Happy Christmas!

A couple of weeks ago we had our Christmas crop in Otley Village Hall.  It's always a bit different to the normal crops, because we have a couple of make & takes, a challenge kit and Christmas bingo!  This year, Lynn and Carol hosted the make & takes - we had a lovely little snowman tea light to make and a beautiful wooden bauble to decorate with paint and stamps:

 Our challenge kit contained a mix of papers from Shimelle, My Minds Eye and Simple Stories.  It's always fascinating to see how different everyone's layouts turn out, when they've all started from the same kit!  Here are some of the ones I managed to photograph!

 

I'd like to thank the lovely ladies who come to the crop for their generous gift - it's always good fun, and I  look forward to cropping with you all again in 2016! 
And finally, we at Papermaze would like to wish all our blog readers and customers a very happy Christmas!

Alternative wrapping..

Hi, Carol with you today, sharing with you a different way to wrap your presents…

For this post I have used two empty containers that I salvaged from make up freebies - the boxes were painted with some dylusions white paint - the containers I used here are very fragile and to add too much paint wouldn't allow the lid to close and would also be too heavy - so a very light brushing of paint with a dry brush was used on this occasion - I then stamped with distress ink and added a faint covering of creative expressions gilding wax, I applied this with a small piece of cut and dry, and added it to the edges of my box…

The top was decorated by cutting out the poinsettia die and a swirl die from some white cardstock, a piece of bling was added to the middle of the poinsettia….some smaller flowers and embellishments were also added…

These smaller boxes were made in the same way (excuse the photography on the smaller box, the light isn't helping!) - the poinsettia die is so versatile, by using different layers you can change the size, therefore, making it suitable for all sized projects… the same swirl was added and a few sparkles.

TFL xx

chritmas wrapping 2015

every tear I struggle with wrapping gifts, with a paper crafting twist. Firstly I love the feel of brown parcel paper it stronger than normal Christmas wrapping paper and lends itself to being prettied up with scrap booking papers and die cuts. The bottles are simply wrapped with brown paper and a red card stock border is added along with patterned paper from the 'home for Christmas' patterned paper line from kasiercraft

 

This is a close up of the boxes decorate with the same patterned paper but using die cuts to create a wreath on the box.

This shows that you don't necessarily have to use die cuts to get the best out of your old left over Christmas scrapbook patterned paper. Here I have used an older simple stories line and decorated the bottle tags with punched leaves and brown parcel paper and tags from the local post office

 

Theses boxes are made from vanilla card stock cut at 8inches x 6.5inches. The shorter side (6.5inch) is scored at 2,3,5 and 6inches the longer side is scored at 1, 6.5 and 7.5inches. Fold the scores, the bottom inch you cut out the half inch flap on the side and adhere the long tab. Snip each 2,3 and 5 inch score on that inch flap that then makes your bottom to the box. Then cinch in the top to make the top of the box. I have simply decorated with punched holly leaves, a paper flower, hand cut banner, and garden twine

All I want for Christmas......

Hello there, Julie here again with a Christmas wish list for any crafter whether you are a beginner or advanced crafter with a healthy stash of goodies already.  Get a pen and paper ready or leave this screen open for your partners to see.  Here's my top 10....

A Big Shot...a die cutting machine for every type of crafter.  I've used it to cut felt, fabric, foam, chipboard, paper, cardstock and plastic.This wonderful machine comes with all the cutting plates you need to get you started right out of the box.  A simple mechanism powered by you turning a handle, no cables or complicated buttons to contend with.  It is just a fabulous machine that no craftroom should be without!

Dies... to accompany the big shot.  The choice is infinite!  Papermaze has dies to suit every taste and every occasion!  Nearly all dies are compatible with a Big Shot machine, you may have to use the various plates that come with the machine in different combinations but I've yet to find a die that doesn't work.  For someone just starting out I would definitely recommend circles, squares and possibly a flag/penant set.  I've found circles can be used for gift tags, shaker cards, backgrounds to scrapbook pages, banners and even used to make circle shaped cards.  If you already have a few dies I don't think you can go wrong with a doilly die cut to add to your collection or a beautiful flourish.  The possibilities are endless!

Project Life... Where do I begin!  Scrapbooking made easy.  You can make your Project Life as simple or as complex as it suits you.  To start yourself off, all you need is an album, some page protectors, either a core kit or a value kit and your photos.  You simply pop your photos in the selected slots of the page protectors, add some cards from your kits and a bit of journalling and an album is complete.  Core kits are fabulous to create a whole album with a co-ordinating colour scheme and theme but the kits are wonderful mixed and matched together.  The themes are endless, from babies to animals or Christmas to weddings there is a Project life kit out there for you!

We are Memory Keepers Fuse Tool.... This tool is just a must have for anyone who likes to embellish their Project Life albums.  One nib can either "fuse" together plastic pockets on the Project Life page protectors so you can seal in embellishments, sequins or special keepsakes.  The second nib can cut neat slits in page protectors to add flaps or adjust the size of your page protector to suit your own personal project.  I also use my Fuse for fun party invitations, shaker cards and even clear embellishments for projects.

Planners..... This is the current trend, planners!  So many to choose from and so many ways to personalise and decorate them.  From the gorgeous Carpe Diem planner to the Create 365 planner to the classic Websters Pages Planners and of course the Project Life planners the choice is yours!

Distress Inks..... If you've never used these to stamp before or haven't used these for water colouring, what are you waiting for?  These inks come in the most beautiful vintage colours and are just perfect for stamping and painting.  They react with water and can be used as water colours which makes them a wonderful dual purpose purchase.  You can use them to colour in a stamped image or used with an ink blending tool you can use them to create a colourful background for your scrapbook pages or cards, they can also be used as an ink for your stamps.  The colours are designed to blend together beautifully and each colour can also be found in paint, stain and spray stain form.

Stamps.... I'm going to admit that I wasn't really on the stamp bandwagon until this year and then I realised what I've been missing out on.  No crafting collection is complete without stamps.  You can use them to create backgrounds for cards or scrapbook pages, or as a centrepiece for cards, tags, bags or to make your own ephemera.  Papermaze has stamps of all shapes and sizes from tiny for a planner to large for a background.  If you've never tried stamping before, now is the time to try!

Stencils and Masks.....  Again something I had overlooked for years but now there is no stopping me.  Stencils and masks are fantastic to use with lots of mediums such as paint, texture paste and inks.  They can be used to create wonderful backgrounds and texture to your projects.  My favourite has to be a simple polka dot by Creative Expressions and the Tim Holtz stencils are just fantastic.

Stickles..... These little bottles of glittery goodness get overlooked however they are a wonderful addition to any crafters stash.  Coming in a multitude of colours they can add a little or a lot of bling to all your projects.

Finally.....Vouchers!!!  Who wouldn't want to receive Papermaze vouchers for Christmas?  A perfect present so that you can choose exactly what you want!

I hope you've enjoyed reading my recommendations for a crafters Christmas wish list!  Merry Christmas to you all and thank you for reading xxxxx

Special Christmas Cards

 Hi, Lynn with you today.  I have been having a play with some of the Crafter's Companion Die'sire Classiques Christmas Collection Dies, and here are my first attempts:

 I've used the circle accordion base die for all the cards, but then used different overlays - the snowflake circle for the card above, and Jingle Bells for the two below:

These cards are fun if a little fiddly to create, but worth the effort for those special people you want to send greeting to at Christmas.

Thanks for looking

Lynn x

Christmas bits!

Hi, its Carol with you today - last Saturday we had the last workshop of 2015 and we made these pieces:-

This Tando Creative Christmas Tree Printers Tray was filled with loads of Tando elements which we painted and doodled and glossed… 

We also made a couple of unusual shaped Christmas cards, the templates can be used for Birthday cards too…

We made a matching black and white tag to match this criss cross card

For this Triple cut card we made our own masterboard and then cut up to cover the sections,:-

Flat look:-

Standing up:-

Aerial view to show the actual folds

All cards were based using bazzil cardstock and fit inside an A5 envelope… the Tim Holtz poinsettia die was used on both cards..

All the Tando elements used are available in the shop, but, are not all are on the website, do give the shop a ring and they will be able to help you.

If you fancy trying your hand at something different keep an eye out for our workshops in 2016!

TFL 

Christmas Cards Two Ways

Hello again its Julie here.  I think we are all probably in the midst of getting ourselves ready for the festive season and I thought I would show you a couple of Christmas card ideas I've been working on.
Firstly I've used my wonderful Tim Holtz Distress inks as watercolours to create a fun background for this jolly little card and I also coloured in the gorgeous new Shimelle Santa stamp with the distress inks to create a soft vintage effect.  Let me go through what I used for this card.

I "smooshed" Mowed Lawn, Festive Berries and Evergreen Bough onto an acrylic stamp block to use them as "paints".  I then used a water brush as my paintbrush to paint the colours on a piece of watercolour paper to create a background.

You don't have to be precise and you can choose whichever colours you like.  Whilst waiting for this to dry I then used Festive Berries, Tattered Rose, Tumbled Glass and Pumice Stone to colour in the adorable Shimelle stamp.  All I did was stamp the stamp on a piece of watercolour paper in Memento London Fog, I found this created a softer outline and then again used my water brush to "paint" the colours onto Santa.  Tattered Rose is a gorgeous skin tone and even though Santa's beard is white, a light wash of Pumice Stone added a bit of depth.  When the background was dry, I cut out several snowflakes and a Christmas tree using my Sizzix Big shot machine, there are so many to choose from a visit to the Papermaze website is your best place to start.  I put the snowflakes in the background, then the Christmas tree and added Santa as a centrepiece popped up using adhesive foam dots.  I also used some Holiday Divine Twine to create a little banner to put my words "JOY" onto.  I created these letters by using double sided sticky paper that I created by running it through my Xyron sticker maker twice and then I added Cosmic Shimmer Polished Silk Glitter which leaves a smooth silky glitter surface which is almost completely flat.

For the second card I used the gorgeous new Creative Expressions Frosty Swirls embossing folder and my Big shot to emboss the card base.  I inked the edges using Tumbled Glass distress ink to add a little pop to the embossing.  I then cut out three Christmas trees and adhered them together to create a 3D tree and cut another tree in a contrasting colour to outline the smaller trees.  The 3d tree presses flat to go into an envelope but pops back out when the card is opened.  I used a penant die to create a little tag to which I added a Merry and Bright sentiment from the Crafters Companion Die'sire collection, it is so detailed and cuts out beautifully.  For the papers on this card I used the beautiful Bo Bunny Candy Cane Lane collection as I wanted to use slightly less traditional festive colours.  As a final touch I added two small holly leaves from the Shimelle collection.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these two Christmas cards and thanks for looking xxxx