Brown paper gift bags - 50 makes for Christmas 28/50

I feel I must make a confession before we get any further I brought these brown paper bags after I had started this challenge and so this doesn't fall into my criteria of using up things I already had in.  They were of course something I consider to be a bargain and I brought them from Amazon with a voucher I earned on Swagbucks so no hard cash was parted with!

The trusty blackboard paint has been out again for a few of them leaving them open for either a festive message or a little Christmassy design

Complimented by a home-crafted gift tag

One of the many clay decorations

Finally jazzed up with Washi tape

These were great fun to do as I could just do a couple as and when I got a spare 10 minutes.




If you fancy having a go at making your own gift bags here is a tutorial from Tasha at designertrapped, this might come in useful for anything bigger than these lunchbox sized bags.


Make 28 completed and a mere 22 to go in my 50 makes for Christmas challenge.

Do you have any 10 minute makes that you squeeze in to your busy week?

When blackboard paint meets air dried clay ornaments! - 50 makes of Christmas 7/50

Last year one of my Christmas makes were these ornaments made with "DAS"air dried clay.  They are incredibly simple to make, just roll out the clay and cut out the shapes using "cookie" cutters. Pop a hole in the top using a straw and leave to dry.  One pack makes loads of ornaments and I still have almost half a pack of Das sitting in my fridge, I guess I should check it is still OK!

Lovely as they are all in white looking simple and stark I wanted to give some of them a bit of a make over so my trusty and seemingly never ending pot of blackboard paint came out again.  Inspired by my first make of the 50 -  dipped gift tags I gave some of them a little dip.

And once a little dip has been done a full immersion followed!

To dry them off I strung a piece of string between two regular size tins with smaller tins sat on top to keep it in place.  Initially I threaded the ornament on the string like I had done with the tags but found this didn't work as well so unfolded paperclips and used them as hooks which did the job pretty well.  For the items that were fully immersed I put them on the hooks and then dipped them in to the paint.

I am really pleased with them, I think it gives a new look to something I already had and I may go up in the loft to find some baubles to see how they would look with a dip.  I did loose a couple that had been rolled very thinly in the first place and they went soft and soggy when they had been dipped.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted a second set of dipped tags, I want to play around with a few embellishments, I will post up the results later.

That is make 7 out of my 50 makes for Christmas just 43 more makes to go!

Have you dipped or painted anything like this? have you double dipped?

trash to treasure

My daughter moved house recently and one of the items left by the previous occupants was this dusty old picture.  It is a print of Constable's "The Haywain" that had been framed by Haigh and Sons, I stopped Hubby on his way to the skip and stashed it away for a makeover.

After a good clean down the first job was to paint the frame with some white eggshell paint I had left over from previous projects.  I used tape to mask off the picture to try and keep the edges clean.

The decorated corners required a kind of splodging technique to try and get into all the nooks and crannies.

Just painting the frame white has changed the whole look of the picture and brightened it up, however, I was not finished yet.

Once the the frame was dry I took the masking tape off the picture and taped it to protect the newly painted frame.

When I took the tape off I did lose some of the surface of  the picture but this was about to be covered in blackboard paint so I wasn't too concerned.

Quite a transformation from the gold framed print of an old master.

It has now been seasoned (chalk pulled down and across to cover the whole surface to ensure that your writing can get rubbed away) and is ready to be hung.

Before I began this project I did my research to ensure that there was no real value in the picture (approx £10-£20), I had this old news story in my mind and wanted to make sure that I was not going to be in the headlines!

So what do you think did I transform trash to treasure or do you think I have trashed a treasure?

Dipping Gift tags - 50 makes of Christmas 1/50

Having drawn up my list for 50 makes of Christmas I am kicking things off with a very quick easy project that can be used for gifts at anytime of the year, although mine have Christmassy pics drawn on.

I dipped kraft gift tags in that pot of blackboard paint that is still going strong!

Gently shake off some of the excess, tap on the side of the pot but only the dipped area or you may get smudges on the clean sides., I learnt by making that mistake!

I strung them out to dry using a bit of string and some carefully chosen tins from the pantry (small tins to sit on top of big tins!

 It took less than 30 minutes and the trickiest part was threading them on to the piece of string to dry them off!

There was a certain amount of dripping which is to be expected and I did try and incorporate this into another tag but it just looked very messy. I think I prefer the clean lines of the dipped tags.

I will do a second batch as I want to mess around with them a little more and I have washi tape and punches to play with.

I am just thinking that maybe a similar effect could be achieved by pressing the tags onto an ink pad, now you see how my original list of 24 grew, one idea seems to begat another!

Let me know if you have any experience with using chalkboard paint on kraft tags or have you had good results using other paint types?

That is the first one down just forty nine more to go at! at a rough estimation I will need to do about 2 a week to fit them all in before Christmas, however, I can foresee a rush in the later part of the year when I suddenly realise that I haven't squeezed them all in!

finding something under the stairs!

In the spirit of trying to complete some of the WIP projects I have around the house I blew the dust off a tin of blackboard paint that has been lurking under the stairs for a couple of years.  My original plan was to use it on a canvas I brought from the poundshop to create a "destination" board, it was for a Christmas gift but as usual I had too many projects and not enough time.

I was inspired to dig it out after I saw a big glass jar/vase with a big swoop of blackboard paint across it saying welcome.  I did a quick experiment on a couple of small jars to see if I needed to make any kind of preparation to the glass surface but they seemed fine.  Two coats were  needed though as one was a little too transparent.  The biggest jar we had is the one I piled the decorative tapes into last week so out they came while I got busy with the paint brush, I felt that the proportions were a little bit too wide so I have edged it with some nice washi tape I picked in Wilko

The canvas has finally got it long awaited coat of paint and I am keeping an eye out on my Charity shop hunts far a suitable frame.

Before you write on a blackboard surface it needs to be "seasoned" otherwise what ever you wrtie or draw on there stays in the background and "ghosts" through.  To season it you need to take a stick of chalk and using the side rather than the point rub across the surface until it is completely covered, you then rub down still using the side of the chalk, finally you  rub off all the chalk and you are ready to use it.  The reason for doing this is that the blackboard surface is very porous and this "fills" the surface.

I will not be seasoning the canvas as it has a textured surface, I have ordered a white chalk pen from Amazon  but it won't be delivered until sometime between the end of February and the middle of March so I have plenty of time to decide what I am going to put on there.

I am very pleased with how easy this was to do and I have plenty of paint left so I am looking round for other things to paint, anyone got any suggestions?