My Handmade Christmas

This is another post which was due to be written near new year but yet again due to illness this didn't happen but better late than never!

This christmas I was doing the whole thing, cooking and everything so I decided that the theme would be homemade.

I always try to make something from scratch but this year I had a mental block of what I could do but with a little help from Paperchase I soon created a few homemade pieces.

Crackers

I couldn't find any crackers which I liked but when I saw these in Wilkos for a mere £6 I thought they were really boring but I could work my magic on them so they would fit my theme.

First of all I took the heart motifs off and here is what they ended up like:

I stuck my own wooden shapes on which I had coloured in gold (from the Range) and then with some paper tapes from Paperchase I stuck these round each end.

These took under an hour to complete and cost £10 in total to make.

Gift Bags

I wanted to create something co-ordinating with my crackers to keep my handmade theme going so when I looked on the Paperchase website I was happy that they had plain kraft gift bags.

These bags were so simple to customise. I simply use two sets of decoupage for the rabbit pictures and stuck these on top of three strips of the paper tapes I had left over from the crackers.

Then in a local card shop I found these big red glittery bows which I thought would be perfect as a finishing embellishment. These had ties on the back so I just pushed them through the bag and ties them.

Oh and I also got a pack of kraft gift tags from Paperchase to attach to the side.

Total cost for both bags was around £14. A little pricey but they're something special to keep.

 Table Gifts 

The photos for these are rubbish but you do get the general idea!

These boxes were also from Paperchase and they were £1.75 and were just plain kraft like the gift bags.

The side of the lids were the perfect size for a strip of the paper tape to line them so I alternated patterns on each side and stuck coloured on wooden christmas trees on two sides.

The ribbon and gift tag came with the box and I just stuck a coloured in wooden reindeer onto the tag.

Inside the box I had lots of little goodies and chocolates and I wrapped these in tissue paper which co-ordinated with the paper tapes.

I made 3 of these boxes and in total they cost £13.50 to make.

If you went into some of the more exclusive shops and bought something similar to these they would cost you much much more than buying the raw materials and making them yourself. Somethings I used to make these I used several times such as the paper tapes, these cost £2.50 for the pair but I used them on all three crafting projects here and I have over half left so in fact the cost to make these projects is actually less than I've worked out. I also used the gift tags on other presents as they were in a pack of 5 and the wooden shapes I've stuck on came in packs of 12 or 18 so I also have lots left for next year.

I hope I've inspired you to start getting crafting and making your own gift products!