Sweet

Elzeline from Paperfection send me this image together with her sweet wishes.
I love how she transformed the happy girl into a X-mas version!
And while looking up the link from her shop, I came across these beautiful Japanese paper stars!
Ohh, how I love them, they are so pretty!

image by Paperfection

I throw some stars around today and hope that you will have a lovely New Year's Eve.

How to make recycled decorative tape?

I love Japanese masking tape and the way it's used for wrapping gifts and decorating. It is fun to make your own tape with designs that you specifically want to use for a certain package. It's a great way to recycle some paper scraps that you kept around for god knows what reason...

Here is what you need:
Doublesided tape, cutting mat, cutting knife,
a variety of magazines, folders, newspapers, wrapping paper,...
Cut out a piece of patterned paper from a magazine.
Turn it around and stick a piece of doublesided tape on it.
Cut along the sides of the doublesided tape with your cutting knife.
With a paper punch, you can also punch figures out of the strip.
Take away the paper from the tape and stick it onto a giftbox.

Tada! How easy it is to pimp your packages with your recycled decorative tape!Update:
I just now see that Pascale from between the lines did a tuto on diy Japanese tape too not very long ago. I completely missed it but it's really rad! Check it out here!

My creative space

Remember I was making cards last week? While making them, I came up with a new design...

I cut out the pieces.They look a bit weird like this.

This looks better already.

No party without happy people.

Today, I will take pictures of this card and put it in the shop.

These designs are Dutch and I will take 'em to the fairs with me.

Want to show you creative space? Hop over to Kootoyoo's to play! It's fun! :)

How to make a special giftbox?

I have to admit: this is a tutorial that involves a lot of work. I recycled a pre-made box to reduce the amount of work. But you can also used recycled cardbord and assemble the box yourself of course.
Because these boxes take so much time to make, I usually only make them for very special occasions or people. As far as I know, all of them have kept the box the gift came in. To use every day or sometimes. I just love the thought of something handmade being cherised.

Here is what you need:
Handmade paper, thin cardboard, PVA glue, box, pencil, eraser, scissors,

glue brush, scoring tool, cutting knife, doublesided tape, thick transparant plastic, ruler, something small but fun to put inside the boxHold the side of the lid on the edge of the paper and draw a thin line.
Do this for 2 sides.

Place the lid against the thin line again and put the box down. Trace the bottom of the box on the paper.

Add the same lines on the other two sides.
It should look like this now.

Cut out along the lines.

Take the lid and put the thing you want in there on the inside
and draw a border around it.

Cut out the border with a cutting knife.

Put glue on the paper.

Place the lid on top of the paper.

Fold the paper around the lid.

Press the paper with a scoring tool closely to the edge of the lid.

Cut the middle part with a cutting knife so that
you will be able to fold over the paper to all sides.

Put glue on the sides and fold over the paper.

The lid should look like this now.
Let it dry for a bit.

Do the same with the bottom of the box.

Now cut a piece of sturdy transparant plastic to put over the hole in the lid.

Put doublesided tape along the edge of the hole.

Place the plastic on top of the doublesided tape.

Now we will make a box for the finding you want to put in there. Use the left over cardboard you cut out as a mould and depending on
how thick your finding is, you add some flaps to it.

Score the lines with a scoring tool so that it's easier to fold over.

Put glue on the cardbord.

Glue it onto the paper and cut it out.

Attach some tape to the edges to make a box.

Put doublesided tape on the outside flaps.

sorry for the very bad picture...

Put the finding inside the box.

Press the box onto the inside of the lid.

The inside of the lid looks dreadful so we'll put some paper of that too. Place the lid over a piece of paper and cut about 1cm around.

Then cut some lines toward the middle of the tiny box inside the lid.

Put glue on the inside of the lid.

Oops, I forgot to cut away the corners which makes it harder to glue,
so I do it quickly while glueing!
Press the paper firmly onto the inside of the lid.

That looks better already.

Ready! :)This mighty cute sales fairy will go into the box.

I made this sales fairy especially for the European Streetteam's new game. This fairy will sprinkle her fairy sales dust in Turkey as StarOfTheEast was able to catch her.
I caught this fairy & she already worked her magic! :)
Read more on the Sales Fairy game on the Handmade blog of the European Streetteam.

And while I was making boxes, I made some more for future gifts.