Christmas gift bags

I had some empty cereal boxes do I googled recycled cereal box ideas and I found a tote bag idea which was cute.

I cut off the flaps at the top, drew 2 ovals and cut out the handles.

I changed it a bit as the kids didn’t have the patience to cover it with ripped paper so I found some Christmas wrapping paper and wrapped it like a present.

I used glue to hold it in place and some sticky tape. I sliced through the handles and sticky taped the paper around the handles.

My husband was pressed. Usually he tells me how I can improve the craft but he didn’t thus time. Granted I didn’t give him a close up look but he was tricked into thinking it was a real gift bag.

Oh i scored the sides to help fold them in.

The kids cut out pictures from wrapping and decorated the boxes. Perhaps stickers next time? Now the kids think they are their bags. I’ll have to make more for gift wrapping and hide from the kids. They take a little bit of
battering but Emily fills them to bursting and do her handles are getting a little squished..

Spring Trees

So since I am enjoying the theme of spring trees while searching for ideas of craft my two could make together I thought we could do paper mache.  Thinking of what we had around the house – a soft drink bottle hadn’t been recycled yet and so there was the base for the trunk of the tree!

Oh the messy fun we had.  I thought I didn’t take too many pictures because of the messiness but I did get a few quite fun ones.

First the recipe – easy to find on the net.  I used the uncooked version  –  which was similar to making salt dough just different measurements.  So 1 part flour to 2 parts water.  (I did cups.  I think I added a little more flour so it wasn’t soooo runny!  I also added a few tablespoons of salt which was recommended for humidity areas so it doesn’t go mouldy).

Then outside we went.  I spread a plastic table cloth on the outside table, put old clothes on the kids and we had fun.  I tried to show them how to scrape the excess off but not so good at that.  What I did find in the recycle bin was newspaper and white paper so we covered the bottle in about 4 layers.  1 newspaper, 1 plain, 1 newspaper, 1 plain.

My two had lots of fun making this and it met my aim of a fun craft to do as a family.  I didn’t really care if it turned out or not, I wanted the process of a craft that we could do together esp my two to have fun playing and making together.

It was easy to make sure all the bottle was covered this was as you could see where the gaps were.  I left it out in the sun to dry, it took about a day and a half.  Since we were not removing the base I decided it was thick enough and didn’t need any more layers such as another paper mache might – eg one using a balloon as a base.

I don’t have any photos of us painting as we had visitors and I had 5 wanting to paint, including one under 2 so I couldn’t juggle the camera as well.  I also didn’t mix the paint very well (probably not enough yellow) as the tree turned out to be more purple than brown.

This craft was very messy, but lots of fun.  It didn’t need much in the way of supplies, the paper came out of the recycle bin, I had the primary colours, I had water and flour and the bottle came from the recycling as well.  A little bit of set up to make sure everything and everyone was covered (I wore an apron).  There was lots of clean up but because we were outside I could use the hose.

Next post will be about making the flowers for the tree.

First Workshop Part B

I had my first workshop yesterday and it went ok.

A few things went off the plan. Alexander decided to choose his own nap time so he was awake during the workshop.
Vanessa had laryngitis but she did marvelously well supporting me with a fading voice.
And as I know with teaching I definitely had room for improvement in my demo-ing.

Here are some of the cards that were made yesterday – it is interesting to see people’s different takes on it all.

Erika used her spiral punch outs to further decorate the card which I thought was pretty funky.

Then Jenny did her take – I like the two giraffes in the middle – 1 being 3D and I hadn’t thought of doing the lion’s tail 3D.

Last was Rebecca who split her giraffe which looks cool and she went wild with the greeting which I think looks great and might have to case.

I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

First Workshop

Here’s the card that I “designed” for my first workshop this Saturday!

This card has been “cased” from a variety of sources. I originally got the idea from one source (a card that was on Vanessa’s table one workshop), went home and played around with it and had my hubby chip in a few suggestions. Then when Vanessa came over she had some design ideas from another website (you’ll have to remind me whose it was ‘Ness) and this is what we have.

On 3 whisper white squares I stamped 3 different animals from the Wild About You stamp set in cameo coral and garden green. I used my stamp-ma-jig to align them so I got the bits of the animal I wanted on the square. Then on another piece of whisper white card I stamped the animals again and cut out the different sections that I wanted to be 3D. The lion’s mane (my hubby’s fault, I originally did the lion’s head and he innocently asked me how it would look with the mane.), the elephant’s ear and a little bird to join the giraffe. I used the portable cutter kit to help cut out the lion’s head and just leave the mane.

I used the spiral punch on a strip of black card and then stuck the 3 animals on the strip.

Next I (actually Vanessa), used the Circle of Friendship Stamp set that is in this month’s escape promotion onto cameo coral. She cut out around the circle (though at the workshop we will be using the 1″ punch) and then cut out a circle of black using the 1″1/4 punch and punched out the middle of the congratulations stamp using the 1/4″ punch. I used dimensionals so the circle would stand out and tied black and white gingham ribbon through the circle.

All this was placed on a cameo coral card.

I also used my stampin’ spots to have a olive green and Ruby Red flower for the elephant.