Bag instructions.

As promised here are the instructions for the bags I posted yesterday. I couldn't resist decorating a few as I have some birthdays coming up which I can use them for.

Nifty hey? And a good way to use all those scraps

First cut your paper to 21 cm x 30 cm. Then score the long edge at 14 cm and 28 cm.

Turn and score halfway down at 2 cm and all the way down at 19 cm. Cut away the shaded areas. The angles don't have to be an exact degree. Then fold the dotted lines and glue.

 Cut the flap in a curve shape with fancy scissors and you're done.

I live a tiny walk away from Abakhan who are having a pre sale evening tonight with cake and wine so guess where I'm going??

Couldn't say goodbye.

Hey! We've found somewhere to live. A friend of ours bought an ex council maisonette about 6 years ago in a nice quiet area. He's getting married and has decided to rent it out. Best thing is that it's got 3 bedrooms and although it's very small I get my own craft room which isn't shared with Speedy's junk.Yippee.
 Before we knew this I started purging all my belongings, including papers. I went through all my 12" stacks and took out all the pages which were too dull, or patterns too big to make cards intending to donate to charity. I put the bag by the door. Next night the bag got carted back into my craft room. I just couldn't part with my beautiful papers. So.................

I sat over the next couple of evenings and made nearly 300 paper bags. Crazy, I know, but I still have my babies. Here are a few designs.

And a few more.

 I could go on, but I won't, lol. They measure approx. 6"x 8" and are a good size for a posh choccie bar, a voucher and a card.  I have since taken a few of them up to the next level. Why do we suddenly become oozing with mojo when we should be doing other things? I'll  post a tutorial and later pics within the next couple of days between packing. xx.  Oh and we have a garden after living 14 years mid air. Big move in 4 weeks. xx

Santa pringles cans.

I went for a drink to a pub in Chester and spotted 2 Small Pringles cans on a vacated table. I pounced on them before the bar staff could clear them away. I've seen so many of these and other containers and jars altered for Christmas pressies and thought I'd have a go.

Good what a bit of red and black paper can do. The buckle was made with silver glitter card and  scalloped plain square punches. I bought a huge reel of the braid at Abakhan for £1 last year and have used loads of it on various gift boxes. I glued a circle of red paper to the lid and edged it with silver stickles.A week later I went back to the pub in the hope of scrounging a couple more tins but guess what? They don't sell them any more. Typical !!

Friday weight, 9st 2lb (target weight) Christmas is coming though............

Grinch pills for the grown ups.

When I was sitting glued to Pinterest for far too long I came across this idea for Grinch pills.

 Speedy calls one of his mates the Grinch because he's such a miserable so and so and he asked me to make some to take to the pub at Christmas.Well, you know what I'm like, I can't possibly make something so tasteful and decided to make my own version.

D'you know what? I've worked in a newsagent for nearly 7 years and have always assumed spearmint softmints where green, lol. There's always something to learn in any job !! I bought these from poundland in a pack of 4 rolls and was gobsmacked when I opened them.  Still I'm sure they'll still work.

I found the little Grinch clip art from google images.

I'm about half way through my Christmas shopping. I'm off next week so hopefully I can get it finished. In a moment of weakness I've gone and promised speedy ( who thinks he's Father Christmas ) we can put the tree up this weekend. Eeeeek!!

I couldn't help myself.

I was in Tesco this morning and noticed the loose "fill a bag" sweets. I spotted these false teeth and thought about my workmate's hubby who has just had 6 top ones fitted. Then I remembered the bloke who sweeps the roads outside the shop also recently had a full set.Both of them are up for a laugh. Well, what's a girl to do??

I made up the little poem and found the sad man on Google images.

I also went into Boots to look for Christmas pressie ideas and found these among all the boring toiletry sets.

Sorry about the blurred photo. The hard backed note book at the back says " little gorjuss thoughts and was £10. With the 2 for 3 offer I got the memo block free. A nice little pressie for a young lady or perhaps a fellow crafter.

Well that's it from me for now. I'll weigh myself in the morning and confess to being a right greedy madam all week. I'll be good next week.......................

Update.  Target weight 9st 2lb Today 9st 3lb. Should have been worse really.

Another spice box.

Well, here we go again, back to trying to take decent photos in electric light. This is the best I can get these to their true colours.

I know I've posted this type of box before but I'm showing you this one because the spices are on special offer at Tesco, 2 for £2.50 at the moment so it makes an even cheaper stocking filler.The links for the free image is on this post along with some slightly better photos.

I've got quite a few of them made ready as they come in handy for work mates and little extras for people who are hard to buy for.

Remember me telling you about my boss with his packet of oats last week? Well, speedy has had to go one better. He fancied nachos with a bit of chilli last night so I decided to have chilli with rice for myself. He wanted to watch the end of the film so I dished mine up and left his chilli in a dish and grated some cheese for him. I told him the chilli was under the grill on low keeping warm and all he needed to do was put half of the cheese on top, grill it for a couple of minutes, put the nachos and the rest of the cheese on top and grill it again. Easy??? No!! He goes into the kitchen and comes back with a plate with a layer of grated cheese on it, lol. nothing else, just cheese. He said "do I put it under the grill like this then?" He hadn't listened to a word I'd said. What he was planning to do with the plate of grilled cheese, I just don't know. As you've guessed, I normally do all the cooking. Useless men!

Vintage gift box.

While I'm not in the mood for making cards as such, I thought I'd start decorating my pile of blank boxes. Most of these boxes are a result of mis-measuring and getting sizes wrong for the stuff that I want to put in them. Others are from when I've forgotten to cut the card for the lids bigger ( always 3mm to get a good fit ) than the bottom and having loads of half boxes waiting for other halves to be made.

This one is about 6" square. The pic makes the lid far too big but it isn't in real life. The paper I've used is from a big K & Company stack.

The image and sentiment are both from TLC Creations. If you look up TLC in my labels in my side bar there is a link in one of the posts to both images.

Here's a close up. The flowers were made with punches using a You Tube tutorial. There's loads of different ones available.

Challenges.Craft your days away. Make your own flowers.
                 Di's digi designs. Anything goes.
                 Secret crafter. Inspired by a song ( Lady in red ).
                 Critter sketch. Anything but a card.
                 Anything goes challenge. Vintage.
                 Charisma cards. Inspired by a song ( Lady in red ).

Speedy's hospital check up was fine. He's waiting for the go ahead for a kidney transplant ( hopefully mine or his sister's will match ) but as they messed up his heart medication there has been a delay while they get that sorted. He's got to have a nuclear scan ( not as scary as it sounds ) tomorrow and another on Tuesday but the doc is more than confident that there will be a good result and we will be able to get things moving again. He has kidney damage, caused by a virus rather than kidney disease so he doesn't actually feel ill. In fact he says he's never felt better.

40p Christmas Gift.

And a snack to eat while you're making it. Can't be bad. I saw these canisters of bread sticks at Morrisons and as they were on special offer i thought I'd buy a couple.

Not because I wanted the bread sticks though. Oh, no, it was the canister I was after. The bread sticks were just an added bonus. The main attraction was the clear lid. I know the pringles have clear lids but they're three times the price and three times as fattening ( i mean you couldn't just throw them away could you, lol.) So here's today's crafty make.

I wanted my first one to be quite " grown up" so I used THIS  little tree image from Create with TLC.  I got the caption from there too. The papers are K&CO.  I cut a circle of matching paper to cover the top of the lid then used a gallon of Stickles around the lid and the front layers. Makes it look so expensive, lol.

Not bad for 40p. It's about 10" high so will take lots of choccie type things , trial size toiletries or perhaps a rolled up scarf or even a T shirt. The list is endless.  Well what are you waiting for ? Morrisons is open............

Challenges.  My Time o Craft. The Letter G  ( glitter glue )
                   Creative challenges, Anything but a card.
                   Try it on Tuesdays. Anything goes
                   Craft Your Passion. Anything but a card.
                   Make it Monday. Anything goes.

Spice Box.

My sister has just had a new kitchen put in so I've made her a little, "happy new kitchen" pressie. I've been making loads of blank boxes lately so this one just needed decorating.

I got the image from TLC Creations HERE. Paulette has (quite rightly) made the decision to only keep her designs as freebies for 48 hours as a result of too many people just snagging and going without so much as a thank you. After 48 hours the designs will be up for sale in her shop.Become a follower so as not to miss out. Fortunately this little chef is still available, so is the caption HERE.

The box is just the right size for 2 jars of Schwartz seasonings. Nice little stocking filler for "awkward" people, lol. The paper is by K& Company.
Not sure if I'll be able to find any suitable challenges for this one but I'm off to have a look.

Found a few.  Challenges. Sisterhood of Crafters.  Simply Handmade.
                                        Allsorts challenge. Red
                                        Stamp Something. Use a digi

Masculine box.

First let me say thank you for my "happy birthday" comments from yesterday. I had a lovely day in Nantwich. There's some really nice little shops there. All the little gifty type shops have gone from Chester now due to greedy landlords and councils. We came back in time to have a few drinks at the local then we got a Chinese and a bottle of wine. You always know you've had a good birthday when the scales tell you to get off them next day.

I've been making quite a few bags and boxes lately and decided to make a "non girly" one as men do exist and do appreciate handmade gifts.

Not much to it really. The paper is from a stack by K and Company. I started with a white box base and inked up the edges with brown ink.

I don't really do "dirty" but i like the way this one turned out so I'l be doing a few more. I'll probably make a matching tag for this one to finish it off. Perhaps a diary, a pen and a few notecards will go inside. One stocking filler sorted.

Challenges, C.R.A.F.T. Boxes.
                   Crafty Catz. A vintage look.

Happy Birthday Speedy !!

Today is my lovely Speedy's birthday.

Happy birthday you big softie !  Mind you this photo is 12 months old and Speedy is now one and a half stone lighter, but still a big softie. Everybody loves him, even the men, lol. My mum used to say you could tell if a man will be a good husband if he looks after his mum and she was right. Speedy  goes to his mums every day after work and makes sure she's had something to eat and everywhere is locked up.He bought my mum a little pressie just from him and asked me to pretty it up for her. The little bag contains some Thorntons chocs.

We are going out tonight for another of those Roman meat feasts. I may opt for something a bit smaller , but then I'm a greedy so and so , I'll let you know tomorrow...........

Edited for Ali. The sentiment is from Ginger's House. There are loads of sentiments on this site, it's fab.

Stripy Gift Set.

I've been a busy little bee today. I've been into town to get some bits and pieces this morning. I got some little hand creams from M&S for mums  gift bag and made her a necklace to but in her little box. I've just got to wrap her main pressies to take to her tomorrow. It's Speedy's birthday on sunday so I've made him a little gift bag and matching card while i'm on my day off.

There's more info about this bag on an earlier post HERE,  and instructions at Splitcoast Stampers HERE. After making a few of these bags i found that making the first 2 folds half an inch instead of an inch made them a little bit taller and made all the difference when finding things to put inside as they have to be fairly flat

You can just about see the side view of the bag here but my 2 links will show you better.  The little boat is a Meljens digi image.

Here's the matching card which is 6"x6". The paper is from DCWV stack six  12 x 12 papers. The " AHOY" is also by Meljen's.

And here's the set together. As you can see by the pic, the bag is about 5" square.  Things I've got for the bag so far are, a Thorntons  4"x4" bar of chocolate with ginger, a Cadbury's kids size bar of dairy milk ( the flat one) , a Caramac, some wrigleys chewing gum and a small 2" square Thorntons trial size white chocolate. I'm going to get a Scratch card and a lottery ticket as well.  Big kid he is, lol.

Challenges,  Meljens  Stripes ( how could i not )
                   Totally Papercrafts. Stripes and spots.
                   Sisterhood of Crafters. For men.

Gifts for mum.

Well i was going to moan about the weather on my post today but while i was faffing around trying to get some decent pics of today's creations the sun managed to come out. How long for, i don't know but it's certainly not the heatwave stuff. The funniest thing is that on the news yesterday morning they gave out a heatwave helpline number. It was quite chilly and I envisaged loads of workers falling asleep waiting for someone to ring up and say "I'm hot, what shall i do?", lol. Anyway here's a little bag and box i made to go with mums birthday pressies.

There are details of how to make the bag on a previous post  HERE,  and more info on the little box HERE.
All they took was one 12 x12 piece of K & CO. paper and a piece of A4 card.

I used a 2" circle punch and cut the circles in half for the corners and my little eyelet tool came out for an airing.

I got the little heart embellishment from The Works, £1 for six. The bag and box are not as big as they look in the pics,  the bag is 4" tall ) so it will be a bit of a challenge finding something to put in them. Perhaps a trip to Thorntons and a mooch around Crabtree and Evelyn's trial sizes tomorrow.

Edit,  to anyone who's looking at that bag and thinking " if only",  please have a go, it's so very easy.


Speaking of challenges..........Glitter Geeks, Handbags and Gladrags.
                                             Creative Belli Blog, Something begining with G. (GIFT)
                                     

No milk today milk carton.

Just a quickie post to show you a short notice gift i made for a friend of Speedy's who was having an impromptu retirement drink at the local pub. He is, or was a milkman. so it had to be a milk carton didn't it.

The stamps are Elzybells . The milk carton instructions are HERE but i altered mine to come out bigger. Then i had to find something to go in it. Hey... Crawfords Malted milk biscuits with the funny captions.

The sentiment on the tag could only have come fom the bowels of my computer,lol. I also made a matching card but didn't have time to take a piccy.

Hot choc gifts.

Hello everyone, how are you today then? There's a bit of a heatwave going on here in Chester, it's 4 degrees above freezing !
We had our staff party last night and a good time was had by all. I think i'm going to have to sit on the fat step for the rest of the week after all the food and drink. Never mind, it was well worth it.

I've made some stocking fillers for young lads. Never easy to please are they. I like the snowman soup gifts everyone makes this time of year but i think a young lad might think them a bit too girly so this is what i came up with.

The boxes are are 3" wide, 2" deep, and 3" high, and the cup stamp is by Inkadinkado. I used bown ink to stamp them out , then used the same ink to ink the edges. The tag stamp is from a Papermania clear set.

The cello bags are the size used for 4"x6" cards. I have put a Cadbury's drinking chocolate sachet at the back and a Maltesers and a Galaxy one at the front with a candy cane and folded the spare bit of bag to the back. The mini marshmallows were from Tesco's baking section and are in pretzel bags from Hobbycraft but you could use the bags for tall slim cards. I secured the ribbon with a bit of double sided tape at the bottom of the box to stop it slipping off. Well, they've got 2 chances. They can like 'em or lump 'em, lol.
 I'm going to do a bit of colouring now while there's still some nice bright natural light.  See you soon. xx

Well chuffed with this one.

I decided to be very brave yesterday and slide my way into town to do a bit of festive shopping. It was actually OK once i was out of the side roads. I ambled around for ages looking for bloke stuff but gave up for now as i don't want to fall into the "toiletries" trap again. I decided to think a bit harder and try again next week. I managed to get a few things for the girls though. I'd already bought our new daughter in law a massive cookery book and decided some herbs and spices might be a nice addition. I bought Tesco's own brand as i like the square jars and they are just as good as the more expensive ones. I got home and had a play and how cool is this?

I didn't want to wrap them up just as they were so i made a box base. A bit of a faff getting the measurements right but then it was a doddle.The box is made from a 12" x12" DCWV glitter card stack, A4 was too narrow.I placed the jars in position and measured the width and the length, then added an inch and a half on each side for the depth,(I used a bit of wallpaper to work it out on). I stuck a piece of heavyweight card into the base for extra strength.The cost of the herbs and spices was £4.15. I used to work for Culpeper The Herbalist before they changed all their packaging and all the gift sets were hand done by us girlies. We used to use shrink wrap and a heat gun and we were at it all day around Christmas. We used to tell people we were the best female wrap artists in the country,lol.

They changed to factory packed sets and they looked awful, the stuff was rolling around in the boxes. The whole place went downhill so i left , but not without a souvenir half roll of redundant cellophane,and a few basic skills in how to make a few bits and bobs into a gift set. Now i've taken a trip down memory lane i'll probably spend the rest of the year looking for "gift set" stuff.
 It's ok to show pressies on here as the only person who looks is my sister so i won't be spoiling any surprises.
I must admit I cheated and drafted this post last night as i knew it was a long one.
Thanks for visiting. xx

Target weight 9st 2lb, todays weight 9st 1lb.

More little origami boxes.

I'm determined to use up as much Christmas design paper as i can this year so i can have new stuff next year. This pad is the only one i bought this year and it's Papermania Home for Christmas.

The papers are 8"x8" and the little boxes are a bit smaller than 3" square, just the right size for my handmade bracelets with a bit of tissue paper inside.Scroll down to sundays post for a link to instructions. The little toppers are by Crafty Bits and are usually found on those twirly stands. It was nice and light yesterday so i got quite a bit of colouring done including replacement gingerbread man tags with the right spelling,lol. Mothers chocolate mountain is almost dealt with so i'll be able to start on mine next week.   
That's all from me for now as i'm off to work.   Di.xx

Target weight 9st 2lb todays weight 9st 0lb.

Gingerbread bags at last.

After finding my gingerbread men in Tesco i've finally been able to make my little bags. Sorry for anyone who missed this free digi from Pink Gem as it was free for a limited time but i think it's still available to buy.There is probably plenty of gingerbread man clipart on Google images.

I added the little caption myself before printing out. There is 30 biscuits in a tub for £1.50 so i put 6 in each bag. They had a long date on them but as i've got one of those bag sealers i sealed them in a smaller bag then put them into a bag for 5"x7" cards. No fancy colouring on the tags as they'll be binned straight away,lol.

I bought 2 tubs of biscuits and have made 10 gifts but i'm going to get more as mother will probably like to give these to her neighbours. OHHHH!! And if you live near Hobbycraft, i went to my local one today and they had a big sale tub. There where lots of stamps for between £1.50 and .£3.50. Quite a few Hero Arts and some Forever Friends and Inkadinkado. They seem to be having a clear out of stamps so maybe they've got new stuff due in. I hope so.
That's it for me, i've got a big pan of  chilli simmering so i'm going to colour in some more gingerbread men until Speedy comes home.       See you soon.   Di,xx

Edit, i've just had a message from Shaz from Docrafts pointing out my typo for the word exist. Hopefully the peeps who get this first batch won't notice but my next lot will be perfick. Thanks Shaz.

Origami Boxes.

Hello peeps, what time is the rain going to start then? It's very dark and dismal here in Chester as usual on my day off. Still it might brighten up a bit later on.

Meanwhile here's the next stage of my mums chocolate mountain gifts.

These boxes are so easy to make. You can get the instructions at Splitcoast Stampers resources pages HERE. Always remember that your piece of paper for the bottom needs to be slightly smaller than the top.These were made with mums grandsons in mind as the paper (DCWV stack 6) is great for young lads. Believe it or not the design is actually diagonal before folding.

I did the little verse on the computer. A few masculine flowers and leaves and we're done. The chocolate mountain is now a bit smaller,lol.

Right, time to feed Speedy as he is trying to look malnourished. We are just having a bit of crumpet with cheese as we're eating out later.

Oh and guess what........... I've found some mini gingerbread men in Tesco, £1.49 for 30,  they were there all the time but they've moved them to the bottom shelf for some reason.

 Thanks for looking.   Di,xx

Nice respectable choccie bags.

My mum can't get about much as she is 90, and lives in a small town with not many non food shops (although there's 3 butchers and a green grocer,lol) and every year she frets about what to get us all for Christmas. We all say just give us a small cash gift and we'll come and show you what we've bought. Understandably she wants to give us a surprise pressie, after all she is a mother and we are still her children. So i go shopping with her and get whatever chocs we can find in her local Aldi and i turn them into gifts. It's still a surprise for me as i don't know which one i'm going to get,lol.

We bought these and a milk chocolate version ( and a shed load of other stuff) so here is the first gifts for decent, law abiding, clean living members of the family. I don't think she'd appreciate the smutty stuff.

 There is a link to instructions on THIS POST.  There were 25 chocs in the bag for £1.99 which made 4 bags of 6 as they have quite big wrappers. Why do they always put a spare one in so i have to eat it,lol. The sentiment stamp is from a Docrafts clear set. Still got quite a few chocs to deal with but some truffles are going in these milk cartons as i had some striped card left, i'll just put "Merry Christmas" on the tags.
 That's all from me for now as it's time for work.  See you soon, 

Friday again, target weight , 9st 2lb.  Todays weight 9st 0lb. I do put about 2-3 pounds on every weekend but it seems to come off by friday with good behaviour.