Bah! Humbug! Day... Fancy Folds...

Having created at least one card per week since the start of the year for our challenges at Bah! Humbug!  I must admit that I have quite a lot of special cards and really need to make some smaller ones for the neighbours.  While looking through one of my old magazines during one of my many 'sorting out' sessions I came across a lovely little origami Christmas tree and decided to give it a go.  Using some papers from a DCWV Christmas pad I quickly made my own little forest of trees which I made up into simple tiny cards like the one above.

Just in case anyone else fancies a go at paper folding I took some photos of the various stages. 

1. Cut a square piece of paper.  My paper was 4" x 4", but the trees can really be as large or small as you want them.

2. Then cut the square into two sections along the diagonal line.  Each of these pieces will make one tree. 

3. Put one triangle to one side to use later and then score down the centre of the remaining triangle from the point to the middle of the base.

4. Using the score line as a guide fold each of the side points into the middle.  Just to make sure you are all paying attention I turned the triangle round in the picture below.  Sorry!

5. When they are both folded in your work should look like this...

6. Now turn your work over and keeping the open point at the bottom fold in the two sides points to the middle to form a kite shape.  It helps to use a bone folder at this stage to get a nice crisp crease.

7. When you've done both sides and turned it round it should look like this...

8. Now comes the tricky part - no only kidding - easy really!   Turn the tree over and open out the two side flaps.

9. Fold the each of the side points up to meet the kite shaped central portion of the tree.

10.  Now fold the two points of the kite itself into the centre.

11.  Nearly done.  Fold the bottom point up as shown in the photo.  This creates the tree trunk.

12. Now fold the two side flaps back into position.

13.  Finally turn the tree over and admire your work.  So cute - well I think they are and much easier to make than loading all these photos on to blogger.  Sheesh putting photos on is so slow these days!

As this post goes live I will be travelling back from the NEC.  I'm only going to look of course (LOL) as there is nothing I need, but should I buy something I will show over the weekend I promise.

Have a good day everyone and do pop over to Bah! Humbug! to see what the rest of the team have been up to.  We have a very talented new Guest Designer this month and I can't wait to see her creations.

Ann xxx

PS:  Just arrived back in time to add that my fancy folded trees are perfectish for the challenges at...

• Winter Wonderland - Sing a Christmas Carol (oh Christmas Tree)
• The Stamp Man - Anything Goes Christmas

Whoops ...

Forgot to show the card I made for Mum's birthday a little while ago.  Shame on me for leaving things till the last minute and having to put together a quick card for someone so important.  Thank goodness for CD art where you can flick through till you find someone's favourite flower - print it - stick it and Bob's your Uncle or in the words of a famous friend of mine 'Bish, Bash, Bosh - job's done'.

This image with the script and rolled up paper effect was taken from Joanna Sheen's CD Floral Fantasy as was the backing paper.  I overlayed the backing paper with vellum as I love the soft effect that brings.  

Beautiful CD and even better when purchased in the Special Offers section of Joanna's website.  Love that section.

Another great thing about CDs and printing papers out is that you can easily make the inside of the card special too.

There are complete inners ready to print out on the CD, but I do like to do things my own way so I just printed out the panel of roses and a verse from Hallmark Card Studio as to my mum a card is not a good card if the it doesn't have a soppy verse inside.

I know I haven't made this card especially for a certain challenge, but it does fit some of them rather well so I'm going to enter it for the following...

• Sentimental Sundays - birthdays plus a sentiment - if you haven't looked at this challenge blog please do - the free quotes/ sentiments this week are just lovely.
• Crafty Calendar Challenges - Birthdays

Have a great start to the week everyone.

Ann xxx

Keeping busy...

A very special aunt of mine died this weekend so as you can imagine everyone has been really upset. I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm feeling low I find that crafting takes my mind off things and helps enormously.

Last week Joanna Sheen added some gorgeous House Mouse canvas bags to her online shop.  I couldn't resist and at the time of ordering I thought I might as well throw the matching stamp set into the basket too.  I was thinking that I might be able to do a bag charm or something like that to make the bag extra special.

Well somebody has stolen my shrink plastic or it could be that it's just been put in a safe place somewhere.  I haven't checked the fridge yet, but I've looked in most other places and have not tracked it down.  However, during the search I found some plastic badges that I bought ages ago from WH Smiths so I decided to use one of those to make an addition to my new bag.

The mouse was stamped on to a nestie circle along with the matching sentiment.  I coloured the image with Promarkers and touched up the edges with brown chalk to give a softer effect.  Then I mounted the circle on a scalloped red nestie and sprayed with Crafter's Companion glitter before putting inside the badge holder.  My daughter suggested the addition of the brown ribbon.

Hope you like it and if you see my shrink plastic anywhere around please let me know!!

Ann xxx