Have a Cracker of a Christmas this Year !

Hi, I want to share with you some home made crackers today, made using an amazing die produced by Tonic Studios; Thank you Crafty Simon for sending me this to try......

Here you can see my finished cracker; they are so easy to make.....



I thought I would share the supplies today by way of a photo tutorial, so here goes...



I have Silver Crepe paper for the hat, some pale blue glitter card, white paper, blue ombre card and some parcel ribbon.



The Tonic Studio Christmas Cracker Die, Penny Black's Snowflake Trio  51-015 and Ornament 51-018 Dies and Martha Stewart border punch Gothic Arch.



Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko Staz On Cactus Green ink, Penny Black Whooo's Wishes30-190 stamp set 3D liquid and a Red and Green marker pen.



Punch out the border from white paper and stamp the Holly using Staz On ink onto a scrap piece of paper, colour berries red and add a Christmas Joke using the pens; I used this site here.




Cut out cracker template and snowflake



Score along either side of diamond pattern and down centre of pattern roll cracker and attach using the tabs, I also glue so that they don't come undone. Add border to edges of cracker. Glue snowflake to front and add blue 3d liquid.



Cut a piece of crepe paper 22-24cm long and fold into a concertina attach ornament die with tape and place on the cutting mat so that only the bottom bit of the ornament is on the mat as seen above. (This way only the bottom part will cut as can be seen below).



Join up the sides to make a hat shape.



I decided to add some decoration to my hat so I cut the Penny Black Fancy Flourish 51-020 die from a scrap of silver card, coloured it using Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko Staz-On Azure ink and an ink blusher and glued to my hat as seen below.


The hat was then folded and the motto added, one end of the cracker was tied and a little wrap was put around the hat to stop it unravelling before being placed in the open end of the cracker.



A treat (shush I can't say what as they are surprises) was also added before the end was tied to complete the cracker.



I have been playing with this cracker die to see what other possibilities it holds, I will keep you posted of any other ideas I come up with, until then as Tigger would say TTFN...

Hugs Cathy
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