My First Craft Fair

On Saturday, I had a stall at my very first craft fair.  It was a modest event in a church hall in Watford and only the second time a fair had been held there.  

I bought a greeting card display stand and some smaller stands, which really helped to fill out the table space.  The day went rather slowly with an average footfall, but I was happy when I got a couple of sales.  Unfortunately these were my only sales, but some of the stalls around me didn't sell anything.  It was a bit disappointing as I'd spent so much money and time, but it was a good experience. 

Paper Wreath

I'm seeing so many wonderful Christmas projects around at the moment, so I thought I would have a go at a paper wreath. These look stunning and are really easy to make.  

I've used kit contents from Papercrafter magazine issues 65 & 66 to create and embellish this wreath, plus some red gems. 

First I drew round a dinner plate onto some corrugated card, then round a tea-plate in the centre of this and cut round both to create a ring.  From assorted patterned papers I cut several 2cm x 10cm strips, fringing half of them.  I looped them all in half and glued the ends before stapling to the ring in equally spaced rows, starting from the outside.  (Before completing the inner row, I stapled a length rustic twine for my topper and sentiment.)

To hide the staples from the inner row, I hand-drew a couple of holly leaves onto card then used these as templates to cut several from patterned paper. I arranged these in differing directions to give a natural look and finished off with some red pearls for berries. 

To complete the wreath, I glued my sentiment and topper to the twine and attached some more twine at the back to use as a hanger.

I would like to enter this wreath into the following competitions:

1. Allsorts - Week 231 Christmas Cheer

2. Catch The Bug Challenge - November Anything Goes
3. Challenges 4 Everybody - #32 Anything Goes
4. Polkadoodles - Week 44 Anything Goes Christmas
5. One Crazy Stamper - November Christmas Challenge
6. Tok Bobok - #6 Christmas
7. Crafty Creations Challenges - #246 Make It Yourself

Tea Light Gift Card Envelope Tutorial

Now you've made the Tea Light gift card, you'll want to make an envelope for it.  You could make a simple box envelope, but I like them shaped so there isn't a lot of empty space.

Step-by-step instructions as follows:

1. Cut a piece of card to 30x18cm and score as per the following template:

The card will then look like this:

2. Now use a metal ruler and craft knife to cut out the shaded areas. 

3. You can now fold all the score lines and glue the box together.  I used double-sided tape for this. (N.B. The tabs on the left should overlap the tabs on the right when you stick them together).  Your envelope should look like this: 

4. Trim the overlapping areas to neaten the edges. 

5. Tie some twine around the base of a large brad, then pierce the centre of the closing tab and push the brad through. 

6. Die-cut/punch a small circle (around 2.5cm. Or you can use a small stamped image or topper) and pierce at the top.  Close the envelope and pierce about 1cm away from the brad in the closing tab.  Push another brad through the circle and the hole in the envelope. 

7. To close, wrap the twine around underneath the circle and pull tight.  Cut the twine so there is enough to do this and thread on a bead or two to finish.