Day 18 - Exploding Box

Today we've got a project that will really put you in the mood for Christmas, courtesy of today's guest designer Robyn from Brisbane, Australia. Rob's project is an exploding Christmas box -absolutely gorgeous! If you fancy having a go yourself at making one of these, check out the Kaisercraft website for step by step instructions.

Of course, you can choose any theme you like for an exploding box, adding family pictures, journaling, candy - this can make a great gift for any occasion.

Rob added a lovely twist to the original idea by including a Christmas carousel as the central piece inside the box.

Thanks for sharing this with us Rob! It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas :)

If you want to check out some more of Rob's work, you can go and visit her gallery at sb.com.

Come join us again tomorrow as we enter the last week of The Scrappy Tree's 25 home-made Christmas gifts.

Day 15 - Star Ornaments

Welcome back to The Scrappy Tree! We're on Day 15 of our home-made Christmas gift ideas and today we're bringing back guest designer Diana L. with another fabulous project! How about a few of these to hang on your tree? Or a pretty Christmas gift for a loved one?

"Making your own Christmas ornaments has its advantages; you can pick the colors and patterns and it even costs less then the store brand ones."

"These are 4.5” metal stars - I painted them with acrylic paint in silver, bronze and gold. Each side is decorated with mixed pattern paper and I added a coat of Mod Podge to protect the paper from dust and time. I made the centers with some mini Christmas embellishments and added them to the stars with a glue gun."

"Have fun making your own ornaments!"

Thanks Di once again for sharing your beautiful work with us - these are gorgeous, I need them all!

Day 5 - Altered Canvas

Today's gift idea is another great project from Diana L. - an altered canvas. This is a very special gift choice that gives you a lot of scope for creating something really original. Diana's canvas incorporates old family photographs into a very meaningful gift and original Christmas gift for her relatives.

With a great colour scheme and matching embellishments, these black and white photos really stand out as the focal point of the piece, and make a beautiful tribute to the family members in them. Thanks for sharing this with us Diana!

Click Here for detailed Directions.

Come back tomorrow for another great Scrappy Tree Christmas gift idea!

Day 4 - Tags and Baskets

Introducing today's guest designer, Diana L.! Diana was the talented winner of our November Thankfulness challenge and has very kindly agreed to share some of her Christmas projects too.

Tell us about yourself Diana:-

"I've been married since 2007; we don't have any children yet but plan on having two in the near future. For now, we adopted a cat named Sammy and he is a brat who we love and spoil a lot!

I've been scrapbooking since 2005. They gave me a scrapbook 101 class at my local scrap store and since then it has been my main hobby. Scrapbooking is my way of documenting important events in my life that I would always want to remember and would like to share with my future kids and their kids. I also like to make all kinds of projects for my dearest family and friends; it's my way of showing them how much I care.

Besides my favourite scrappy pastime, making layouts, I really love to make mini albums! I enjoy all the process from decorating the cover to adding the photos and decorating the pages. I also like to make cards; it is the perfect way to use all the extra paper pieces from making LO's and I really like to give handmade cards to the special people in my life.

At the moment I am really excited about all the homemade Christmas gifts I am making for my family, and if I had to pick one favourite it would be a mini album I am making for my brother and sister with old family pictures - lots of childhood memories!

I listen to audio books when I scrapbook; sometimes I have to return several chapters because I am so concentrated on the project I am making that I don't pay attention! I also keep a box of almond roca chocolates near my desk to reward myself, something I do a lot, and any excuse for chocolate is ok! lol

I am recognisable by my curly hair, which I inherited from my beautiful mom. And I smile a lot! :) As well as scrapping I also enjoy photography; I like to read, mostly novels; and I really enjoy travelling - just a one day trip to a different nearby city is fun for me. I love downtown Chicago, there is always a lot to explore, but my most peaceful place is my scraproom.

To The Scrappy Tree team : I am so happy of you for making this awesome blog and it is a huge honor to participate as a guest designer, I was so happy when I got the invitation! Thank you all bunches, love you all!"

Thanks for accepting our invite Di! We love your work :)

You can see some more of Diana's great projects here.

To see where she gets her inspiration from, we asked Diana for some of her favourite blogs and websites. Favourite blogs were The Scrappy Tree, Zunky Chic, A Kiss On The Chic, Ali Edwards, Just Something I Made and Donna Downey.

Favourite websites included scrapbook.com, Peachycheap, Jenni Bowlin, Blue Moon Scrapbooking and Swirlydoos.

Now you've gotten to know our latest guest designer, let's see her take on home-made gifts for Christmas!

WINE BOTTLE TAGS

Last year I gave my 4 coworkers a bottle of wine from a local winery I like, to make the gift a little more special I made tags to decorate the bottles. These two tags or similar to the ones I made, you can add a piece of ribbon or a bow to make the bottle look even nicer.

Snowflake Tag Supplies: Bazzill Snowflake Chipboard, Imaginisce Snowflake, Making Memories Metal Snowflake, Silver Brad, Chalk Ink

Steps: Paint the sides of the chipboard snowflake; layer the other 2 snowflakes and the silver brad. Decorate the top part with little silver bells and leafs.

Here is another one.

Bingo Tag Supplies: Jenni Bowlin Mini Bingo Card, Red Cardstock, Poinsettia flowers, Brads, Pins

Steps: Cut a tag shape out of the red cardstock. Add brads to decorate the center of the poinsettias. I layered the bingo card on a sparkly piece of paper and made a little bow on the pins with silver twine to give it a little shiny touch.

GIFT BASKETS

One of the advantages of making your own gift baskets is that you can add products that the person you are giving it to is actually going to use. These are for my sister in laws and they both have colors that match there personalities.

First buy the items you are adding to the basket, and then look for a basket or in this case a metal container that will fit all the items in a way they can be displayed. Decorate your basket with ribbon and Christmas ornaments or embellishments.

We think you'll agree that Diana's family and coworkers are really lucky to be getting these this Christmas! Thanks for sharing!

Come back tomorrow for Day 5 of The Scrappy Tree's homemade Christmas gifts!

Autumn Inspiration

Today's guest designer Michelle Unruh(mommapaparazzi) has given us some autumn inspiration with some stunning photos and an amazing layout! Tell us about yourself Michelle...

"Hi!! My name is Michelle. I am married to a great, but goofball guy that puts up with my serious scrappy addiction. I am a mom of three that are almost 10 years apart, ages 21, 11 and 2. They are the subject of my pages. I have been scrapbooking a long time, but wasn’t really, really into it until a few years ago. Which is a bad thing… cuz my stash has grown!! I started out as a Creative Memories consultant and sold that until not too long ago.

The current project I am excited about is finishing up last year’s and this year’s album, before we get into the new year (I hope!). I used to do a lot of cross stitching, but once I really was into scrapping, that kind of went by the wayside. I love photography. I love being outside. I would much prefer to be outside doing yard work, than being stuck in the house. I drive over the border a lot to go shopping because living where I do, there isn’t much here. Favorite scrap store and it is also the closest (and it is 20 miles away), is Archiver’s. The place I find the most peace is my home (when the kids aren’t acting up) otherwise then it is my scrap room to escape from them!!

I have a blog called Happenings On This Side Of The River, and I also have a gallery at scrapbook.com. When scrapping, I have to have a coke, and I always have candy in my scrap room. As far as websites, I like the sketch blogs. I also try to keep up on my online friends’ blogs. I use scrapbook.com mainly, and once in a great while just love to browse Two Peas In A Bucket. I also really enjoy scrapbookdeals4u.com. My favourite scrappy magazines are Scrapbook, Etc and Creating Keepsakes.

Thank you so much for asking me to be a guest!! I am truly honored."







To see some more of Michelle's beautiful pictures please click here.

Michelle also produced a gorgeous layout with a thanksgiving theme, and was kind enough to write a few words about it for us:-

"With Thanksgiving being this month, it was a great time to do something near and dear to me, a page about my family. We are not always good about letting the people closest to us know how much they mean to us. So, I took this as an opportunity to do a page about being thankful for my family. This photo was taken last month at the apple orchard and what made it one of the best days was that my oldest actually came with. She is out on her own now. So, we don't see her as much as we'd like to. It was so great to do something as a whole family.

My project was created using a kit from Scrapbook Deals 4 U. You can find them here. I used one of November's kit, Simple Pleasures. This kit was chocked full of 3 Bugs in a Rug Simple Pleasures line, as well as some Prima and so many other embellishments, up to and including my favorite letters... Thickers!!! I love that the patterned paper was double sided. I used some of the 3 Bugs die cut shapes and cardstock stickers that came with it. I also used Making Memories - notebook journal page, My Little Shoe Box - Whoo Loves You Overlay, Prima - Say It In Pearls (might I say, I LOVE these!!!). The ribbon and flowers were also in the kit, but I am not sure which manufacturer they came from. Everything I used was in my kit. I also used a sketch of Ginger Williams. It was really fun to make. I used some products I have never used before, and was able to create a page that I am very happy with of and for my family."





If you love Michelle's photos and scrapbooking as much as we do, please check out her autumn photos on The Scrappy Tree forum, and visit her blog and gallery for some inspiration of your own!