Guest Blogger Wednesday

This week we have the lovely Kara as your guest blogger who not only brings you 1, not 2 but 3 wonderful projects for you to have a go at. So its over to Kare.

Hi, my name is Kara Milne. I have been paper crafting seriously for nearly 10 years, but before that I tried lots of different crafts. My passion was scrapbooking for many years but I now do a wider variety of paper crafts as I sometimes teach and demonstrate, and people like variety! My projects today have a bit of a story- I made a small Christmas decoration with paper cones a couple of weeks ago (its on my blog) and it came together so quickly I decided I had to experiment a bit more and see what else I could make with them. So here they are. My first project was using a polystyrene cone, this took a few attempts! You have to use smaller cones as you progress up the tree, I had a few dodgy looking try's at this! I started with 2 1/2 inch squares for 2 rows then 2 inch and finally 11/2 inch squares for near the top. You can use wet glue ( with a wee clip to hold it until its dry) or red tape for a uniformed closed looking cone, or staple the base of the cone and you get a looser look at the top- experiment as its just tiny pieces of paper you'll be using so its no great loss. I used stampin up 12x12 paper "be of good cheer". And I have heaps left for other projects, on the top is some cherry cobbler seam binding ribbon also from stampin up and a couple of jingle bells from my local craft shop. Once I started with the cones I was hooked- so here's project number 2 at a cost of nearly nothing! I used pages from an old paperback ( and I picked a really old one with yellow pages I bought at a jumble sale) and I just stapled these at the base, as it was book pages the cone was curled around more than the squares when I made them. I started with a piece of stiff cardboard or thin chipboard and traced round a dinner plate to get a circle, and put on my first layer of cones overhanging the edge ( lay them out first before you stick anything down, you want them side by side but not squished in, or have big gaps in between). I used a hot melt glue gun for speed in drying, but pva and patience works fine! The second and third rows were stuck in the dips between the bottom layers to give a staggered look. Once these were set, I stuck down some stampin up Scalloped tulle ribbon and some die cut snowflakes, and a vintage brad. Finally, just one more. Same idea, squares of paper, rolled into cones and stapled, only this time I used a polystyrene ring (about 25cm diameter) which cost just over a pound and I used 4 inch squares of double sided papers. Thanks for looking, if you have any questions you can always leave a comment on my blog,Kara's Crafty Corner, and I will try and answer them if I can. Thanks for looking Kara

And i am sure you will agree Kara's projects are just beautiful. And a big thankyou to Kara from all the team at CBN.