Handmade Christmas "shopper" Gift Bag

For my sons Christmas I have bought a pack of plastic food with a little shopping trolley. It will go with his toy kitchen that he plays with all the time. I've been thinking about how best to wrap it. If I open the box and split it up then there are more parcels for him to open. Watching him open the parcels is definitely the best part. So I made this little brown paper shopping bag, using a roll of plain brown paper, and then he can use it to play with too.

I think it looks great and I plan to make another one so I'll take some step by step photos and post them later.

• Firstly, I cut the roll of paper 82 cm long, that makes 25 cm for the width, 15 cm for the depth and 2 cm for gluing.
• Measure and fold lines at 15cm, 40cm and 55cm. This gives you two sections which are 15cm wide and one which is 25cm wide. (You shouldn't need to score the fold lines as the paper folds easily anyway, I used the edge of the ruler to make a good crease.)
• Fold both the sections which are 15cm wide in half. These sections are the depth and these extra folds will allow the bag to close flat.
• To fold the final edge it is best to 'assemble' the bag and you will see clearly where the fold should be.
• Start with the longest section flat on the table and work outward from both sides, fold the next two edges inward and the the next two outward.
• Fold the final section inward .
• Your final section should be slightly longer so now the final fold can be made to tuck round and finish it off neatly and evenly.
• Open the bag out flat and make a fold along the long edge (the bottom) at 17cm.
• Lay out flat again. At the two wide sections we're going to make some folds at 45 degree angles. To do this take the crease at the edge of the wide section and align it with the crease which crosses through it, folding in towards the centre of the wide section.
• We now have all the folds we need.
• Glue the thin 2cm flap to make the basic bag shape.
• Glue all the small triangle sections and stick them down to give that 45 degree angle. These are the flaps which will form the bottom of the bag.
• Glue them and fold them to the centre.
• Reinforce the bottom of the bag with a piece of an old cereal box.
• I made the bag sit flat by aligning the side edge to the bottom and pushing the bottom up.
• Trim the top so it's the desired height
• stamp and decorate.

I think he will really love it and I'm quite pleased myself. 

Scrapbook Page, Mummy Baby

This scrapbook page, Mummy Baby, was made using :

• 12*12 card stock, old olive and daffodil delight.
• stamp sets, greenhouse garden and letter it alphabet.
• Quick accents, big top birthday.
• Ink old olive and daffodil delight.

The old olive card stock was trimmed a bit wider than the photo to leave a mount at either side. The embellishments were made using the greenhouse garden, 2 step stampin set stamped onto card and cut out. The title was done by stamping the letter it alphabet onto card using the daffodil delight, this was cut out and stuck down. The ribbons at either side are taken directly from the quick accents big top birthday sheet. The element were stuck down using the snail adhesive.

This page was very simple to put together but looks very affective and I was pleased with how it turned out.

Handmade Christmas Crackers

Have a go at these Handmade crackers, you can really personalise them plus you get to choose an individual gift for all of your guests.

Supplies:

• Holly  Berry Bouquet Speciality 12x12 paper
• toilet roll holders
• ribbon
• pines and poinsettias stamp set
• Inks
• cracker snaps
• Joke/riddle
• paper hats/ masks
• adhesive snail, sticky strip and stampin dimensionals
• Paper trimmer and perforator

Method:

• Trim one edge of your paper so it is 20cm long,giving you an oblong.

• Make two perforated lines paralel to the short edge, 10cm from the edge of both the short sides. 

• Glue the cracker snap in place along the long edge, leaving enough space for the sticky strip.
• Put a length of sticky along the edge of the paper.

• Place the three toilet roll holders along the edge, opposite the sticky strip.
• Roll the paper around the toilet roll holders. When you near the edge pull off the backing for the sticky strip and stick the paper down. 

• Line the toilet roll holders so that the middle one is central.

• Pull one of the end rolls out slightly (around 2 finger widths) and then gently squeeze the gap between the rolls  using the length of your pointing finger and your thumb. Pull it out a bit more and squeeze it again. Repeat this a few times. Now, gently, twist the end roll slightly then push the two rolls together again.

• Now it's time to fill your cracker with your gifts and jokes etc.
• Once you have everything inside repeat the previous step to close the other half of the cracker.
• Tie the ends with ribbon and then embellish with your own stamped images, beads, buttons, ribbons or whatever might take your fancy.( I only had whisper white ribbon so I coloured it with the real red stamping pad.)

The colours that co-ordinate with the paper pack are cherry cobbler, real red, chocolate chip, very vanilla, so safron and wild wasabi.

To purchase any of these or other products email marianardone.mn@googlemail.com.