Dipping my toes in

It has been agony just looking at the latest fabulous Quirky Kits and not being able to use them due to some major Christmas festivities and work going on. But finally I was able to grab a few hours to enjoy rifling through all the goodies.
And I even managed to finish a layout

I put a Holga-ish treatment on the photograph which had the happy accident of turning Carys' dress from emerald green to a teal that matches the papers in the Dear Diary Quirky Kit.

When I had begun assembling the layout the plain background looked a little, well, plain. So I added a mixture of texture paste, glitter paste and Tinsel Heidi Swapp mist together using a stencil.

 Whilst that was drying I sprayed the Tinsel mist on some crochet ribbon as there wasn't any of the silver ribbon left. It isn't quite as lovely as the one in the kit but gives an idea as to how to use it.

I also decided to silver up a few of the embellishments. I sprayed the letters but the coating on them meant it didn't really take so then added some silver Krylon pen. That was a bit better but still needed a wipe off. The letters don't look much different but are slightly lighter in colour.
The lovely little deer was also attacked with a silver Krylon pen and I tied a thin red ribbon round his neck.

I also went round the edge of the photo and all the papers with my thick silver Krylon pen. (Makes a change from black sharpie!) The Amy Tan Stitched "Repeat"  paper also had its grey lines turned silver.

Finally it was time to (re)assemble the page. I ADORE that silver doily so much it almost hurt to use it.

A sprinkling of silver and red sequins gave the page a bit of extra twinkle and sparkle

Easy way to re-purpose your kit bags for gift wrapping!

Hi!
Leo here. I've got a really fun little re purposing project for you today using bits from the new Quirky Kits to make a gift bag using your Quirky Kit packaging. You can translate this to plain paper too to create your own custom wrapping paper.

I've put together the project in five easy steps, any one can do this and if you do all the cutting out bit and cover your surfaces to keep them paint free it could even be a good one to do with the kids.
You need:

• Craft foam, (mine came from the Range and it was pence a piece, anything foamy from packaging or thin sponge would work too). 
• Dies to die cut out with, (I used a Xcut circle die but again you could use any shape you want or cut out a design with scissors).
• Double sided tape.
• Paint, (I used acrylic paint but you can use any paint you have that's water based).
• A stamping block or something similar.

1. Cut out three or four pieces of the kraft foam. 
2. Die cut the same shape from the pieces, a circle has been used here for stamping dots but any shape could be used, (star, triangle, hexagon etc.) 
3. Stick the cut outs together with doublesided tape and fix the stack to a stamping block with another little bit of doublesided tape on the bottom.
4. Apply a small amount of paint to a piece of scrap card and dab the foam into the paint taking off any excess so you have a small amount of paint on it.
5. Stamp onto your bag, you don't need to push down just touch the foam shape to the paper and dab in the paint as you go along, remembering to take off the excess each time.

I used pink paint on the kraft but I also did a couple more like this white one with silver paint. White paint on the kraft would look good too.

To finish the bag off you can create a fun custom tag. For these ones I used the white card from the main kit with glitter alphabets from the main kit too and some of the thread from the embellishment kit. I cut a long strip of card out then fixed the letters down with a glue stick and then put it though the sewing machine to the stitching.

I then held the end of the card strip edges together and snipped off the end to make a pennant edge.

As a last finishing touch I've stamped another dot at the top of the tag then punched a hole through and threaded some of the silver string from the main kit to make it into a tag to fix it to the handle. If you have a bag with branding on you can cut out a shape to glue over it, like a big star I've used here. I did on purpose use as many unbranded bags as possible this month so you can re-purpose your bags over the holiday time. They're good for gift packing or to use for a hostess gift, just personalising them a little bit makes it really fun and unique!

Happy holidays!
x Leo