So there has been a bit of a gap in posts, but I swear I have still been crafting away! In the past three days I have made Christmas crackers (another kit project) and today I finished off the “Noel” word art, which was an activity from my “Be Creative” magazine. Let’s take these projects one at a time.
The Christmas Crackers project was fairly simple. It was a kit that involved rolling up the flat packed cardboard cracker (complete with snap thingy inside of it) and tying the end with the enclosed gold ribbon. Then you slip in the Christmas “thought” – which were actually much better than the usual crappy jokes – and the ever present Christmas hat. Then you slip in a “gift” but I didn’t have any gifts as I actually forgot about it. What? The gift wasn’t part of the kit? Apparently not. So I must buy chocolates to slip in there before completing the cracker. To buy chocolate this far from Christmas in the already blistering Australian soon-to-be-summer heat is asking for trouble, so the crackers will remain unfinished until closer to Christmas, hence in the photo you can see one end is untied!
Making Christmas crackers was actually very easy and quite enjoyable, so I can see myself doing it again next year!
The Word Art project sounded simple but was actually quite challenging for someone who is, to put it mildly, craft challenged. This project was listed in my Be Creative magazine, but was also available in the craft shop as a free looseleaf project, and hence was very popular. I wanted the bigger wooden letters (as previously discussed) but every other crafty person wanted them as well! So I had to settle for smaller letters. The next step was the paint the back of the letters, but I forgot about that step, and to be honest, you can’t tell. Then you had to cover the entire letter with double sided tape. I have never used double sided tape before, so it was a bit difficult. I had to cut it to fit the various letters and it was all very fiddly. I finished taping the letters and then applied the Christmas paper, but unfortunately I had used very cheap Christmas paper and when it came time to cut out the shapes the paper just ripped. I had also put tape on the wrong side of two letters! So I was very annoyed about the whole thing and put it all aside.
I started again this morning though – ensuring to tape up the RIGHT side of the letters and using more expensive paper – and this is the result:
It actually looks quite good – particularly from a distance. I added some little gold stars and little holly embellishments, but it is hard to see in the photo. If the letters had been bigger I could have added larger and more fun embellishments, alas I was stuck with what small embellishments I had.
My next project will probably be more work on the big project (The 12 Days of Christmas) for which I spray painted the clock numbers I found at Spotlight (they were supposed to be wooden numbers, but I couldn’t find any wooden numbers, hence the clock numbers) yesterday. I am happier with them now. But I am worried that because my tags are smaller than the tags suggested, I might have the same problems I had with the word art – embellishments are too big etc etc. We will see. I am also keen to start my Christmas Card making (kit project) and possibly some more painting.
So far I am loving the project. I am not loving posting photos on WordPress though – I am more used to Blogger, where you can upload the picture from your computer. For WordPress I am having to upload to Image Shack and then insert it as an image. Maybe I am doing it wrong???
I’ve really enjoyed this project and will definitely be looking to do some more beading in the near future.
