Christmas 2012 Collection

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Over the last few months I’ve been making gift boxes and cards, this month I’ve been sharing the results with you. Here is a quick pic of the projects all together, and some links to the posts where you can find more details of how to create your own versions.

2012 Christmas Collection

Links

• 2012 Card
• Small Gift Box; suitable for fairy cakes or mince pies/sweets etc
• Tall Gift Box: Great for hand-made gifts

Later this week I’ll share details about the gift bag seen in this picture and add a link back here.

Hope you have a peaceful, happy holiday

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Tutorial Tall Gift Box

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It’s that time of year again, you know where you haven’t a clue what to get someone and every time you turn on the TV you are reminded just how close Christmas/the Holidays are now. If you have hoarded lots of cardstock over the years or want to make your gift wrapping really personal then these gift boxes will be ideal for you. They are quick to make, make a pile and let the glue set up over night and you will soon have pressies like they have on TV.

Billie’s Tall Milk carton Gift Box

You Will Need

• A4 Card stock 220 gsm for strength and stability. (Centura pearl looks nice)
• Scoring board
• Cutting Mat
• Scoring tool
• Steel Ruler
• Craft Knife
• PVA glue

Method

For detailed instructions on how to assemble the box, please check out my earlier tutorial; Small Gift Box. It includes a couple of videos that show the entire process all the way through.

This box is a standard milk carton construction and here are the dimensions you need for your cardstock and where to place your score lines.

Billie’s Tall Milk carton Gift Box: Scoring Instructions

Options/Added Extras

• Why not use your favorite stamps to decorate your cardstock before you score. Use pigment ink though, to ensure the wet glue won’t make the inks run.
• How about making panels from printed toppers from your favorite Crafting CDs or create your own designs and background papers in programmes like Photoshop and Craft Artist.
• Add your favorite ribbons and co-ordinate with your Christmas card for a really professional look.

Links

Video tutorial of how to score and assemble your gift box.

Mini Gift Box

If you are giving some one a gift card or even a cheque this holiday, why not add a few sweets in a gift box like this, so they still have a gift they can open and enjoy on the day. If you are really counting the costs, these gift boxes also make one of those big sweetie tins go a long way to share between more than one family and still look a personal gift.

Best wishes and thanks for reading see you soon

Billie

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Advent Calendar Gift Boxes

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Are you fed up with cheap n nasty chocolate in cheesy cartoon styles for the children? Like something a bit more grown up, personal, more elegant for a grown up advent calendar perhaps? Look no further, here is a quick n simple way to create the kind of calendar that suits your tastes and Holiday colour scheme too.

Advent Calendar Boxes

If you are short on card and storage space, you can just make 3 boxes and then simply change the numbers on those. A great way to use up small scraps of cardstock that we all hoard. Also a great use of those little pegs we all bought a few years ago and haven’t quite figured out what to do with I’ve hidden mine in the photo as they were blue, but I found double-sided foam pads stick the numbers to them very well.

Advent Calendar Boxes

If you have more time and storage space, make a box for every day and string them along a cord for an impressive Holiday decoration. Why not dig out your favorite Christmas/Holiday CDs and print decorative papers or panels for your boxes.

Method

The boxes are a standard milk carton design and I’ve included photos of the scoring lines below.

Start with A5 cardstock, about 200 gsm or above to keep the boxes sturdy. Place the short edge of the A5 card up to the scoring line on your scoring board and make the following scoring lines. Each line is measured from the previous score-line. If you get stuck please check out the video tutorial I posted last friday.

Billie’s Advent Calendar Boxes

Cut off the end panel that is shown hatched in the picture, then rotate your card 90 degrees. Keep the narrower score line of 2.5cm at the top of your scoring board then score as follows.

Billie’s Advent Calendar Boxes

• The number panels are created using sturdy card and a scalloped edge circular Spellbinders die, a plain circle Spellbinders die was used on paler card, to layer onto it. I then used number stamps to stamp on the dates.
• You can attach the number panels directly to your boxes if you wish, but because I’m short on storage space, I just made three boxes, and then all the number tiles are attached onto mini pegs and can be swapped between the boxes each time.
• For a more detailed description of how to make these boxes, look out for my ‘Holiday Gift Box video tutorial’ which was shown last friday.

Small Gift Box. Ideal for sweets cupcakes or mince pies

Hope you give these a try, they are super easy to make.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Holiday Gift Box

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Today a close up shot of the box from friday’s tutorial.

Small Gift Box. Ideal for sweets cupcakes or mince pies

I designed this gift box around the size of cupcake cases so that they would make my cupcakes look festive. The boxes will also fit Mr Kipling kinda pies too. Ideal for presenting neighbours with a few sweets too.

Check out the video tutorial of how to create this box.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Christmas Gift Box: Poinsettia & Music

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Today I’m sharing a little Gift Box I created using Serif Craft Artist. They have pre made templates that you can decorate and print out.

Poinsettia and Music Gift Box

The digikit I used to design this box’s embellishment is called ‘Season of Giving’ it is by Sahlin Studio and is my favorite because of its vintage styling. I like classic styles for Christmas.

If you have Serif Craft Artist in whichever format I highly recommend this digikit as I’ll be featuring more projects with elements designed with it in the coming weeks.

Links

• Season Of Giving Digikit on Daisy Trail website. You can buy the kit here, but you will need Craft Artist software to access the content. You can get a free trial version of the Craft Artist software from the Daisy Trail site too.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Anna Griffin inspired Notebook

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Still have yet to finish the Coptic stitched Anna Griffin book I’m working on as I need help creating the hole in the book board covers. In the meantime I’m sharing a picture of another little notebook that I made.

Hand made notebook embellished with Anna Griffin Stamps

This was decorated using Anna Griffin clear stamps from QVC. It’s a quick n simple pamphlet stitched exercise style notebook. Its been ages since I’ve made a book and here we are with three on the go at the same time! Another addictive hobby.

I’ve been using it to make notes of recipe ideas that come on the TV, I used to write them on scraps of paper and either loose them or get cross when they fell out of recipe books that I would randomly stuff them into DOH! So decided it would be handy to have a dedicated book. Once I’ve tried out the recipe and decided it works or any modifications I did, then I’ll write it in clearer handwriting into the hard backed book I’m making. Still waiting on DH for help with the Dremmel

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Memory Shawl. This is my first shawl, made in Memory of Tiny.

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Regular readers will remember my mentioning that my beloved budgie Tiny passed away in September. I was devastated and still miss him so much. I found a lovely shawl pattern on Ravelry, and after hording some special yarn for ages, managed to grab a bargain of more of the same in John Lewis. Since the  yarn is a lovely blue it reminded me of Tiny’s colouring and ‘needing’ to do something to ease my pain and remember him too, I decided to try making my first shawl.

Here is the finished piece

My first shawl; In Memory of Tiny

It’s not as long as I’d kinda hoped, but the weight of the yarn for a shawl is lovely and it drapes really well. The base colour of the yarn is blue, then there are lighter blues, lilac and mint colours in there too. I had seen other people on Ravelry make shawls in memory of people or to help them through the grieving process and I have to say it has really helped me too. Its calming and soothing while you create it, enough to give you something else to focus on when all you can otherwise do is cry.

I’ll make another of these, with more repeats of the main pattern to add length, to make something more cozy for the winter. This isn’t the time of year for me to knit tho, winter makes my hands lock up so I’m definitely a fair weather knitter.

Hope you like the shawl and if you are going through some tough times, give a shawl pattern a try, there are some really simple ones, this was my first and if I can knit this when my brain was all over the place in the middle of grief, then I’m sure anyone could knit this too. You Tube is a great resource for video tutorials on knitting the particular stitches if you are a total newbie.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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