 Hi everybody it's Sam at Mixed Up Craft, thank you for watching my tutorial today. I've got my last Christmas project to share today so I don't even know how many it is that I've done, it feels a lifetime because I've been literally had Christmas stuff around me now since the summer, very different to last year but I've enjoyed it and hopefully a lot of you have as well. So today I'm finishing with Christmas crackers, I make my crackers every year, I have done for many many years and this time I've done something a bit different. I've had this idea and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't but this one I think has turned out really really well and I'm very pleased with it. So I'm using the Dovecraft Christmas Tales to finish this kind of Christmas series. I've loved this collection, so many of you have it as well and you've been sharing you know your makes and things over on our group and it's just beautiful so these are using the six by six paper pad, then you have this tissue paper which forms the actual cracker inside so this is what you will pull. Anybody that I think actually last year when I for some reason last year, the year before I didn't really think I had that many people say that they hadn't heard of crackers but last year I remember quite a few people were like oh we've never seen this before but this is a huge tradition in the UK and many other parts of the world as well but it's a really big thing here and you put gifts inside of these and you know all kinds of things over the years but we put special gifts in these on the table and then you pull them and inside there's a cracker snap so that whoever has the the majority of the cracker so the shell here in your hand then you get the prize or the gift that's inside so you personalize them I've done personalised ones in the past so there is a cracker snap through here you can just see it there and it comes out each end but when you hold this and you will pull it and it will rip and the prize comes flying out along with the Christmas hat, a funny joke and anything else you want to put in there really some chocolates entirely up to you but they're really really fun so I have used all this tissue paper here I've layered up two different colors you don't have to do that and I'll show you in more detail in a moment then I've used the match in Decoupage I've literally got a few left I'm glad I've still got one more of this one because it's my favourite and I think I'm going to just make it up and just keep it on display because I just think it's so cute I think this is going to be my one on the table actually and then we've got a beautiful bunny in the stock in there and then we've got the deer with the presents and then the one I'm doing today I'll show you in a moment but really easy to make you don't need any special tools you just need some ribbon some tissue paper a paper of your choice and some sticky double sided tape and that's it really really easy so let me show you how to make these fun crackers okay so these are the cracker snaps so if again if you haven't seen these so basically I've got one left which is perfect I got these from Hobbycraft I got two packs last year this is just left over from the other pack but when you pull this as they pull away from each other they obviously react with a form of powder in there I imagine and it just makes a bang not a massive bang it's just like a it's fun I mean obviously if you've got any pets you know dogs and cats birds young children babies they probably will jump quite a bit with this if they're not used to it but children love it it's really fun I've always loved these as you know as children and then I've used tissue paper so anyone you like like said you don't have to do two but I did buy the cream in the red because I wanted it to go with this collection here so what I've gone ahead and done so this is the six by six you can see I've got a very small amount left and then this is the decoupage and I'm down to I took some off of that for another project that one's a bit incomplete and I say I've got five but the most of them are incomplete the only one that's still solid is that one where all the pieces are then that's the one I'm going to make up and just keep I might put a little put it make it into a little badge or something and then I can wear it next year or even this year so you want one piece of six by six and you want to make sure if it's a directional paper that when you flip it over it's still facing the right way up and then just run some double sided tape mine is about half an inch you don't really want to well you yeah you could go a little bit bigger but I wouldn't I try and stick with that half an inch or whatever your standard kind of double sided tape is most of them are this size which is about let me just have a little look it's just under half an inch it's one centimetre okay so you want something around that really and then there's my topper for this one so you can see it matches that paper really nicely crack a snap paper topper and then this is my tissue paper so it's again entirely up to you how many sheets you want um whether you want to do one of each color so I just basically split the large sheets apart and then I layered them back over each other again so I had one red one cream one red one cream and so on and then lay them all down and you want to cut it so that it's 14 by it was just under well this is just over six it needs to be just under six oh this is because this is the last piece left so I'm just going to trim it in a minute which you'll you know you can do if you want but yeah you want it to really be I guess maybe go for six but try and get it just under but it is hard to cut all the tissue perfectly straight I mean you can see mine there's just all over the place but it really doesn't matter because with this effect that you're getting you don't notice all the different lengths even if it was a block color as well you wouldn't notice that so really do not worry okay so first of all you just want to flip your pattern paper over again you would have put your strip along the top there and then you want to run some glue you can use any you know as long as it's like a paper friendly liquid glue and you can use double-sided tape if you want but the double-sided tape will probably just take you a little bit longer these have taken me no time at all to do and I was watching elf actually does anybody else love that film it's it's just brilliant and then just stick it so that it's below the red tape in my case there and you've got a kind of even overhang there again you're going to trim a lot of this and you know do what you know your thing with it so again don't worry too much it's one of those kind of things that yeah it just hides loads of things just don't worry about it I wanted something different I always kind of keep within the same kind of colors some of the ones I've shared have been for friends I made some pink ones a couple of years ago I'll share the playlist that would have popped up probably already I've done pink ones which I gave to all my girlfriends we always get together every Christmas so this year we're getting together the last Sunday of the last Sunday before Christmas so I've made them a lot of the they're all getting oh no I don't want to say actually because this is probably going to go up before I meet them so I won't say but a lot of the things I've been making so as you can see here because I'm chatting away I think it's because I'm a little bit excited that this is the last Christmas tutorial because I get to put it all away yay does anybody else not sick of Christmas I love Christmas I can't wait for Christmas day and everybody to enjoy all the hard work I've put into you know putting everything together I'm actually really pleased to get everything boxed away now and yeah sort it all out get my craft room back to normal it looks like a Christmas explosion in here at the moment so yeah just layer up each one the amount of layers I've added I will count in a moment again it's entirely up to you you might not want yours as full as mine you might want it even fuller I would have loved it to have found some kind of like you can get silver tissue paper I'd love like glitter tissue paper I don't know if there's even a such a thing if there is please let me know because it'd certainly be something I'd like to use next year and I think that would have looked really nice because this is a very kitsch collection the glitter and the skinny tinsel that you see me use goes really well with it so it would have been another nice thing to have added but you can see how easily this grips to every layer usually I would speed this up but I'm chatting away today so hopefully I haven't put you off yeah if you wanted to use double sided tape for each of these it's just going to take you a bit of time but you know I've done this in real time and you can see it takes no no time at all so I'm just kind of staying in within that six by six square each time but yours will be shorter than mine and you do I am going to trim this in a moment okay so now we flip it over so you don't really want that much overhanging so this is six inches you want your tissue paper to kind of be in line with that but don't worry if it isn't because you just trim it away like I'm doing here and I'll tell you how many layers in fact I'll just pop it up on the screen before when I was talking away so I'm just kind of going as you know close to the paper there I actually want something like that and then flip it over and then we're going to stick in our cracker snap so not everybody does I always do but I always attach it to one end just that way it guarantees that someone is always going to get it and generally what you do is if someone hasn't got one once everybody's pulled their cracker then you give it to that person but because ours are going to be personalised anyway that person will know if they get it they give it back to the other person because everybody will have their own so just attach it to one side but that's completely optional and then you want to take your backing off of where's my little pokey tool just take the backing off of that tape and then you just want to roll it obviously pop your no roll it still don't put your gift in yet because I haven't put my gifts in anyway but um I can just undo them so you're just going to stick it by the you know that amount that you've covered with tape so that's what I mean you don't want to go too wider with the tape because then your cracker will become smaller in the centre whereas this is a real nice I guess quite a common size once it's all wrapped around so just pull that tissue or torque for the minute just so that you get that paper in a nice shape like so and then I've got these really long scissors but you can use a ruler you just want to go in and just have something to be able to push against so I can make sure that tape is really stuck down you can use crackers for many occasions I know people that have had them at baby showers weddings all kinds of things throughout the year these look lovely Easter on the Easter table and you obviously use your Easter papers and things that that's they they're just a celeb a thing for celebrating but you know they are traditionally used at Christmas so then I'm going to pop my topper on you can do this last but I've just been doing it this way so I will stick with that one and then make sure you got your seam right at the back and then get that like so and again you can just go in there I've just put mine with foam there we go all right and then you want to cut now all your little kind of pieces so I'm going to start from where the join is and just cut down a minor about half an inch kind of thick you can do them even thinner if you want and kind of leave about half an inch don't cut all the way to the bottom doesn't matter if you do go a little bit further but as you can see it's quite easy to be quite random with this you don't have to be precise like so obviously caught something there but again won't matter you won't see any of that and then just do the same on the opposite end okay so then you'll have something like that so now you just want to add your ribbon so pop it on one end first then you would put your gift in and then you'd seal up the other end but the great thing is is that you can you know undo it which I'm going to be doing because obviously I haven't put my gifts in yet so I'm going to start with this end here and put that on that side and just go under keep it right up there near the end of the paper and then just bring it together and it will all start to kind of fan out and kind of create that shape and then just tie that in a boat and do the same I should have said as well it might be if you just kind of squeeze it like that to start it off it'll help you with the ribbon and again do the other one and then I just go in and just kind of like split them all apart and kind of just twist them a little bit you want to be obviously not too heavy-handed because it's tissue paper and then if you crack a snap sticking out a bit too far you can just trim it because they will still grab it because the idea is is I will grab that end someone else will grab that end and you pull it's really fun and I'm also now just going to trim some pieces just so you've got some like different um you know different lengths they don't all have to be the same okay and there is my rather crazy Christmas cracker and I adore them I think they look brilliant they're going to look so fun on the table I'm doing a big centerpiece for the table all with similar colors we've got our placemats table runner everything is all these reds and greens so it's all going to look really really nice I can't wait so there we have it so thank you so so much from the bottom of my heart for everybody who has watched who has recreated who has subscribed who has liked who has commented you know throughout this Christmas series because it's been so much fun I really have enjoyed it like I said it's been much different to what it was last year because I wasn't on the trim craft design team so a lot of my projects this year have featured their products um sorry a lot of my projects here do they say projects I've featured their products and um just working with craft stash working with our taser working with paper mill direct but just to name a few creative expressions it's just been really really fun and I just I can't wait for this coming year and I've got some really great things to share with you all so this is it for Christmas and then I have some I have about three fun tutorials to share between Christmas and New Year just to keep you going and then we start with some fantastic new product in the New Year and I know a lot of you are already excited because I've been sharing like little sneak peeks and giving you little clues and stuff as to what's to come but yeah so lots of talking in this video even though it's still short but I do like to just take a moment every now and then and just to you know let you all know that I really do appreciate all this and thank you for supporting my channel it really does mean the world to me so I hope you enjoy like I said these crazy crackers I think they're great and if you do get time I'd love to see your versions and share them over on the mixed up crafters Facebook page I did want to finish this series so that you do still have time to do some crafting before Christmas Day so yeah some of you I know will probably give this a go beforehand but yeah let me know what you think and please give me a thumbs up and if you haven't subscribed I'd love it if you did so thank you for watching Merry Christmas everybody and a wonderful New Year and I'll see you all again soon bye