craftgawker

Apologies for not posting this last week, It's been very hectic at work what with the run up to Christmas and having to drive up to printers etc..

I just wanted to let you know about a new inspiring site i\ve discovered called craftgawker. It's a photo gallery that you can search for visuals of crafts and projects with links to the original websites for instructions and further details.

I found the image below submitted by Ellineé showing how to create these wonderful snowflakes. I've been making these for a couple of years since I found the instructions in a magazine. They are so simple to make, I just used ordinary printer paper. The site gives you free downloadable and printable instructions so get crafting!

Image from Ellineé

Christmas Julekugler

As featured on the Decor8 blog this is a fab video showing Rie Elise Larsen making really inexpensive but effective Christmas decorations called Julekugler. All you need is some patterned paper(you could use wrapping paper), striped twine and small beads. I fancy making these at the weekend!

Decorative Christmas Bags

I saw this image on Pinterest and loved the effect of the opaque print on plastic bags.

For the last few Christmas's I have made dark chocolate truffles for friends and family and popped them into clear cellophane bags with a nice red ribbon. This year I'm going to take it a step further into festiveness, so on Saturday i bought a pretty lace heart stamp and some Stazon opaque ink in cotton white, which can be stamped on glass, plastic, vinyl, metal, leather, paper, porcelain.... well pretty much anything really. I'll post about the results after the weekend.

DIY Christmas Tags

Image from Decor8

I saw this image on Decor8 this morning and thought I would share it with all you lovely people. This is a very simple but pretty idea for creating your own DIY gift tags. Buy some white jewellery tags available from most stationers and a punch in the shape or your choice. Here they've used a pretty Martha Stewart butterfly but you can make them festive with a snowflake. A simple but effective way of making your Christmas pressies look fantastic.

Christmas at The Original Pop-Up Shop

I was reading about this wonderful online store The Original Pop Up Shop on HomeShoppingSpy and just had to share it with you.

Based in Newark and started by a mother and daughter team it only open for the 6 weeks running up to Christmas to make use of a usually closed ice-cream parlour. What a brilliant idea. The shop itself is open from the 26th November until the 23rd December and showcases a wonderful array of scandi inspired decorations.

I am particularly in love with this Cardboard Snowflake Wreath and this leaf wreath.

This handmade crochet Snowflake garland is also very pretty.

I wrote about these Hanging Paper snowflakes last year from RE but these mini ones are even sweeter, dot round your house for full festiveness.

This shop also happens to feature the products of one of my favourite greeting card companies Rifle Paper Co.

All images from The Original Pop Up Shop

3D Paper Ball Ornaments

Just in time for Christmas here is a fantastic project to make 3D paper ball ornaments. They are made from 12 slotted flower shapes that fit together to form a sphere. Apparently no sticking needed just paper in colours of your choice, personally I love the white, it's nice, simple, and festive. If you have a silhouette machine you can make a template in illustrator and cut the shapes using the machine but you could also print out the shapes onto pages and cut out by hand, it's up to you.

The full instructions come courtesy of Jessica at How about Orange. Here are the links for the templates in large, medium and small. Happy Making!

Send in any pics of your attempts and i'll add them to this post.

Christmas Stars

Whilst looking at a few blogs yesterday I came across these Christmas stars on homeshoppingspy. They are sold by Cox & Cox, one of my favourite online retailers, and they come in packs of 3 for £10. My mum always told me to only ever buy decorations in odd numbers as they always seem to look better when hung up, and after a couple of years of following this advise, she's right they do look better. These stars really fit in nicely if you're going for a Scandinavian Christmas theme.

Cox & Cox also sell these Snowflake Stickers. I've fancied doing something similar this year so I've cut out my own snowflakes out of plain old white copier paper from templates found at papersnowflakes.com. These will be stuck to the window with sticky back clear vinyl that you can buy in most craft shops or stationers. They'll be up by the end of the weekend hopefully so I'll post a pic when they're done.

(Images from Cox & Cox)

Mrs Peabod Christmas Cards

Since I have been blogging about pretty much everything Christmas this last month, I thought I better share my designs for this years Christmas cards. Each year I usually create my own cards, they are usually very simple and Scandinavian in theme, just because this is the kind of card I would love to receive. Normally I print them out on single sided A6 cards and punch a hole to add some ribbon so it can be hung up either on a tree or a door.

I love making my own cards as I can never find anything quite right in the shops. In the current climate where every one is tightening the purse strings, handmade cards might be cheap to make but show you've made a real effort, which can go a long way!

Coloured Cupcake Tea Light Holders

On Friday I went for dinner at my sister-in-law's and noticed she had some gorgeous tea light holders that she had recently bought from Rockett St George. I had previously seem them being used as chocolate sauce pots on a recent episode of Nigella and thought they were very pretty, but they look even more fantastic put to their intended use. The colours really do twinkle with candles in them.

They are £14.99 for  a set of six different coloured holders. They look great all sat together, my sister-in-law had two sets of six and displayed them in a large circle as a centre piece which looked very festive!

(Images Rockett St George and BBC iPlayer)

Truffles

Last year I found a cheap but wonderful way of giving home-made Christmas gifts. I had been given Willies Chocolate Factory Cookbook and saw a very simple truffle recipe made with his own brand of Cacao.

Everyone loved them, so this year I have decided to make them again but with a few interesting additions to the recipe.

I found another interesting recipe on the BBC Good Food website. To the standard truffle recipe they added Dulce de Leche Caramel Toffee and dark chocolate melted together, then frozen, to create a chewy caramel to put in the centre of the truffles. I couldn't find the specific caramel they recommended so I used a can of Carnation Caramel, available at most supermarkets, with dark chocolate.

I've also added different coatings to the original recipe. The truffles with the Caramel centre will just be dusted with cocoa powder, but I have also coated the remaining truffles in:

•Melted dark chocolate and dessicated Coconut.
•Melted dark Chocolate.
•Melted Milk Chocolate.
•Melted Milk Chocolate and crushed toasted Hazelnuts.

Other suggestions I've seen are rolling them in crushed Pistachios. or adding crystallised ginger or Chilli to the truffle mix.

I've finished most of them but just have to complete the one's with the caramel centres tonight, then I will post some pictures.

The truffles can be frozen for up to a month, so you can just take them out whenever you need them and package them up in a sweet bag with a lovely festive ribbon.

More Christmas Decorations

I realise my last few posts have been all about Christmas but I do get very excited about decorations. I was flicking through the recent issue of Elle decoration and saw these beautifully simple hanging decorations and wanted to share them with you. If you are still looking for non glittery simple and chic snowflake decs then look no further than the selection below.

These lovely White metal snowflakes are available in packs of 3 for £5 from habitat.

These handmade porcelain snowflakes are available from Selfridges for £1.50 each.

This earthenware snowflake decoration is also handmade by Timea Sido and is £10.50 available from SwankMaison.com. When I recently visited the Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery (now known as Smiths Row) they were also being sold in their gallery shop.

(Images from Elle Decoration)

Paper Doily Wreath

I know I don't usually do two posts in one day but I have just seen this wonderful and very pretty home-made paper doily wreath on dujour mag's blog. This is a fantastic way of making a statement wreath. It would be great for Christmas but frankly it would look fantastic all year round. 

(Images from dujourmag)

Cable & Cotton

I had seen these wonderful bauble lights from Cable and Cotton but had forgotten about them until I was reading the December issue of Living Etc and they appeared in their 'Fabulous festive looks for less' feature.

They are £32 for a string of 35 baubles and you can buy them in preselected colour combinations or be creative and make your own. Personally I quite fancy using them as a Christmas garland so either completely white or red and white. You can probably tell their is a theme to my Christmas decorations, I'm definitely going for the Scandinavian Red and White look.

(Images from Cable & Cotton)

Honeycomb Paper Ball Decoration

On my previous post I showed a Ball decoration available from Re-found Objects. I was interested to see if I could make these decorations myself and found these instructions on eHow. So I'll be giving it a try in the next few weeks and I'll post the results, good or bad.

How to Make a Paper Honeycomb Ball

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Cardstock
• Compass
• Pencil
• Scissors
• 18 sheets of tissue paper
• Glue stick
• Ruler
• Paper clips

1. 1
   Draw a circle on the cardstock with a compass. Alternatively, you can use a bowl, large glass or other object that you can place on the cardstock and trace around to make a circle. Cut out the circle.
2. 2
   Layer the tissue paper into a stack, lining them up evenly. Put the cardstock circle on top of the stack of tissue paper. Trace around the cardstock circle onto the tissue paper. Remove the cardstock circle. Cut out a circle from all 18 sheets of tissue paper at the same time. Hold the tissue paper securely when you cut it because it may slide. If this happens, your circles will not be symmetrical.
3. 3
   Fold the cardstock circle exactly in half, crease the fold and reopen it. Cut the circle in half along the crease line. Line up the two halves of the cardstock circle side by side on a flat work surface. Lay down glue on the cardstock circle with the gluestick. The glue does not have to cover the circle completely, but there should be enough to hold a layer of tissue paper securely.
4. 4
   Place one circle of tissue paper onto the cardstock, lining it up exactly. Press down to secure the glue to the tissue paper.
5. 5
   Place dabs of glue around the outer rim of the tissue paper at four spots that are equidistant from each other. Pretend the circle is a clock face and place glue at 3, 6, 9 and 12.
6. 6
   Place a second circle of tissue paper directly over the first and press down on the dabs of glue. This adheres the second layer to the first. Put dabs of glue on this layer, locating them exactly between those on the first layer. In other words, put dabs of glue at 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 and 10:30.
7. 7
   Press another layer of tissue paper onto the second and press down. Now dab glue this layer in the same places you glued the first circle: 3, 6, 9 and 12.
8. 8
   Place another tissue paper circle on top of the stack and press it down. Continue in this manner, placing dabs of glue in alternating locations for each circle of tissue paper until all the tissue paper circles are glued in the stack except one. Continue with the glue procedure, putting four dabs on the top layer.
9. 9
   Cut the last circle of tissue paper exactly in half. Place one of the halves on the stack to match up with the position of one of the halves of the cardstock circle underneath. Press down to secure it in place.
10. 10
    Place the edge of a ruler on top of the stack to line up with the edge of the half-circle of tissue paper. Holding the ruler firmly in place with one hand, use the other to fold half of the circle, cardstock and all, along the edge of the ruler, creating a crease line. Slide the ruler out as you fold the entire circle in half. Press down firmly, creasing the middle of the tissue paper circles where the cardstock is cut.
11. 11
    Once the glue is dry, open the folded half circle all the way around until the two halves of cardstock line up and come together. The tissue paper will now form a honeycomb ball. Secure the cardstock halves together with paper clips.

Instructions by Karren Doll Tolliver, eHow Contributor

More Christmas

I realise it is still a bit early for some to be talking about Christmas, but I just keep finding these wonderful decorations. I was browsing Re-found Objects' website and came across these White Paper Snowflakes. They are just so pretty and delicate, especially when hung in groups as below. They are available in Giant (D72cm) Regular (D56cm) and Small (D38cm).

They also have these wonderful Paper Bells and Balls, available in a range of sizes and colours including Green, Red, White, Pale Pink, Purple, Orange, Dusty Rose, Lavender, Light Blue, and Cerise. I personally love the combination of the white and red for a festive look, but you could use them for weddings of parties.

(Images from re-found objects)

More Christmas Decs

I was recently browsing on one of my favourite gift sites Cox and Cox and saw these wonderful Christmas decorations. I particularly like the Decorative Glass Birds, the box contains a beautiful set of 6 painted birds featuring three different designs and colours, they would add a vintage feel to any Christmas tree.

Also on Cox and Cox were these Painted Vintage Birds, each set features 8 gorgeous tin bird designs.

I also loved these Snowflake Garland Stickers, they would make a lovely addition to a glass door or window or even some internal glass, maybe on a large mirror.

I also took a look in the John Lewis decorations department and found this very pretty Glass Bird Tree Decoration. Birds are definitely going to be a theme this Christmas in my house.

(Images from Cox and Cox and John Lewis)

Carol Ridler - Hand Crafted Wood

Carol Ridler lives in the Lincolnshire countryside and uses reclaimed locally sourced wood to create wonderfully simple yet chic Christmas decorations. I realise it's probably a bit early to be talking about Christmas decs but I saw these at the weekend in Stamford and had to share them with you. Each piece is designed, drawn, cut and finished by Carol. She has received critical acclaim from the UK interior and style press, so if you are wanting a paired down look this festive season check out her website.

Images from hand crafted wood