Secret Crafter DT Hand Made Christmas Gifts and "What's New Pussy Cat whoa whoa whoa o o !!!!!!"

Good morning to you all in the land of blog and have I got you all singing along with Tom Jones.........

Mr Blogger will hopefully post this for me today, the little sweetie that he is, and as this posts I will be making my way to the Secret Crafter shop to meet all those talented design team members and you never know I might meet some of you too.  I will be taking the opportunity to do some retail therapy whilst I am there as there are some fabulous papers in the shop at the minute :) and lots of new stash.

So this morning brings the next super challenge for the  

SECRET CRAFTER SATURDAY CHALLENGE

Jane has chosen the theme this week and wow is it a fabulous one

Handmade Christmas Gifts

Oh I got so messy creating this design team inspirational piece, you will see why :)

 Quite a while ago I bought some plain cheap coasters from a local department store.  I had not got around to using them and felt that this was that "opportune moment".  I have made a set of coasters and a matching box for a Xmas Gift for Matt's sister. 

I started off by printing this lovely Manga image onto my digi paper.  

The image is "Cat Girl" and is available here for only  £2.99 as a digi, or if you prefer it is also available as a clear polymer stamp here at £5.50

I placed the full sheet of printed out images A4 onto an A4 double sided sticky sheet.  I then carefully cut around each image and placed these aside.  I then used gesso to coat the top of each coaster, before moving on to use an acrylic paint in a sand colour, I used two coats of the acrylic for total coverage.  

I carefully peeled off the image backing sheet and placed the image onto the coaster. Using my little make up sponge and Tim Holtz vintage photo distress ink to distress all the edges around and upto the image.  This took several goes to get the coverage that I was looking for.  I used a brillance gold ink pad to edge the coasters before covering in two coats of varnish, well you just gotta protect those Cat's now haven't you.

The box I made to fit and used some gorgeous linen textured papers from GCD Studios called Paris Nights, I distressed all the edges on this too.

Here are some more photo's

 A little closer look at the set, I placed the image at a slight angle on each.

 The sides of the box, isn't this paper delish?

 The top of the box

A final close up of just one of the coasters.

So what are you waiting for pop over and take a look at the other creations and off you go to play, have fun, I know I did.

Thank you to all of you who have visited recently and left such lovely inspiring comments, love all of them

Hugs and Happy Crafting to you all

Kate xx