Cosmo Cricket

How To Tie A Gift with Only a Ribbon Slide

This has got to be the slickest, easiest tricks for making a pretty gift bow! You will need a ribbon slide, ribbon or a strip of fabric and a gift. If using fabric, your gift can't be huge, or your fabric won't be long enough, but for something the size of a book, DVD, etc, you'll have plenty.

I used our Cheer Ribbon slides and a 2" strip of fabric from our Dear Mr. Claus collection, but I can't tell you what I used for the gift. 

Start by laying your ribbon or fabric, face down and placing your gift toward one end face up. Thread the short end through both openings on the slide.

Now, loosen the threading so that you have space between the two openings of the slide. We are going to take our long end of the fabric down through that space. Just to be clear, or try to be anyway, you are looking at the front of the package, the slide is folded back toward the right so that you can see the backside of it. The fabric has been loosened and the other end is coming around and down through the little space we made when we loosened the slide.

When we fold the slide back over and pull everything tight, our gift is well on its way to being beautified.

Working with the long end of fabric still, bring it around the backside of the gift, over the top and down the front until it meets the slide again. This time, we will take the end of our fabric strip and thread it through the LEFT side only of the slide. You will have to fold the slide back again to do this. Hopefully the picture helps you see what I'm doing.

Pull everything tight and trim your ends. The backside of your gift will be nice and flat.

The front side of your gift will be lovely, having two flairing fabric accents to the left.

If you are decide to use different slides or ribbon, you will need to experiment a little on what it takes to get the right amount of pressure to hold the slide tightly. 

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8 Techniques for Gift Wrapping with Kraft

DIY: Simple Reversible Headband with Changeable Accents

8 Techniques for Gift Wrapping with Kraft

Welcome Pinterest fans!

I love packages wrapped in Kraft paper. For my kids, I must choose something bright and whimsical, but for my friends this the look! There's something so beautiful about the simple, drab brown color when it is dressed up for the holidays.

Here are 8 different techniques to use when you wrap up your own packages.


1 Use our new Gluber Strips to make ruffles from tissue paper. I used an old sewing pattern, which I think is lovely with the kraft paper. I wrapped over the center of the ruffle with heavy twine. In fact it was too thick to thread through my buttons.....

2 Split the ends of the twin, thread one half through each of the button holes and then knot. It made fun little bobble ends. (I used our Cheer Wooden Buttons.)


3 Stamping. I used dark brown ink paired with our Jolly Days stamps for with all my packages, but white, dark red, gold and dark green ink are all beautiful on kraft. As is obvious in the above photo, I worry little about making a perfect impression. I like stamping to look hand-done.

I think you could make lovely packages with just stamping alone, but I usually combine it with other techniques like number

4 Thread your buttons on the string you're tying your package with (with bigger packages, you can use buttons to make a garland or bunting effect).



To add a little holiday bling, try

5 Coating Glubers with glitter. The Gluber strips make lovely glittered ribbons to hang button ornaments, while the circles are fun for polka dots or snowman building. We thought placing the twine so that it could double as the snowman's scarf was clever!



6 Ribbon slides are one of my favorite ways to wrap things up and make our list at technique. You can thread them with fabric, ribbon or even tissue paper. 



7 Coil your twine onto a Gluber. I went from the outside in, but I think one could go either way depending on your outie to innie preference. A simple Cheer Canvas brad in the center completes the look. (And yes, that is my FAVORITE stamp!)



We can't do a post using this many  Glubers and not have some flowers made with them, can we. I think not!

8 Ruffle some tissue paper, I'm using sewing pattern paper again, from the outside in to make a pretty gift topper for technique number. Place your Cheer Canvas brad through the center and stick the whole thing to your gift. 



9 (I know I said eight, this is a Holiday surprise!) combine our twine Gluber technique with our glittered Gluber tecnhique. The floating polka dots look like the kraft was torn and rolled back to reveal sparkle goodness underneath. To get the effect, just place your Glubers as desired, press twine around the edge and then fill the inside with glitter. For the glittery garland, cut some glubers in half and follow the same steps. 

I think I could add even one more tip to round it out.

10 is especially if you have little elves helping you with your wrapping. Consider a couple valium, maybe a strong drink or two and some holiday music. That way when one child knocks over the glitter and another child sits on a gluber, you won't mind so much. It will all just be sweet holiday memories!

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If you loved this post as much as the rest of Pinterest gift wrappers seem too, share it with your friends. It's like a gift you don't even have to wrap in order to give!!

 

How to Fold Christmas Trees from Half Circles

I have been seeing these cute trees hung as ornaments, strung together on garlands and decorating handmade tags and cards. But, how does one fold them? I'm sure there are tutorials out there, but I couldn't find one. So, after a bit of trial and error I have it figured out for us all!

You can see the wrong fold lines in my first attempt, but I think it just adds character!

Use this pattern to make yours quick and easy.... or if you're like me, just wing it, refold if necessary and trim off any overhanging paper!

  Download Folded Christmas Tree Pattern | Cosmo Cricket

There are a few tricks that may help you out too.

1. I used our 8" mini deck and cut my circles 8". This makes the perfectly sized tree to fill a standard card base.

2. Our mini deck papers are single sided so I cut two half circles for each tree. This was nice because I could pick the patterns I wanted to go together. If you use our 12" papers, they are all double-sided so if you cut your tree slightly smaller at 6" you would get 8 trees from one sheet.

3.  If you like dimension, put a couple pop dots under each layer and don't crease the folds as tightly. I like this look when they are used as ornaments!
 
4. Have fun! 

Cinnamon Stick Christmas Tree Ornaments

I got some huge cinnamon sticks that smell absolutely wonderful. They were very pretty just placed in a vase, but they are fun for crafting too.

Tie them with strips of fabric to make festive trees that will have your whole house smelling like Christmas! I think these would be really cute tied onto gifts as well and it's a great way to use up scraps.

 

Cookie Cutter Christmas Ornaments

I do make cut cookies every now and then, but until Friday afternoon, I didn't own a single cookie cutter. This is partly because I hate the accumulation of stuff. (I like that I have empty cupboards in my kitchen... they're so much easier to clean.) But, it's also partly because I am practical to a fault. When I make my cookies, I use a glass to roll out the dough and then flip it on it's end to cut the cookies. I think circles make the best cookies anyway, they can be pumpkins, ornaments, faces, sunshines, etc.

BUT.... when I came across an entire box of cookie cutters at a tag sale on Friday, I couldn't resist. Not because I planned on baking anything, but because I new they would be darling as ornaments. And they are, don't ya think?!

This brings the Comstock family a tiny bit closer to our goal of a handmade Christmas tree this year! YEAH... only a bizillion more ornaments to go. I hope we are ready to decorate, as tradition holds, on the day after Thanksgiving! 

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks = LOVE

Happy 100 Block Day, USA Election Day and Thanksgiving Month! I think we should combine these events and be really grateful that we won't have to watch 100's of blocks of election advertising anymore.

Instead, let's get a peek at a super cute and easy block that has nothing to do with politics.

I am not one of those really talented, corner-matching quilters and so I was sure to make my block nearly fool proof. (I say nearly because whenever I'm involved all bets are off!) If you are a beginning quilter or seamstress, this is a great project to start with.

As you can see, it's actually four smaller blocks made into one larger block. This means you can have tons of fun rearranging the individual units. Instead of a square, you could arrange the letters in a row for a cute table runner or wall hanging. Here's what I plan to do with the pattern and our new 2WENTY-THR3E fabrics. 

For neighborhood holiday gifts, I let the individual units stand all alone. I am making them into these cute coaster sets out of our Dear Mr. Claus fabrics.

I think when they are bundled up and paired with some home-made chai latte mix they will be well appreciated!

If you would like to get your hands on the pattern and instructions for this block, leave us a comment. We'll choose a random winner to receive a free issue of the 100 Blocks Magazine. Our winner will be announced Wednesday morning. Best of luck everyone.

Now I must run. I have something to do today and if you change one of the letters in my block, you'll know just what it is.




 

Stray Dogs and Handmade Ornaments

Yesterday, my girls and I were making these fun paper ornaments with our Jolly Days collection  when Eric yelled, "What are these dogs doing in our kitchen?" 

We had just come home and were bringing groceries from our garage into the kitchen. Jack finished up the last items and forgot to close the back door. We don't actually know how long they were in our kitchen when we found them, but if you should find lost dogs in your kitchen, don't start yelling because in a matter of minutes all calm turned into a chaotic rush of kids and fur running through my house.

The dogs had no collars or tags and I couldn't find anyone in the neighborhood that recognized them, so they spent the night on my back deck. This morning, I was on my way to see if they were microchipped when I spotted a sign for two lost dogs. All is well now... except the present one of them left for us on our deck just outside the back door!
So, we didn't get as many ornaments made as we hoped, but we are on our way to this year's Christmas idea... to decorate our tree with entirely handmade ornaments. I'll keep you posted on how that goes!

 

Help Me Find My Mojo!

Where, oh where has my mojo gone?
Where, oh where could it be?
With is it's attention span short
And it's quirkiness long,
Where, oh where could it be?

If you find it, please return to:
The Comstocks
C/O The Julibrain
5' 08"  Noggin Road
Northern Region, Insanity @#&%$ 

If you can't locate it, please offer me suggestions on finding it myself! Until I do, enjoy this fun countdown project by Miss Donna of Meme's Art Place using our Jolly Days collection. Please note: There are only 62 days until Christmas. This was the count from CHA Summer.