glue (I used ATG tape)

A bit of lace top and bottom covers a multitude of sins, and then I added some flowers and butterflies to the top.

I added a few pearl drops to the centres of the flowers to finish it off.

Thanks for stopping by Its a Creative World.

Debbie x

Pumpkins & Poppies {What a mix}

Firstly I would like to tell ALL the DT that we have at the moment (old and new) How wonderful & Inspiring you all are. I have loved every one of your posts and there are quite a few of you (see links in side bar) You ALL have been different, Inspiring & fun. Myself & Debbie are so thankful you can all join us & hope you still stay around well into the next year 2012 & beyond :) So a HUGE Thankyou to you all & I hope you enjoy working on & looking at the Blog as much as we do :)

I have been really busy the past couple of weeks and my post has caught up with me fast :o I've not had much time to craft (i'm sure we all get this sometimes) But from now on I will be at home a lot more so will have no excuses now :) Anyway I thought I would show you two of my last couple of projects .... At Halloween I painted Pumpkins in Acrylic paint(masking with tape if needed), Then varnished them & also wrapped one in Black net....these Pumpkins are still going strong too :) 

 Then I Blinged my Poppy using Red Stickles...i was thinking is this a little disrespectful but i did pay for it so the money is going to the charity and I kept it red, Everyone admired it so People were thinking about it so i'm sure it's ok.

 

Hope you like, Sorry it's a little out of date but keep this post in mind for next year perhaps  :)

Jayne

Quick and Easy Christmas Cards...

I was asked to make some Christmas cards to sell.  It's for the Charity I'm working with to raise funds for people in Western Kenya.  I'm going out to Kenya in January 2012 for a month and we are raising all the money we can to take with us.  Anyway, I set myself the task to make 50 cards, with a small budget but quickly as possible as I didn't have much notice (the cards were needed for a stall that was coming up very soon).

 

I like the look of embossed cards and have a Cuttlebug.  I bought an embossing folder with 5 pretty Christmas baubles on the front.  It's made by a company called "Crafts-Too" and was £4. 

I bought some packs of Christmas peel-offs with different Christmassy greetings on them. Usually I'm not a big fan of peel-offs and had considered stamping the greeting on the front of the card but it's risky as I'm a bit of a smudger and didn't want to waste any cards.  Then I rummaged in my stash for lots of teeny flat-backed gems. 

Ages ago I had bought some packets of nail-art gems from the poundshop.  The gems are really small and pretty and really cheap, so I used them too. 

I put the cards into packs of 5, in cellophane covers.  Hoping to sell them soon and raise some money to help the Kenyan people :)

Mandyh

Christmas is coming!

Whether you like it or not!

Hi everyone my name is Erika and I am another newbie to IACW.  Today I thought I would share with you an ideal gift for Christmas and a card.

First the gift;

This is an eight inch canvas.  The outer frame has been painted with red acrylic, left to dry and then Ranger Distress crackle glaze has been added.  The canvas is covered with tissue paper, old torn note paper and MME Loss and Found Christmas papers.  I have used Spellbinder Nestabilties dies Labels 15 and 2011 Heirloom Ornament together with Shapeabilities Layered Poinsettia, Create a flake 3 and Holiday tags.  Idea-ology fragments have had paper added to the underside with glossy accents before being placed on the canvas too.  The lettering is from K and Company and the stamps I have used are from Andy Skinner Let the festivities begin and PI. 

I had real fun creating this canvas, playing with the different layers.  When I started it I had the idea of creating a Christmas wreath effect.....well, as you can see it didn't end up like that!  Do you ever find that?  I love crafting when you set out on one path and then go in a totally other direction especially when you're happy with the outcome!

On to my card...a few years a go a friend who knows I like making card gave me a shop bought double slider and since then I have always wanted to make one but just never got around to it....until now.

 

This is the in view and below the out.

For my card I have used a Martha Stewart punch to create the tree together with a PI holly stamp.  The papers are from MME Lost and Found Union Square and AC textured card stock.  The small ribbon tag is by Spellbinder and rather than add a sentiment to it I have threaded the seam binding through it for a change.  I have finally finished it using Distress inks Vintage photo and Tea dye.

My little boy loves this card and thinks it is magic!  He has tried to recreate it without my help because he doesn't want me to tell him how it is done.  As you will probably guess he hasn't worked it out yet. I think we will need to sit down together and share the secret of a small bit of plastic bag.  You can find the instructions here, thanks to Dawn for sharing.

That's all from me today, I hope you have enjoyed my post.

Happy crafting,

Erika.

Getting Festive!

Hello everyone, Leanne here with my first IACW post :)

Today we are officially over halfway through November, so it's time we started getting prepared for... (you know what word is coming!) ...Christmas!

This year I'm preparing as much as I can prior to December 1st, so that my friends and family will be able to enjoy their cards and festive makes for as long as possible - because normally they all get them when we visit on the 23rd December or thereabouts, and really they only have a few days before they're taken down again!  I've also had my customers and crop attendees asking me for easy card kits and ideas - so no pressure then...

I was inspired by a one day Christmas in July retreat run by my upline Cal - all focussing on a lovely range of Stampin' Up! paper called Jolly Holiday - rich olive, cherry, and vanilla, with kraft and a hint of soft pink - very retro, very useable.

Except whan the new catalogue came out it had been discontinued. Hmm.

Now don't get me wrong, I loved the new Christmas range, but had my heart set on an Olive, Cherry and Vanilla Christmas - to the point where I'd even selected which box of decorations we were using this year (we have a few colourways in the loft lol) Plus, in the new catty, we also have some gorgeous spotty scalloped die-cut grosgrain ribbon (what a tongue-twister after an eggnog or two!) which was begging to be a part of the festivities.

So I set about creating five simple designs:

All of them are made using 4 colours of cardstock - no patterned paper.  Then I picked up an empty basket and put in the matching inkpads, 3 matching ribbons, a stamp set, a die, 4 punches, scissors, glue, foam pads, and adhesive gems.  Everything in one place - even an A5 trimmer - meant that I could sit and punch and stamp bits with the telly on, and stick them together when ever I got a spare second (including making coffee, on the phone, at a playcentre, you name it!)

So give it a go, put a little Christmas (there's that word again!) 'kit' and get festive!

Leanne x

Crocheted Brooch

Hello everybody - Kerry here with my very first post on here so please be gentle with me.

My project is an easy crocheted brooch. 

Terms are the US version of crochet because despite being English I learnt using the US terms.

You will need a few scraps of leftover yarn. The thickness is totally up to you.  I used chunky which I believe is called bulky in other countries. It gave me a brooch of approximately 3 inches in diameter. You could use thinner yarns doubled.

I used a 6mm crochet hook.

Directions:

Using the magic circle method (explained here) chain 3 and then do 10 double crochet (explained here) into the circle. Join with a slip stitch into the top of the chain 3.

It should look like this:

Chain 3 and then do 4 lots of double crochet into each double crochet from the previous round. Slip into the top of the chain 3. Weave in your ends and your crochet part of this is done. The 4 lots of double crochet makes it slightly ruffled. If you prefer it to be flatter then simply substitute the 4 double crochet for 3 double crochet.

It now looks like this (yes I was naughty and took the picture before I got rid of the ends):

Now comes the fun part. Grab some buttons and beads and let your creativity loose.  I used just ordinary sewing thread doubled for attaching the embellishments as some of the items I used were too small to fit yarn through. Invisible thread would be great for this part.

Sew a pin to the back and you are done.

There are numerous other ways of using this project. It would be great to dress up a bag, for fastening a scarf, as a hair accessory or on your papercrafting projects.

Thanks for taking the time to read my first ever post.

Kerry x

 

 

 

Patchwork Paper

Patchwork pages are very popular at the moment in paper crafts so I had to have a go at a page myself and they are great for using up your scraps and odd strips of paper.  I tried a herringbone pattern for my page, as they are easy shapes to fit together with out worrying about them all fitting together perfectly.

I started off by making a template - cut a 1.5" strip of paper, then fold the corner down until it meets the otherside of the paper, making a triangle and forming the point, cut the triangle off.  Then measure down 1.5" from both points and draw a line between them, and cut the paper.  This should give you a nice parallelogram (sounds like school).  Then you can cut some 1.5" strips out of your nice papers and use the shape as a template.  Not always being a perfect measurer myself, I found that you can overlap the shapes a bit as the main thing for this page is that the points look straight, and also if you ruffle the edges of your paper shapes it can hide a multitude of measuring sins.  I do this by taking the edge of scissors and scraping them along the edge of the paper or using an emery board or light sand paper, then I crumple and fold them a bit too.  To make my page look a little more patchworky I machine stitched around each of the shapes, and then arranged and stuck them down on the page.  I added a place for journalling behind the photo on one side, and then a white picket fence I had lurking in my stash on the opposite side.  I mounted the photo on some red check paper, and some green K and Co paper which I edged with scallop scissors, then a little bit of bakers twine too.  The rosette flowers are American crafts as are the thickers, the papers are a mixture of cosmo cricket, october afternoon and my little shoebox as I found these small shapes great for using up scraps of paper.  Here are some more shots of the page.

I hope that has inspired you to have a go at using some scraps and making your own paper quilt.

Katherine

light up your life...by alix

Hi there everyone...this is alix...i'm super excited to be joining this fun blog and getting to know all the other lovely creative types...and you!

For my first project I thought i'd share a lovely lantern project with you.  This is fairly easy to complete {although a little time consuming waiting for each side to dry} and makes a spectacular gift for someone you love if you take the time to match the colours to thier decor. :0)

After first cleaning the glass with Alcohol Ink Blending Solution to remove any grease, i stamped a variety of grass~like and butterfly images over the glass panels with Versamark and embossed them with a verdigris powder.  This has to be done one side at a time.  When the panels had cooled i coloured the whole glass panel with Sakura Jelly Roll Glaze pens, using dark blue at the bottom and for the butterflies and blending it to palest blue at the top.  This also has to be done one side at a time.  Finally I painted Rock Candy Crackle paint {which is clear} all over the panels to give the glass a *crazed* look.  And again this has to be done one side at a time and left to dry!

The photo above shows the lantern in all its daytime glory...but for me...lanterns are all about bringing a little warmth and a cozy glow in the evenings...which i hope you can see in the photo below:

I love how this lantern looks at night time hanging above the open fire and literally warming the cockles of my heart. 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you like this idea...and don't forget to pop back often and check out what all the other creative world girlies have created to share,

alix

Autumn album

Autumn is probably one of my favorite seasons.

This year, the forest surrounding my home was amazing and I took this opportunity to create this album.

 

 

 I mixed the following materials : paper, wood, felt, imitation leather, flax, masking tapes.

 

 

 The pages are envelopes with different colours like my papers.

The paper or felt leaves are dies.

I made the pennants with masking tapes.

 

 

 

I found this French papers collection very attractive.

Thanks for looking!

Caroline