Making A Sweetie Bag with Topper.

A couple of people have asked how I make my sweetie bags and toppers so I have done a series of photos that I hope will help.

I use a medium sized die from Nestabilities Label Set 4  for the bag topper cut on my Big Shot

I then score it down the middle on my scoreboard

I use tall card cello bags to put the sweeties in and seal it with my Elitech bag sealer (bought from e-bay)

The bag seals and cuts, so I can usually get two sweetie bags from one cello bag

I apply double sided tape to each side of the bag topper

I then decorate the topper, sometimes using my Stampin Up plain and scalloped edged punches. (see Stampin Up link for more information)

….. and that’s all there is to it!!

Easter Bunny Poop

This is a variation of the Snowman Poop I made for Christmas.

I hope you aren’t sick of my Easter Bunny embellishment, but since I made it using my Silhouette, I have saved so much time and money.

If you haven’t got a cutting machine I found these 3D embellishments by Paper Bliss which cost about £1.45 a packet.

I am going to use them on Easter cards and put them in my Staffroom Box, if they don’t go – I will take them apart and use them on New Baby cards instead.
 
The scalloped circle is made using a very large Woodware punch.

Easter Bunny Hot Chocolate

After Snowman Soup at Christmas I decided to do the same sort of thing for Easter – using a sachet of hot chocolate, an Easter chocolate lolly (Somerfield – 4 for £1) as a stirrer and some rather lovely coloured marshmallows, my sister found me.

The poem is a joint effort between my sister and I, not Shakespeare I know – but it suits the purpose.  However if anyone comes up with anything else, could they add it to the comments box, then I will put them all together in another post before Easter for everyone to share.

The handwriting is mine.

Easter Bunny Treat Bags

How cute is this?  I have 26 more to make for a colleague at work, to give to her class at Easter.

To make life a little more difficult for myself, the bag is exactly the same on the other side – yes, I am quite, quite mad!

The idea came to me because I wanted to put four bunnies (from Marks & Spencers) in a bag, but they were all squashed up, and didn’t look very pretty!

The card inside the packet measures 3cm x 2.5cm and the flower stickers are left over from Accessorize packs with a bit of doodling.

Going Bananas - Monkey Treat Bags

 

With a few days away from work I have managed to have a good “play” on my Quickutz Silhouette, which is a much under used tool in my craftroom.

I have a monthly subscription with Quickutz, which  they have recently changed slightly, but for approximately £7.00 a month I can download about 50 templates.

I bought a huge bag of foam bananas and remembered this monkey template that I had downloaded – and thought I would try it on some sweetie bag toppers.

I can’t say it’s the easiest tool to use and I think it helps that I am quite good at using a computer. It took me quite a while to sort out the template, making separate sheets of bodies, faces, noses and eyes in the different colours that I needed to make up the monkeys. But now saved, I will be able to use them over and over again, and it beats cutting everything out by hand!

Lisa’s Brilliant Idea - Valentines Treat Bag!

Lisa is my best crafty mate, we go craft and moochy shopping together whenever we can and The Hobbycrafts Show at the NEC every November, last year we even managed to sneak into a trade fair!

We both bought these chocolate tokens from Home Bargains, but we weren’t too keen on the naff sentiments on them.

I will leave Lisa to explain and get full credit  ………. click on this link to go to her blog

This is my version of her inspired idea!

Hug in A Mug and Lovebug Treat Bags

Yesterday was a weird Saturday, nothing came out as I planned and my head felt like it was full of cotton wool. I fiddle farted around with these ideas for ages, nothing looked right, colours didn't match, embellishments looked pants – perhaps I should have a “what’s in my bin Sunday” because mine is full!

Anyway, this is what I came up with, using sachets of hot chocolate, mini marshmallows and chocolate “Love Tokens” I got from Home Bargains  (39p) – the name “Hug in A Mug” came from my mate Lisa.

I am thinking, I might try the same idea for Easter - "Bunny Brew" (not really sure about the name yet) - at the moment I am looking for chocolate Easter lollies to use as stirrers.

The second idea uses caramel filled chocolate ladybirds I got from Tesco (£1.04 for 13) the other day.

It’s an idea I’ve used lots of times here before, same old, same old, just a different sweetie and occasion,  using Nestablities Label dies to make the bag toppers.


WHAT’S IN THE SHOPS …………………………………….


My sister found these for me is Asda – filled with soft chocolate - £1.00 for about 10 – not sure what to do with them yet ……

New Year’s Family Tradition

SORRY THIS IS A LONG ONE ………….

It’s a family tradition that we busy ourselves in the days after Christmas making small gifts for the people we will be seeing the New Year in with, which is usually very close family, so it’s not too daunting a task.  It all came about 10 years ago when my daughter Lucy, then a teenager,  declared that she didn’t like New Year, as it was an anti-climax and boring.
The planning and plotting starts after Boxing Day (sometimes before)….. in some ways it’s even more exciting and thought provoking than Christmas Day
Featured in this post are the gifts I have made, some ideas you may have seen before  ….. I just hope no one in the family peeps at it before the event…..

I made this bag for Laura (my sons girlfriend) using a Hobbycraft cotton bag, decorated with felt flowers (Sizzix die on BigShot) and button centres.

I knit this scarf for Lucy using two balls of mohair wool that I got from a car boot sale, the massive  button  came from a brilliant button shop in one of the beautiful old arcades in Cardiff.

My sister’s bag is a bit of a cheat as I  got it from Vistaprint as a freebie (you just pay P & P).  All  I did was choose the text – my sister is the world’s best shopper , she never gives up until her quarry is in her bag!  I have added flat back pearl stars, because she is a star and three red jingle bells  on  the handle so that people can hear her coming and get out of her way!!!!!

Lucy and Laura are also going to get a fridge magnet calendar and set of pegs each.

Tom, my son will be getting  a fridge magnet post-it note holder and pen.  A beer mat makes the base.  I have added a very thin piece of magnetic tape to the pen and clip so that the pen stays in place.  I have embellished it with transparent footprint stickers as identifying shoeprints is part of his job.  The magnetic clips were a bargain.  I saw the exact same pack  of 4 in a posh  shop in Manchester at over £5, these were from Home Bargains– 79p – result!

I have recovered a Poundland tin moneybox for my Father In Law and decorated it with odd self adhesive letters to say “Colin’s Pennies”  and gold stars.

This is my husbands gift, a magnetic post-it note holder and  calendar to hang on his filing cabinet.   The self adhesive tiles are from a pack of fishing embellishments I have had for ages that resemble the scales on fish.

This artist palette post-it-note holder is for my Brother In Law’s desk – he is at Uni doing Art.  The palette was from Poundworld and also came with several paintbrushes, two of which I have glued on.  The circles of paint are bazzill paper, cut using a large circle punch.

I am quite impressed with the palette and may get a couple more to use for other ideas.

I’m not sure if this counts, but I treated myself to a beautiful notebook to jot my ideas down and stick pictures of things that inspire me during the year, and I could not resist gluing some beautiful (and quite expensive) flat backed jewels on for extra bling. The picture doesn’t really do it justice!
If it isn’t being to presumptuous, tomorrow, I hope to show you the things that have been made for me.