Theresa Collins Christmas Cottage

A warm hello to all you Paper Laners out there!  For those of you who celebrate Christmas I am sure the excitement is building up and your minds are aflood with ideas on how to make your celebration perfect this year!  I hope my projects inspire you to create some of your own to add to the cheer of your celebrations with family and loved ones!

The Christmas Cottage collection by Theresa Collins is a perfect Christmas collection with combinations of red cream and green.  Her line is classic and timeless and one could use it year after year and it will always still be perfect!  She hoped to inspire cottage coziness with her line too and I think she did that just...you can be the judge of that too.

For my Christmas projects I created a card, a tussie mussie, a cracker and a daily.  I used some bits and bobs and leftovers from last year and actual Christmas trimmings for my decorations.  I created simple projects, something anyone can do to add to the theme and feel of Christmas in your home.

Christmas Tussie Mussie

A tussie mussie is really easy to make; just roll your 12x12 sheet in the shape of a cone, secure and decorate.  Fill it with a gift envelope, yummy chocolates, candy bars, etc.  Children love it and they squeal with delight when they find lollipops and candy bars filled inside!

Christmas Cracker

I made my Christmas cracker with an empty paper towel holder - I cut it down to the size I wanted and filled it with candy I bought at Candylicious - I placed the candy in a sealed plastic bag first!!  Next some red paper that I had kept from flower packaging from a bouquet, then hot glued some lace on the edges on both sides, some beautiful Theresa Collins Christmas paper, a sticker and some Christmas embellishments - eazy peazy!!

Christmas Card

I layered 3 pieces of beautiful papers from the range; each a quarter inch smaller, matted a sticker from the sticker pack, some ribbon and again actual Christmas embellishments and my card was complete.  I love the feel of the card, so Christmasy!!

Christmas Daily

I made this Christmas Daily for a friend and I plan to gift it to her for Christmas  I used 6x6 chipboard for the covers, 3 binder rings and mainly papers from the collection  Used leftovers from lat year's projects, stickers, chipboard pieces and Christmas embellishments.

These projects are easy to make and make wonderful gifts for any occasion.  With the exception of the Christmas trimmings everything I used on my projects can be purchased at Paper Lane.  Plus Paper Lane has so much more in their store which can only add to the project you have in mind.  So pop on over to the store and purchase your goodies now while stocks ast!!

I hope you will try some of your own .. until next time..Janine

Altered boxes

Hi browsers, hope everybody had a happy scrappy weekend.  In Dubai National Day was celebrated on the 1st of December and the celebrations continue until today.  With the family home since Thursday I decided to "run away" to my craft room and work on some projects.  

One of the projects I completed was this altered box.  I made 6 of these for a client who is gifted it as thank you gifts to the females in her wedding entourage. It was super easy to make and was fun to work with; a good break from the cards I was making for the past few weeks.

The gorgeous flowers and leaves are all from Prima.

Along with the gift boxes I also made her wedding invitations, an album, a guest book and the thank you notes.  Such a beautiful colour scheme, soft, dainty and an exquisite bride she made.  Congratulations again Dee and thank you for allowing me to feature these gift boxes on my blog.

Thank you for stopping by...

Runway Inspired Card

I am on a roll.............this is my second post for the day AND they are both for some of my  favourite challenges!!

This trio of Christmas / New Year cards was inspired by the image on Runway Inspired Challenge.

I wanted to stick with the Christmas theme and looking at this beautiful creation by Elie Saab I knew that traditional Christmas paper was out of the question.  So I rummaged through my papers and found some Asian inspired paper which I had forgotten about and decided to use it.

I made a trio of similar cards, all the same design but different colours...

Go check out their website!

Thanks for stopping by...

Merry Christmas Card

A warm hello to everybody, thank you for visiting my blog today.  I trust all my American friends and visitors have had an awesome Thanksgiving!  Blessings to all my browsers.

I have been busy working on my orders for Christmas Albums and have thus not entered any of my regular challenges for the past two weeks and I must share that have had some withdrawal symptoms "grin".  

So today I want to share a card I made last night to enter 2 of my most favourite challenges.  It has a distinct Christmas theme and will accompany a Christmas gift swap I am involved in; I hope you like it...

The brown and white striped paper is by My Minds Eye Peace sheet.  The red circled and the top layered paper is by Kaiser Craft and was a freebie with a magazine.  The post card, Christmas stamps and Merry Christmas sentiment is from the Place In Time Collection by Graphic45.  I used 2 crochet flowers, button by Prima while the heart shaped tag and flower die cut were gifts from a friend.The glittered heart, bling, twine, lace and ribbon from my stash.  Quick and easy!

At The Shabby Tea Room the current challenge is "tic tac toe' and you have to choose which items you are featuring in your project from one particular row - I have chosen 'buttons, sentiment and glitter'.  If you want to enter the challenge just click on their name above to be taken directly to the details on their website.

At the The Ribbon Reel the current challenge is 'crochet' - see the image below.  I love this challenge because it can be interpreted any way you choose. Just click on their highlighted name above to be taken directly to the challenge details on their blog.

I hope I have inspired you all enter the above challenges; they are awesome and so are their challenges.  Enjoy you stay and I hope to see you soon...

Altered Domed Plaque

I was so excited when I saw this wooden plaque dome in my DT package - I love to alter things!!

So many ideas went through my head like a layout featuring a family photograph, then I thought of painting it and doing some texturing but I wanted to do something that I could use after and not something that would just go on display. 

So I opted to make a key holder...

 Wanted a rusty kind of look so I stuck to browns burlap cremes etc.

First I applied gesso and when dry Martha Stewart's vanilla bean satin craft paint.  Next I applied Martha Stewart's weather crackle effect and when that was fully dried, white acrylic paint.  Super super result!  Her crackle is wonderful to use, easy to apply, dries quickly - I absolutely love it! I cut some corks in half and screwed in normal cup hooks. I dabbed some hazelnut alcohol ink on the hooks and keys to tone down their gold hues.  Under the hooks are squares of netting just for extra detail.

Don't you just love this burlap flower???  I had bought this flower at Paper Lane before I even saw my DT package and of course when I decided to use this flower in my project; it set the tone for the design scheme, colour theme and style.  I created the canvas flower myself and adhered the metallic flower to the center - perfect result don't you think??!!

I adhered a square of burlap to the plaque with my glue gun.  Chose to use paper from the DCWV Tradewinds paper stack-I tore and curled the paper before positioning it.  That awesome large key was a find when on vacation in Malaysia and fitted this project perfectly.  I used white ink dabber on the flower and tied a seam binding bow with a stick pin underneath.  The canvas bird is by Prima on which I used creme de chocolat glimmer mist. The key image has glossy accents for definition

The large key is on a chain and I chose to keep the chain on the key in this project.  At the bottom of the key image I poked a tiny hole and locked the chain through it....the image below shows how I spun the chain across plaque.

The gold butterfly with key from the paper collection was perfect!!  Adhered corrugated board onto that lovely patterned paper.  Before adhering the strip of corrugated board I finger painted it with white acrylic paint - love the effect.  Alphas were placed on foam squares before being adhered to the corrugated board.  Love the delicate lace on top and the awesome lace on the bottom! I placed net randomly through out the project. Again I dabbed the dark brown flower with acrylic paint before cocooning it in lace.

The back of the plaque.  I hot glued 4 round wooden knobs to protect the plaque against the wall and spun some old chain.  Did you notice I used the plaque in an 'upside down' position in my project??

Paper Lane is fully stocked with wonderful items to alter - pop in, select one, buy some paints and embellishments and display it in your home.  With such wonderful items in store, you have no excuse ladies so go to paper Lane now!!!

I hope my project has inspired you to alter something...if you do, post your pics, we would love to see.

Take care ladies...Janine