DT project #1 featuring Teresa Collins’s Christmas Cottage Collection by Astrid

Hello everyone and welcome to the Snazzys blog. Regulars will know that this month we are featuring the wonderful Christmas Cottage collection by Teresa Collins. Like usual you have a chance to win this collection, all you have to do is leave a comment on the first post here Make sure to also check out all the other fabulous projects my teamies have been creating so far!

Every once in a while I enjoy doing a good old paper crafting project, so away goes the gesso, brushes and paints and all the arty cool stuff, and out come the scissors, ruler and glue. The moment I saw these wonderful papers they spelled Christmas Gifts to me, and just such  good old crafty fun, these lovely traditional look papers just lend themselves to that perfectly.

Now the project on the right is not a card as you may think but a little tea light gift box. Here you can see the inside:

I’ll do a quick little step by step for you, just in case you want to make one yourself:

What you will need:

Papers from the collection

3 sheets of strong A4 Card

2 tea lights

A match box (I used a Swan one which is just the perfect size).

1. Take one piece of card and cut at 5” along the long side.

2. Score at 5”, 6” and 11”, the remaining bit becomes  a glue tab.

3. Do the same with a second piece of A4 card and glue together as shown. The second square will over lap, this gives the base of your box strength.

4. Make the inside box for the lights and matches by cutting a 5” square out of your third piece of card, and score at 3/4” round all for sides, cut slits as shown for the glue tabs. and fold and glue together.

5 Now comes the fun part of covering everything with bits of your chosen papers from the collection. I made mine just 1/4 “ smaller than each of the panels Glue the little box onto the base of the inside of the outer box and apart from embellishing you are done!

Here you can see how I covered the match box:

And here is some more detail on the front of the box:

I used various Tim Holtz and Spellbinder dies from my stash to embellish my box as well as some of the lovely brads and die cuts that come with collection. I also used the stamps from the collection for all the sentiments. I adhered some small magnets on the inside of the cover and underneath the flap to hold the box closed.

Alright, now for the little house, – this is actually not just a deco piece but can also be a little gift box as the roof comes off  to hold some special Christmas baking.

I have created a template for this. The easiest way to make the house is to cut one of the papers to A4 size and print the template straight on to it. Alternatively you can print on to a bit of card and then use that as a template for the house by tracing it onto the card stock from the collection.

Once cut, folded and glued together you can again decorate it to your hearts content. Here are some pictures of how I did mine.

Well I hope you enjoyed this little project and maybe you feel inspired to make some gifts like this your self. The quality of these papers is superb and strong enough to make these boxes sturdy!

I’ll be back later on in the week with another project, so until then, stay crafty!