Crackers for Christmas 2012

Brrrrr the freezing weather has continued all week and the temperatures have barely risen above 0c. Only 12 days to go now....

If you have been reading Jane's Journal from the beginning you will remember that 2 years ago I did a little tutorial for making crackers. If you want to see it again you will find it here.
As usual I make my crackers to match the Christmas Serviettes which this year are these pretty ones.

I have also made a slight modification to my cracker design. I tried it last year and it worked well enough to use permanently. Instead of using toilet rolls for the insides I now use kitchen rolls as they are slightly wider in diameter and it gives me more choice of the cracker present I can put inside.

I cut one third off the length of the kitchen roll to be used as the "body" and use 2 full length kitchen roll to wind the inner layer of crepe paper.

I chose white for the inside layer..................................

and a festive green on the outside.
I used some Baker's twine to tie off the ends.

Here they are plain and ready to decorate.

I found some pretty Christmas papers which I cut snowflakes out of using my punch. I used some real bells as decoration and finished them off with a festive greeting.
One of them is always left with an end open as that is my cracker, ready for my Hb to fill ;0)

This is a close up of the decorations.

and here they are all lined up and ready for my Christmas dinner table. They are always a fun addition of Christmas day. The jokes always make us groan....here are a couple from last year to share with you;

Why does Santa have 3 gardens?  So that he can ho, ho, ho
When does Christmas come before Thanksgiving? In the dictionary
What song do you sing to a snowman? Freeze a jolly good fellow.

Tee hee ;0)

Today's card challenge is continuing with the very festive red and green of my crackers and is this card.

This sweet snowman stamp is made by Stampendous. It was coloured using Promarkers and highlighted with Prismacolor pencils. I added some Decor glue gel as snow. The tags are Lili of the Valley and the tickets is by Whimsy Stamps. A green holly die cut and a bright red ribbon finished it off. It is for sale here in my Etsy shop If you live in the UK there is still time to buy, I post First Class and this will arrive in 2 working days from your payment.


I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;




I Love Promarkers One for the boys
ABC Christmas Y is for your favourite die/punch This holly die cut (I think it is a Marianne) is my current favourite.
Divas by Design Use some red #65
Crafts and Me No blue #114
Crafting for all Season's Green and red with glitter #42
Simon Says Stamp What's your favourite tool/product/stamp my favourite are these really fab LOTV  tag stamps. I have used them soooo much this Christmas
Charizma Cards Christmas Makes
Penny Black Allsorts It's your choice
Visible Image Christmas
Emma's Crafty Challenge Let it Snow

I'm off soon for a final pre Christmas Nero lunch with my dearest  BF Karen today. We always have so much to catch up on and so little time. I will then get my final few pressies. I have started my wrapping and made some of my own paper and tags too, I will be back to show that too soon. Billy says that he is also sooooo busy at the moment and would like to thank you all for his comments on his blog post here. I think this photo of him today shows just how busy he is ;0)

Oh to be a cat at Christmas,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x