Decorative baubles

Once I'd finished the wrapping paper, I was really in the creative zone! I'd seen this fabulous tutorial to decorate a tree ornament on my favourite site The Graphics Fairy.  I found some ceramic baubles in Hobbycraft and I already had some old book pages and some music wrapping paper.

Start by ripping the paper into small pieces.  Don't worry about the size or shape of them.  I started off with this page of writing but ended up using music paper for the rest of them.  I liked the musical notes behind the images.  I got my sheets of music from The Fruit Pixie

I used modge podge to coat the ceramic balls and then also to coat the paper.  Once each bauble was covered I then downloaded and cut out images from The Graphics Fairy

I wanted to sparkle them up, so covered them in this iridescent glitter that I had

Finally I strung wire through the top for hanging them up (there were some holes in the baubles) and then I tied ribbon around the tops.  I think they will look really pretty on the tree!

Gift tags and bunting

Still on the Christmas theme, I mentioned gift tags in my previous post.  My Etsy shop Alegreya has been up and running for a few months now.  A slow start but I was excited to get some sales of my Halloween masks and as soon as October was over I started on some Christmas ideas.

So far I've designed Christmas bunting.....

...and gift tags.  Pleased with how both have turned out.  I printed the tags onto heavy weight paper 167g/m and cut out with a craft knife, punched a hole in the top and attached to my gifts.  The bunting was also printed onto card stock.  It downloads as a double-ended pennant, which then folds down over ribbon or sting.  I glued the insides together and hung up.

I'm planning on more tags and bunting with some more traditional themes.  All the items are instant downloads so there's no waiting around for the post.  Just download, print, cut out and use!  You can find the Christmas items here

Ho, Ho, Ho.....

I'm surprisingly organised this year and despite it only being early November I've already done most of my Christmas shopping.  Yes, sad I know but in my defense, I have family that live abroad so I have to get super organised to get it delivered in time.

Anyway, this year I decided to get all creative with my wrapping paper and instead of buying expensive gift wrap I bought 2 rolls of brown paper and printed it up using a lovely stamp I already had plus a homemade potato stamp!

First I got together my paper, ink and stamps.  The brown craft paper was from Hobbycraft and cost about £2 for a large roll.  I did buy a new white ink pad but the others I already had.

The stamp is from Noolibird and is a lovely image of a reindeer.  They do the most beautiful stamps, not cheap but I got this one a few years ago and have made countless Christmas cards and wrap so it's earning it's keep!

I find it hard to be totally random in my stamping, so as you can see this is a fairly regular pattern.

A close up of the stamp.  Gorgeous!

I wanted to stamp some stars so took a humble potato and cut it in half.

I then used a marker to draw a rough star....

...and then cut it out using a knife.  Just be careful not to cut through the star, just around the edges about a half centimeter or so in depth.

Stamp away!  It's not the most perfect star but I don't mind it's quirkiness.  All part of the charm.

I did find though that the water in the potato did mess up my ink pad a little and I'm not sure how much stamping you could do with one potato stamp.  I did about half a metre with mine because that's all I needed.  

And the finished paper stamped and presents wrapped.  Really pleased with the final result.  The gift tags are mine and can be found in my Etsy shop