Christmas Craft Challenge - Day 23

Day 23 - 2013 Calendar - January to June

Love, love, love this idea... 
Get six friends together...
Allocate each person two months...
Everyone makes six versions of those two months...
Swap with each other, so you all end up with a calendar for the next year...
So want to do this again next year!!!

Some people made their month double sided, others adhered there months back to back...

Christmas Craft Challenge - Day 5

Day 5... Junked Up Doily Tag Swap...

Okay this swap wasn't intended to necessarily be Christmas themed and when I started planning my tags, they weren't. The scope was that the tag had to include an altered doily in its design somewhere, somehow. I spent a good couple of weeks trying to find doilies... I searched high and low and inside this store and that store and couldn't find any. 
Finally I went to Spotlight and found some that KaiserCraft manufacture. They were cute and I ended up buying all three packets that they had, but I still thought they were a little big for what I wanted. They were great for on a scrapbook layout, but just too big for on a tag. Still when you can't find any... you end up buying what you can.
As I continued to wander around Spotlight... as you do looking for bargains... I stumbled upon the stand with all the crochet thread and crochet needles. 
I need to add some history here... as a young girl, my Nana tried patiently to teach me to crochet... and I quite honestly and openly confess that it was pretty much an Epic Fail!! 

I couldn't get it. 

At all!

So I decided to hate crochet... with a passion... 

As I have matured... and mellowed... my stubborn streak has gradually continued to grow to the point where I had decided that I was simply not going to let crochet get the better of me. Finally I decided that NOW was the time I was going to learn to crochet... come hell or high water!! (Of course my timing could have been better... given it was only two weeks until the doily tags were due...

Anyway I digress...

Given my acute lack of time, especially with working full time... I decided to look for alternatives... just in case... and when I least expected it... I found the coolest Christmas Tree doily die cut die... it is so cute!!!

So anyway... as soon as I saw it I knew exactly what I was going to do for my doiley tags...

Aren't they just the cutest! I really love this Christmas Tree die cut .. though it was a little fiddlier to cut than I had hoped... (it didn't cut completely on a couple of the trees so I had to do some hand cutting)... and the gluing wasn't something I considered until it was time to glue but I still think all the effort was worth it.
I also like the effect of adding the circle doily as well to look like the glow of the star on top of the tree.
They are definitely an eclectic collection of Christmas bits and bobs, but I do like the end result. I hope the girls in the swap do as well.

Christmas Craft Challenge 2010 - Day 4

December 4th 2011


Today's is a quickie stocking filler - some very cute decorated notebooks. I have made some in traditional red & green Christmas colours, but also some in non traditional (but very girlie) purple & green and purple, black & white.

I used cheap notebooks I bought on sale at the Warehouse (97c each - don't ask me where they got the pricing from), scraps of patterned paper, rubon leftovers, odd flowers, bling, embellishments & ribbons. Each notebook took 5 - 10 minutes to decorate & then I sold them for $5 each at my craft stall.

1. Decorate front cover of notebook.
2. Add sentiment if desired.
3. Tie coordinated ribbons to spine of notebook.

These days I always carry a mini notebook in my purse for messages, reminders & all those brilliant money making schemes I think up while out & about & shopping lists especially at the moment.

You can make them all Christmasy or decorate to suit the intended recipient of the notebook.