Owl stamps, cards galore and embossing fun!

Hello! It's a been a few days since my last post and I have been a busy bee! Following on from my last post about making cards; the last few days have been full of card creating and inspiration!

Yesterday I went to visit a good family friend who is a crazy crafter like me! It was great to see her amazing craft collection and try out a few new techniques and designs. I shared some of my ideas with her too and we ended up crafting for the entire day! 

Here are a few of my creations!

I was trying to think of something less traditional to put on a Christmas card and came across this gorgeous ribbon! I recently saw some inspiring ideas to use winter food and drinks on craft projects so I decided to include a personal favourite... hot chocolate with all of the trimmings! The picture was hand-drawn and coloured in using ProMarkers. This was my first attempt (ever) with ProMarkers having heard lots of positive things about them; I admit my technique isn't quite there when it comes to blending the colours but I am very impressed with the overall finish of the picture and am tempted to get a few pens of my own! I finished the design off with some raised snowflakes, stuck on with foam pads and a fun Christmas message, stamped in a cute pink ink. I am pretty pleased with this card! 

Again, this card was inspired by some cute ribbon trimmings, I also found a trendy owl stamp which I just had to use! I decided to keep it girly and funky! Although the photo doesn't really do it much justice, the ink-worn effect around the owl picture was achieved using Distress Ink and has a great effect! 

And finally, a couple more cards that I have created over the last few days, using a fun set of papers I had forgotten about! 

It was great to try out some new techniques this week too, I had a go at embossing with some gold embossing powder and a heat gun (lots of fun!) and used a die-cutting machine to create a few embellishments for future cards. Some fantastic tools to add great effects to any craft projects! 

Hot off the craft desk!

I've had a few people interested in buying a few cards from me this year, so I thought I would prepare a few for sale. Most of my cards are created with the recipient in mind (friends and family) so it has been fun creating cards that I don't emotionally connect to a specific person. 

Check these ones out, they're fresh off my craft desk and now wrapped for sale.

 

The character on the front of this card is from a stamp set, I have shaded it by hand to add a personal touch. All card-stock and paper used on this card is of a high quality. 

This is a drawing I randomly did this afternoon; this is the original but I have scanned a copy for future use too. I am thinking of adding some more similar designs to my collection.

These are going to be part of my 'Luxury handmade Christmas card' range, finished to an even higher standard and wrapped as single cards (I may also create some multi-packs of Christmas cards).

I actually had a lot of fun creating these cards, I may do a range of similar designs if they prove popular!

Any thoughts?

Quirky gift tags

Keeping in theme with creative ways to package and wrap homemade gifts I have been thinking a lot about gift tags. Probably one of the most simple things to make from scratch! I've been considering personalised tags for different people to add charm to gift giving this year! Here's a few that I've already made...

I was inspired by some gift tag ideas on Pinterest and decided that these would be cute on gifts for my closest friends and family. The front of the tag has a hole cut in it and the googly eye is stuck on the inside of the card to fit into the hole when the card is closed. It was a great chance to use my googly eyes as I seem to have an unnecessarily large collection!

The word 'you' on the front was made using individual letter stampers that I bought in The Range for 99p (bargain!) and just a black ink pad. The hearts were cut using a punch that a friend gave me but could just as easily be cut out. Although the picture doesn't show it very much, the heart is stuck on with a foam pad so it is raised from the card slightly. I also decided to round the corners to make it even cuter! 

I am always thinking of new things to buy for my craft projects and have to make sure I don't just go wild buying new tools every time I get paid! But... I think it would be worth buying myself a punch to cut out the rounded corners as I really struggle to get the same curve on both corners when doing it with scissors. It would also be a worthy investment for my scrapbooking; photo's with rounded edges are B-E-A-Utiful!!!!

Ooh, before I forget... if you like what you see here, follow me on Pinterest, I have loads of crafty things on there too!

Foam-fronted Christmas Cards

With this year all being about homemade gifts, I'm looking forward to making all of my cards from scratch too. I thought I'd get some practice in early for Christmas and have just made a pack of four foam-fronted Christmas cards. 

These are just a trial but I'm pretty pleased with them, I think the pudding one is my favourite!

I used good quality plain white cards and decided to stick with a theme throughout with the green and red paper squares as the background for all four cards. I wanted to try using foam for the embellishments as I love how easy it is to cut into fun shapes and so cheap to buy! 

The shapes for the Christmas pudding are very simple and were cut out using scissors and a crafter's scalpel for the more fiddly parts. I stuck them all together using double sided tape.

Overall I am pleased with the finish of these cards, I think sticking to simple circle shapes (like the pudding and the robin) is most effective. With Christmas just under five months away I have four cards ready! Well, it's good to be prepared!

Adorable patchwork origami gift boxes

Gift giving doesn't get cuter than this! These adorable little gift boxes take just a couple of minutes to make and add a personal touch to gift wrapping. 

Here's a simple step-by-step guide to perfect gift boxes...

You will need: 8 sheets of pretty square-shaped paper (I used 6x6), scissors (or guillotine) and sticky tape, plus any embellishments to decorate!

1- Choose the four sheets that will make the lid for your box and lay them face down to form a large square. Carefully tape together (be careful not to leave gaps).

2- Fold each corner inwards to meet the centre.

3- Then fold the edges in to meet the centre, do this for all four sides (two at a time). Make sure that any folds you make are well creased as this will make your box much stronger when finished.

4- Fully unfold two of the corners.

5- Carefully fold up the edges and make sure the unfolded corners fold inwards to meet the side walls.

6- Fold the corner over the top of the inward folds to create the other two walls.

7- That's the lid complete! Repeat from step 1 with your other four sheets to create the base of your box, however, before starting step 2 trim 3mm off each edge of the large square. This allows it to fit with the lid on the finished box.

8- Put your gift inside then add any ribbons, embellishments or gift tags to personalise it!

And that's it!

I love these little boxes! try using a smaller sized paper to make little jewellery gift boxes too. If you want a larger box, I recommend using thicker paper/card to make sure that it is strong enough. 

Homemade bath fizz (or bath bombs)

This year is all about making gifts from scratch to give to friends and family at Christmas; I've started practising with some ideas and surprised my Mum with this little beauty!

Homemade Luxury Vanilla and Citrus Bath Fizz

It was so simple! Thought I'd share how I did it!

1- Add 300g of bicarbonate of soda and 100g of citric acid (granular is fine) to a large mixing bowl and thoroughly mix.

2- Add a few drops of food colouring (or cosmetic dye) to get a shade you like and mix it in quickly to avoid it fizzing. Blend until the mixture has a consistent shade.

3- Measure 10ml of fragrance/essential oil to the mixture and stir it in quickly. Do not leave to stand or it will set.

4- A little at a time and working the mixture all the time, spray a little water into the mixture with a hand sprayer and mix continuously to avoid fizzing. Only add enough water for the mixture to slightly hold together when lightly squeezed in your hand. The mixture mustn't be too damp.

5- Once this point is reached, spread out finely to dry (or quickly compress into silicone moulds if you wish to make bath bombs). Leave to set for around 30 minutes (remove from mould, and leave to dry hard).

Simples!

I then found an old, washed out tin can and put the crumbled bath fizz inside and covered it with a brown paper lid. I used ribbon to secure the paper and finished with a small handmade gift tag. 

This makes a perfect gift and smells delicious! I used vanilla and citrus essential oils and red food colouring but there are hundreds of different fragrances you could choose from. It cost me around £5 to make two of these gifts but I still have lots of fragrance and food colouring leftover. The citric acid and bicarbonate of soda are available readily at household stores and very cheap to buy online too.

Have fun fizzing!

Owl hanging decorations

Twit-twoo! Here's a fun little craft project that I have really enjoyed doing lately! This is a great one to do with kids as it is so simple and owls are very popular right now! And so cute!

It's just loo roll tubes wrapped in pretty paper with the tops squashed inwards to create ears. A few eyes and a beak and ta da! I'm going to be hanging these everywhere!

So Sweet!

Welcome to my blog!

Hello!

Welcome to my new blog! So why 'Curly Moose'? Well it's simple really... moose are pretty cool animals and picturing one with curly hair (like mine) puts a smile on my face!

I've always had a creative streak inside me, dying to break free and have spent most of my life coming up with little doodles and attempting to be artistic! I have recently created a craft room in my house and spend hours sat at my desk making pretty things out of paper; so I thought this would be a place to gather my thoughts and showcase some of my creations, with the odd 'how-to' along the way!

Enjoy!