The Classroom will comfortably fit 30 people and all their gear! We have a kitchen at the back and a store room for all the supplies.






Graham will get the time-lapse footage for us really soon. Then you can see how hard we really worked!!
:-) Liz

Hi Christmas Crafters.
My mum Lynley was staying with me last week and she was busy making these very cool boxes for the table on Christmas Day at the rest home she works at.  Along with her workmate Kathlyn, they are being busy bees and making about 60 of these to put goodies in for the residents.  As I didn't have any bright ideas myself, I thought I would share their idea with you.



Use a normal sized card and emboss the front with your favourite Christmas folder.  Score two lines on the front half of the card from the middle of the long edge to the fold at each corner and repeat for the back half of the card.


Fold the card into a triangle with the embossed flaps overlapping the back flaps.  Punch a hole in each side, fill it with some goodies and tie it up with a ribbon.


A simple design that makes a very cute box!

Wow! We've been home in the light hours two days in a row and I'm starting to like it. But not before we went to Mum and Dads and mowed the lawns. Dad has done something bad to his back - so Graham is tackling their rather large property. At least they have a ride-on lawn mower!

So I promised to load up the Competition entries on the Gallery tonight - and I have done it. Head there now for a peak. And I want to remind yoyu that you have until Sunday 6pm to send us pictures of the Christmas Favours theme. Send them to artfullcrafts@gmail.com. The winner of last week's prize pack is... Jo Armstrong! Well done Jo. Your name just got pulled out of the hat. Pop into the shop (again!) and collect your prize.

We have some photos of the shop to show you - although I went to take some photos today of the finished shop and after one photo the battery went flat! So most of these show the work in progress and some of the helpers. You'll have to keep popping by if you want to see the completed shop!



It ended up on it's top though and the guys then had to turn it over. They made it look easy..


.
I hope you've enjoyed the photos. Pop back soon to see the finished shop photos.

Is it possible that Christmas is only 3 weeks away (well less than that as this post is late!). I did promise this would be late as the new shop opened today... WHAT FUN! We have worked hard and long hours and haven't had a night off in over a month (we moved ourselves into a house and then set about moving the shop!).

The shop moving work was done on Thursday (thanks to the great team of helpers). On Friday we put the stock on the shelves (thanks again to an amazing team of helpers!). Saturday was spent finishing off the stock and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning... (and you guessed it - thanks to the incredible team of helpers!). Some of the ladies came back THREE days in a row! What a blessing. The Sunday was a slow day. Graham and I were tired from a series of late, late nights. So we just pottered around while Ella did the final cleaning. If we had moved our limbs more quickly we may have actually finished before dinner. But we didn't and ended up staying there til 11pm! We pulled down the window display late at night. It was a great moment!! Here's the sneak peak...

I had such fun today showing people around the shop. The reactions from people were so fabulous. We are thrilled and can't wait to show you the photos. Graham set up the camera for 3 days and it took a photo every 3 minutes. He's going to make a time-lapse video and we'll post it during the week!

Anyway, this blog is supposed to be about the Christmas Countdown! We had some great home decoration entries sent to us last week - but we haven't got them up yet on the Gallery (and I am hopping to be in bed before 11pm tonight - that's in 10 minutes!!). I will get onto that tomorrow and will announce the winner of the Prize pack then...

The new theme for that week is CHRISTMAS FAVOURS. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. You'll agree that the blog posts have been really impressive. I have a section in the foyer of the new shop to display the Design Team projects. What a treat!

So please send us your Christmas Favour pictures by Sunday 6pm, 12th December. You'll go in the draw to win a Kaisercraft Star Wreath. I love them and you'll see one in the shop display window... Please send them to artfullcrafts@gmail.com.

My thanks go to Viv Laursen for her wonderful design for the shop signs and the help with the displays and Christmas Tree. That's my Home Decoration submission this week!! Diana (the Christmas Tree Queen) came with me shopping for the bits and pieces, gave me ideas and then I passed those on the Viv who did the job! So it's a collaborative tree. Sorry the photo isn't a big closer. Tomorrow we'll go and take photos of the indoors - so come back tomorrow and read the next blog post!


Have a great night... and I'm off for an early (ish) night! We enjoyed coming home and cooking (after 2 weeks of takeaways) and we watched Julie and Julia. Just what the doctor ordered! Chat soon
:-) Liz

Morning everyone...gee the weeks are really zipping by now..I've started my christmas shopping but still have lots to do....
Anyway, this is my little Home Deco idea..its a kaisercraft wooden tree wall hanging...I've used the KC tis the season paper (love it) as there's lots of cool stuff you can cut out....I was going to put 2010 on it but then decided not too as I want to be able to use it every year...I've used Bakers twine to tie it all together...



Have a great weekend :)

Hi there everyone, hope December is treating you all well :)

Liz sent me this Kaisercraft Script word as part of my Christmas parcel. I love how it stands on its own!

My partner was kind enough to spray paint it metallic silver for me. I originally wanted to have it silver then stamp this or this on it in white ink - but by the time I went to create it I realised I didnt have any white ink that would work on the spray painted surface! Whoops! So its just been left silver. I can always peel off the bling and do that in future....Just a random thought, embossing the stamped design would look great too, Im just not too sure how the spray paint would react to that.


Ive added some Kaisercraft Bling to the M, Y, C and S. I would have loved to cover the whole thing in the clear bling, as I have seen somewhere online. Ive also added a large piece of bling for the dot on the i.




We dont decorate very much for Christmas so I think this will fit in perfectly on the mantle :)

Thanks!

Hi Everyone - Lowri here.

I have a couple of ideas you can create easily with leftover bits and pieces from any of your papers. They certainly wouldn't have to be Christmas papers and in fact plain cardstock jazzed up with some gold or silver paints and sprays would look fantastic!

Border Punch Trees
I was inspired to create these by a picture I saw on a blog-post by Lolly Chessie - an AMAZING artist in the US who is on the DT for Crate Paper http://www.lollychops.com/lollychops/2010/07/warning-gratuitous-crafts-alert.html
Now she is a real artist and these trees she created are just awesome - so here is my version!

Kaisercraft "Be Merry" Tree


To create the tree I started with a four sided, tall triangle made of paper. I then glued pieces of border punched paper to each side in turn using double sided tape and trimmed off each side after glueing.

You could use any border punch and any paper for some really neat effects.

I cut a shorter cone from the same template to slip over the top - mainly because I couldn't figure out how to finish the top neatly! I also foolishly cut my paper cone out of scrap paper that did not at all blend in with the PP I was using on the tree, so I have attached some painted bamboo skewers down the sides to cover up! It actually gives a bit more definition to the tree too





Cosmo Cricket "Jolly by Golly" Tree

This was the first one I made and really I learned from this that the pieces should not be too close together and look much better when more "random".


I also learned from this to cut each piece as I glued and NOT to leave it until I had done a complete side and then try and trim the sides!




Ruffled Flowers
These flowers are so hot right now! Tina has used them to fabulous effect on her banner she posted yesterday.  I have created these really simple ones with the Kaisercraft Be Merry Collection and Cosmo Cricket Papers.

I have a tutorial on my blog on how I made them - so please check it out here - http://papervinenz.blogspot.com/2010/12/ruffle-flowers-with-tutorial.html

Kaisercraft "Be Merry" Flowers



Cosmo Cricket "Jolly by Golly" Flowers



Cone Paper Trees


OK - so my husband has said these look like three paper cones stacked on top of one another - and I have to say I agree with him!!! However - I think there is definitely a possibility of doing something a little more creative with them - I just ran out of time though! I found the template here and for the larger tree just enlarged it on the computer.