It's a Cracker!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Gift-spiration".  I'm sure many of us are busy right now either buying gifts or wrapping them, so it's the perfect time of year for this kind of inspiration!

Years before I started papercrafting as a hobby I always let my creative side run wild for Christmas.  As a small child I would buy lengths of ribbon that would adhere to itself if you licked it  (I know, I know, saliva, ewww, but this was back in the day when we didn't think we'd die if we ate a potato chip that was a day past it's use by date, or using bows that had been licked!).  I'd spend hours cutting it into lengths of 3 or 4 inches and then make loops from them to make my own bows, as well as supplying the rest of the family with bows for their gifts.  Of course, I'm so ancient that this was in the days when you couldn't buy ready made bows in the shops, so my services were always in demand!

This year I have a few small gifts to give to various people and I thought that rather than wrap them conventionally I would make Christmas crackers to put them in.  In our family we put the crackers on the tree, then take one for each person at Christmas dinner and put it with their place setting.  During the meal we pull our crackers, share the cheesy jokes and gifts they contain, and (of course) wear our paper hats while we eat dinner.

There are lots of sources online for cracker jokes so I downloaded and printed some out.  Back in the 30s and 40s when money was tight, folks would often make their own crackers and fold hats from newspaper to put inside them.  I wanted to echo that style so I made hats using stamps from Tim Holtz's Classics #6 set to reproduce the newspaper feel.  My crackers were cut on the Cricut using the Dear Mr Claus collage set - I love the vintage holiday goodness of these designs!

FREEBIE ALERT - I'm including download links for the templates so you can cut your own if you wish to!

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

If you would like to try making some of these yourself, I've included links to the template for the cracker in SVG, DXF and PNG form.

Please remember you are only allowed to download these files for your own use and can not share them or distribute them to others in any form. I spend a great deal of time creating my designs, please respect the terms under which they are shared.

These files may not be uploaded to a group, forum or website for sale or redistribution, or shared among individuals. They are expressly for the personal use of each person that downloads them from this blog.

There are 3 versions:

• An SVG version which can be imported into the Sure Cuts a Lot, Ecal or Make the Cut program and then cut out on any of the machines supported by SCAL, Ecal and Make the Cut.
• A DXF version which is Craft Robo friendly, and ready to be imported into your Robomaster software (I'm not a Robo user, so if there are any problems with this, please let me know!)
• A PNG version which can be printed from a graphics program or Word, then cut out with scissors.

Simply click on the appropriate button below to download the file!

If you make anything using one of the templates, please post a link to it here so that others can be inspired by how you've used them!

Files © dan99crafter@gmail.com 2012

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!

All set for the holidays!

After much crossing of eyes and tearing out of hair, I've finally got my Christmas decorations (and outfit) up in time for the holidays.  I hope you like 'em! :)

A little holiday table fanciness!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Inspired by the 12 tags", referring to the sets of 12 tags that Tim Holtz has made over past Christmasses or his 12 tags of 2012.  As I looked through his blog I was spoiled for choice but I finally decided on this tag.  I love how he used the Santa face on his ornament and that was my inspiration here.

I was looking around for ideas to decorate the holiday table (my family descend on me on Boxing Day) and I saw a youtube video on how to fold a cloth napkin into a cutlery pouch, which I thought was a great idea.  To be honest though, we're more of a paper napkin kind of family, so I put my thinking cap on and came up with this instead - a cardstock pouch to hold the cutlery and a paper napkin.  I cut the design on my Cricut but its a fairly simple job to cut them by hand, all you'd need is a corner-rounder for the top corners (and you needn't really do that if you don't want to!).  The scalloped pieces added to the top on the front were cut with fancy-edged scissors.

Here's the template I made, you'll get a better view of it if you click on it:

I used paper from Tim Holtz's Seasonal Stack for the main part of the pocket (as you see both sides of the card it's best to use double-sided cardstock for these).  The Santas were taken from various stamp sets (listed below), the ribbons were cut from the cover of the Dear Mr Claus collage kit and the bauble toppers were coloured with Tarnished Brass distress stain.

If I'm very vigilant I can hopefully get them back undestroyed at the end of the meal and use them again next year! :)

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!