Sunday 9 September 2007

Christmas cat!

Hello, I'm back from holidays and thought I'd share a project I did just before I went away. This started life as a tin containing ground coffee and I've altered it to make a Christmas gift.




Thanks to Tanda Stamps DT member Anna for the inspiration to combine the stamps! The stamps are both from Tanda - they're called Festive Cat and Three Gifts and they're fab!

I stamped the cat on a strip of thin card cut to fit around the tin. Then I stamped it again onto thin notepaper and cut it out to use as a mask before stamping the group of gifts. That way, I get to keep the cut out to use for masking future projects and I didn't have to do anything precise round the whiskers as that part of the stamping doesn't overlap! I repeated the gifts image along the length of the card strip so the design goes all the way around the tin.

The gifts are coloured using brush markers and a green highlighter pen to keep things on the bright side! A gold gel pen adds a bit of festive metallic effect. As the cat's hat is solid on the stamp, I coloured over the black bit with a white gel pen and then used a Gellyroll pen to colour it red. I inked the edges of the card strip with Ice Blue chalk ink and stuck it round the tin before tying on a bit of stitched grosgrain ribbon.

For the lid, I cut a circle to fit and inked the edge with the Ice Blue pad. I cut a smaller circle from scrap paper and used the 'frame' as a border mask so I could stamp the cat's face without going all the way out to the edge. Then I used the Gellyroll pen to write Christmas Cookies round the border and finished by stamping a few snowflakes at the base of the circle in the Ice Blue chalk ink.

I'll bake the cookies to put inside nearer to Christmas!

I reckon you could adapt this for all sorts of things... get the snowman stamps out and make a 'Build your own snowman' kit for the kids (either marshmallows and Matchmakers or pom-poms, pipecleaners and felt)... decorate one to put Santa's snack inside to keep it fresh overnight on Christmas Eve...

Thanks for looking - if you've enjoyed the project, it'd be lovely to see your comments, it's always great to know who's visiting!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Joanne, Fantastic use of a coffee tin! I love the stamp of the cat.I might just get around to using this idea...Thank you...Linda TS forum

Alhambra Club said...

This is great, love how you altered the tin and your stamping and coloring is fantastic.

Unknown said...

Joanne, thanks so much for sharing this - I think it is totally Fab! I can imagine myself making one of these with Freya for Santas biscuits

Jackie said...

That is fab Joanne, I have just added those stamps to my 'must have' list!!

Hazel said...

I love the way you've used the stamps, Joanne - that is a very special present

Kathy said...

Lovely idea and really versatile - maybe I should start trying to get orgainised and use this idea.

Kaz said...

Brilliant idea Joanne! It all works a treat. I think I might have a go at this.

mum-on-the-run said...

Great tin Joanne, love how you've colured the images!!

Andrea, said...

This is such a cute tin

Crissi Harvey said...

wow wow wow fantastic tin