It's a Creative World

12 days of Christmas-Homemade Cookie Gift

A few years ago I decided that for the gifts for school for Teachers and Teaching Assistants I'd have a go at a cookie jar.  Now the original jar recipe I found was on the Bakerella website and is here being an American website they use cups for the recipe thus making it easy to alter the recipe if the jar size you find is different.  Now the recipe calls for pink M&M's which aren't that easy to find in the UK but you can find the tickled pink tubes of Smarties or just use ordinary M&M's or ordinary Smarties instead. 

For the jars I had been 'collecting' coffee jars with the glass stoppers all year.  I washed them in hot water, removed the plastic part and then put the glass parts of the jar in the oven to sterilise, apparently a dishwasher is also sufficient at getting the jars to a clean and sterilised state.  I put the plastic stoppers in very hot water (be careful) to ensure they too are as clean as possible and then ensure everything is clean before popping the jars back together.  

I tend to leave out the Pecan nuts in the recipe but that's a personal preference, I layer them up so each of the layers is easily idenifiable. 

There is a PDF you can download from the Bakerella website for the labels as well as the tag telling you what to add to the jar once emptied out to make up into the cookies. But if you fancy you could make your own like I did, I used scrapbook papers inked and then the label stuck to the outside and then hung the instructions tag around the top with a piece of ribbon. 

Once completed they look like this

So if you fancy a quick and easy gift that's homemade, why not have a go at cookie jars?  And if you're not sure if you've got your mix 'just right' you can always make your first jar up and try!

Hope you are enjoying these Twelve Days of Christmas posts pop back later for more inspiration

Virginia 

12 days of Christmas- Snowflake/book table decoration.

Hi Debbie here with an inexpensive table decoration for your Christmas table. My daughter got married last month and after making all the table decorations (here) I am missing having decorated books around, so I decided to make a Christmas version.

I used lots of cut out snowflakes using a sizzix die but I am sure that punched snowflakes would look just as good.

I kept to a vintagey colour scheme using a pale blue and text paper, and added lots of fine glitter glue (I bought an own brand glue similar to the fine glitter to get in stickles).

I made the 3D snowflakes by sticking 4 folded snowflakes together and then added glitter glue.

Thank you for looking at our 12 days of Christmas

Debbie x

12 days of Christmas - There's a journal in the house!

Hi everyone

Dolly here.

I am a huge fan of Journal Your Christmas and I think this year is my eigth year and so it always a challenge to try and do something different.

I love Christmas and can happily find things to document every year, but I do enjoy a twist on the theme.

In February last year my mothin in law gave me an old Yankee Candle box. Everyone who knows me knows I am a sucker for old boxes. This was so cute I knew straight away I wanted to use it for my Journal Your Christmas this year and I knew it meant I could journal all about Christmas in our home - our decorations. 

This was the box at the start of the process - good and sturdy but it had to be covered as it was too bright for me and had printing all over the back.

 

 

 

I took it apart and covered it

 

 

The photo behind the plastic at the front is a photo of the door to my dolls' house. Yes, of course my dolls' house is decorated for Christmas!

 

 

The box was a piece of cake to cover but the roof was an absolute nightmare and has many many flaws. However I have tried to convince myself the flaws just add to the whimsical homemade feel. I haven't QUITE convinced myself!

 

 

and this is the journal inside.

 

 

I have said it before ... and no doubt I will say it many more times ... don't throw boxes away. They are the perfect thing to re-use for all sorts of creative projects.

 

Enjoy your Christmas crafting, whatever form it takes x

12 days of Christmas - Three Ornaments

Merry 21 Days Til Christmas!  Lisa here with a trio of Twilight ornaments to share with you. I used a lot of fun techniques so even if you're not a Twihard, you can adapt these ornaments to decorate your tree.

Here's the three I created all together.  This is my mini tabletop tree that I just put lights and garland on, I haven't put my three-foot tree up yet that will be my Twilight tree this year.

I'm 150% Team Edward, but I still feel that Jacob needs to be reprsented, so I made the wolf ornament.  I'll talk about the stars I made, first.  Using a Sizzix die, I cut them out of Twilight-themed paper.

This one is hard to see on the tree.  This depicts the meadow grass and wildflowers where Bella and Edward fell in love. I was going to hang heart charms from it, but I thought that was kind of overkill.

The second star I used paper with trees, and the word "forever", which all Twihards know is like the keyword for the Saga.

I think this is my favorite of the three.  It was the most work, to line the paper up with the die perfectly.

You can really see the charms in this shot.  A fleur, a key and a heart, which I picked because one of ny favorite lines in the Saga is "Look after my heart--I've left it with you."

The last one was actually the most work.  I started with a paper mache ornament from Michael's and added paint, beads and stamped images.

This is one side of the ornament.  I chose the dream catcher because Jacob gives Bellla one in New Moon.  I have store bought ornaments with the traditional symbols (Quilete tribe symbol for the wolves, Cullen crest for the vampires) so I wanted my handmade ones to be more unique.

This is the flip side.  I used a wolf stamp and die cut the circles.  Then I stamped the wolf again, colored and cut him out so I could pop him up for dimension. i want it to look like Jacob is coming right off the ornament at you.  I colored this side with Distress Markers, which are so amazing to work with. I recommend them to everyone.

Thanks so much for looking everyone!  Have a wonderful holiday!  --Lisa Bedigian

12 days of Christmas - A Cup of Festive Cheer!

Well, good morning everyone, and welcome to the next installment of our 12 Days of Christmas special!

(If you've only just joined us, scroll down for the previous posts in this series - They're visions of crafty loveliness that you won't want to miss!)

My post was inspired by a lady at my last crop, who was using templates for her card bases - I know that I often overlook templates, thinking my creations need to be terribly detailed and very complex, when they can provide such a great starting point!

So, using a mug template that Jackie had downloaded from the internet, I made little gifts for friends and neighbours!

A cute mug, with a hot chocolate sachet (actually, a very posh one with marshmallows included... I bought one for display purposes, and one for me to "try"...!), PLUS a candy cane and gingerbread men (well, it IS Christmas...!)

Here's a little close-up of the decorations, and little gingies:

 

The template is available for download from here, and I hope that you all find a little time to have a go - not just for this occasion, but also for others. I've made one, for example, as a coffee mug for  friend that I don't get to see very often, and included a cappuccino sachet. Hopefully, when she gets the card, we'll enjoy a good phonecall adn drink our frothy coffees together :)

Merry Christmas, with all the love and blessings it brings to you and yours,

Leanne xxx

www.beautifulimpressions.co.uk

www.craftaholicleanie.co.uk

BABY GIFTS - IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening one and all.  Recently, a friend had a baby and I thought about what kind of gifts to buy for her, I searched and scoured the internet but decided I wanted to make something unique.  What struck me in this time was the outpouring of heartfelt wishes that appeared on facebook.  So many messages, made you feel all warm inside.  My Mum mentioned that it was done by card and even telegram when I was born and I realised that all these beautiful sentiments could eventually disappear into the ether of time.  What happens if they aren't still there when said baby is grown up?  

So that's how I came up with this idea.  Based on a five sheets of chipboard/greyboard, which I 'hinged' with gummed brown paper, now if you don't have gummed brown paper really well adhered thin cardstock would do the same thing, make sure that the crease is really worked to ensure the book will fold flat when you concertina it. I have subsequently seen similar to buy in scrapbook shops - you might even have one lurking in your 'when I get round to it - I'm going to alter that' box! 

You could easily cover the base in pretty papers, but being the frugal scrapper that I am I tend to paint the base with a combination of the main colour (blue for boys and pink for girls) and a swirl of white mixed in (gives a great effect).  I then use pretty papers on top of each sheet to create the base.  I then find a font I like on word and print out the words onto plain paper, I then handcut around these letters and lay them on the back of thin chipboard, if you don't have any thin chipboard that you could cut with a craft knife or scissors you could use cereal boxes.  Handcut the letters out using either craft knife or scissors and then paint both sides of the lettering.  Place the items on the book so they are pleasing to the eye.  Place on the book with foam pads, thus providing a bit of dimension and then add appropriate embellishments to the same. 

So the book looks like this

Now I know what you're thinking what has this got to do with facebook - good question! 

Well on the back of this I put the sentiments I found on facebook.  I wrote onto a word document the sentiment expressed on facebook and then added their name afterwards, so the recipient would be able to remember who said what, cut into small mini boxes and adhere to the back of the book.  In this instance I matted up the comments to really make them 'pop' and distributed them as evenly as I could on the back. 

The item can now be displayed on a shelf as a pretty item for a room, whilst holding all those lovely messages on the reverse. 

 

You can even make a box for it to sit it to keep it safe if you fancy, or use one in your supplies and make the book to fit inside it. 

 

And yes before you ask it looks great in blues too!  You can see the difference an alternative font type makes.  

 

So there you have it a versatile baby gift that can be sent from the heart and will be utterly unique.  Until next time lovely people.

 

Virginia 

Thanksgiving Layout

Hello, Felicia here to share a layout I created for Thanksgiving.  I started the tradition last year of being the host.  It's a lot of work to be the host, but it's nice to have everyone over to my home.  This year I am also going to cook turkey on my own for the first time.  Wish me luck!  I wanted to be a little prepared with my scrapbooking since I will be preoccupied with cooking and cleaning for the next two weeks.  

I just added room for a few photos of the family.  I usually use wallet size photos for my layouts because I like more photos on a page instead of embellishments.  I thought the turkey image was very cute and I wanted to stay with fall colors for my background paper.  To create the layout I use the Cricut cartridge "Create A Critter."  The turkey image was cut at 3 inches and the Gobble sentiment was cut at 2 inches.  The polka dot paper was from Hobby Lobby and the Checkerboard paper was from Sei-Seasoned "Tasty Table."  Cardstock colors I used were Brown, Tan, Red, Orange, & Yellow.  

Here is an upclose photo of the turkey!  I know not everyone reading the blog celebrates Thanksgiving since it is an American holiday, but hopefully it inspires to create a layout.  Fall is such a beautiful season, and everyone can be thankful for something.  

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to join us for the 12 days of Christmas! 

Have you heard of the Fiskar's Fuse?

It's the latest die cutting machine available, not only does it die cut but it Letter Presses too.

Here's a demonstration video of the machine:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vnqRMJ2ZE4

It's a really versatile machine and has a 12" cutting area and will cut any other make of die.

 

If you happen to have a fuse or are thinking of buying one then there's a great competition to win some extras here :

http://campaigns.fiskars.eu/fusecompetition/

There are demonstrations at Hobbycraft Stores all over the country

http://www.fiskars.co.uk/Customer-Service/News

I've had my machine for a while and absolutely love it. It will cut so much, drinks cans, fabric (including stretchy), leather, chipboard, mountboard, felt, corrugated cardboard, cork etc.

Do pop along to a demonstration and try the machine for yourself.

Lynne x

Flights of Fancy

Hi everyone

Dolly here

 

 

I love butterflies and use them a lot on my pages.

The most frequent version I use are the stamping up die cut butterflies, but when I was out shopping one day I saw the prettiest glittered butterflies ever.

But ... Oh my they were expensive, for just a few of them, and at that price I knew that even if I bought them I would just keep them and never use them.

So I set about making my own.

I stamped them with a sizzix framelets stamp. I used pinks and purples and a very pale green.

 

I then used the matching die to cut them out, but you could just as easily cut round any other stamped images.

 

They are pretty as they are and, in fairness, that is how I usually use them

 

I used tacky glue that came in a set of design and rub years ago and waited for it to dry and go really tacky.You can just about see the shiny glue.

 

Then I rubbed glitter in different colours over the butterflies and added a few Stickles highlights for good measure.

 

 

Once dry I curled the wings and voila – cheap glittered butterflies that I am actually happy to use because they didn’t cost a fortune.

 

 

 and here's one of them featuring on a page

 

Butterfly canvas

 

Hi Debbie here with a quick and easy idea for wall art. The picture below was made by my friend Faye when we spent a day crafting in the Summer holidays.

We both started out with a heart template and cut lots of butterflies, I used a canvas and Faye used an old picture frame. Once the large butterflies were positioned, the smaller butterflies were added.

Take away the template and you have a finished piece ready to go on the wall.

This is a brilliant way to use up scraps of paper and I think I will be making more.

Thanks for stopping by Its a Creative World.

Debbie x