Christmas Garland tutorials

gar·land

  

noun

1.

a wreath or festoon of flowers, leaves, or other material,worn for ornament or as an honor or hung on something as adecoration: A garland of laurel was placed on the winner'shead.

via creaturecomfortsblog

via ontobaby

This is just tiny teeny selection of the many garland tutorials I have found lately. 

You can have a look at rest here, in my crafty tutorials pinterest board. 

What I love most about paper garlands is that you don't need lots of materials and gadgets. Simply find paper, scissors, cello tape and some sort of stringing material..... and some inspiration!

Some of my favourite garland designs are so simple and made using book pages or brown paper.

Are you making a garland this year? I would love to hear about your garland ideas and creations!

Days of Christmas - 4th day of Christmas

I love the festive season.... the lights.......

  

modernhepburn

warm and comforting food.....

afarmgirlsdabbles

recycled wrapping....

soapdelinews

and of course all the craftiness one person could manage!

To honour my new addiction/ hobby, surfing and escaping into Pinterest I would like to share my daily finds with you here on my count down to Christmas. I will start tomorrow with my "on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me......."

xoxox

A little Christmas Gift for you

1. Faux Bois parcels, 2. Mushroom Lucky Parcel :: Sent, 3. The Early Bird...., 4. Pompom Parcels


Isn't this a beautiful selection of wrapped packages! Lupin is such a talented girl.

I'm sitting in tonight doing a bit of wrapping of my own, with "North & South" on in the background and a cup of hot chocolate at my side.

I just wanted to pop by and let you all know I'm offering FREE shipping within the UK

from now until the 21st of December

in Laura Baillie Designs and my Etsy shop.

The 21st is the last guaranteed delivery date for Christmas by Royal Mail.

Have you all been enjoying the luxury and extravagance of "Kirsty's Handmade Christmas" ?

A New Look

So, what do you think of my new look packaging?

When I first opened my Etsy shop, 2 years ago now, I wanted my packaging to be simple and stylish. The kind of wrapping that was like a gift and something a bit special. So I hung my jewels from blank greetings cards, with my shop sticker on them, popped them into a plastic sleeve with another little sticker to close, and then wrapped each one in layers of tissue paper and ribbon. So many customers got back in touch to say how beautiful the packaging was or that they had sent the piece on to a friend and they said how great it was!

But things took a shift when I was filling my orders from the Etsy Weekend Deals promotion. All the jewels were made up and ready to package, and I realised that this system while fancy and smart was taking me ages to do and was there for costing me in time and materials!

So I decided to think of another way of packaging my designs which would still be a delight to open, have all my shop info, be protective to the jewels, be easy to put together and most of all be economical. This is where my new look idea sprung from. I found lovely boxes, designed an insert on Illustrator and printed them off on card. I spent last Saturday night printing out and cutting up 100 of them to go into each box and now they are ready and waiting. I love it when I find a solution to my business problems, and this one has saved me 20 mins per package!

This weekend I spent lots of time working on new designs, and had great fun creating some new earrings. I seem to go through phases, and for a while all my ideas were for bracelets, but I seem to have come round to dangly designs again. I am still working on getting over 100 pieces in the shop and balancing getting some wholesale orders away. I want to have a varied selection in stock for Christmas time and know from experience I need to be doing it in August.

What are your earlybird plans for Christmas this year?

Gone but not forgotton

"Happy Christmas" by veeresh

Dear Blogland Friends,

I have been away from from you for some time now and owe you all an explanation. I have been very busy, making and delivery/ posting Christmas orders and getting ready for the holidays. On top of that my computer is on melt down. It keeps fizzing out as I'm working on it :( It seems to be getting too hot and giving up which is making things a bit tricky.

Luckily I can use my bo's computer but all my images are on mine so for the next wee while I will be sharing wonderous images from Flickr.

Things at no.9 are "beginning to look a lot like Christmas", we have our tree up, gold pine cones and sparkly stars on the fire place, and our tree is adorned with beads and jewels. I have made and sent out all my cards and have shipped out the last of my Christmas orders, and I am listening to festive songs as I clean and tidy ready for a break.

I made it through my last posts list and am working now on 2 main lists, Christmas and 2009. I am going to spend tonight wrapping all the gifts and making some ham soup. My bo is in bed with bugs and Pablo has just been curled up next to him so there is a strange quiet calm in the house (which I am making the most of!)

So in honour of the holidays, all be it a little late, I would like to have a Christmas/ New Year Giveaway. A little thank you to all the friends I have made since joining blogland last year. You inspire me, make me laugh, show me interesting things and keep popping in to say hello! So I would like to invite you to leave me a comment telling me your favourite Christmasy movie. The winner will get these little danglers (Tiny Jade Hearts) So get thinking and I will randomly select a winner on Tuesday 23rd Dec and post them out asap.

In the mean time, what is on your list to do today? x