 Hey everybody, it's Sam at Mixed Up Craft, thank you for watching my tutorial today, so I'm going to be showing you how to make these crackers. Now I did feature square crackers about five weeks ago on the channel, but that was using a die, and every year I like to make crackers for my own Christmas table, so the ones that I made five weeks ago were actually for my friends, I made six of them and they've all been given to them and they've enjoyed them. These ones are for my Christmas table, so they're slightly bigger and they will hold the gifts that I've already got, you know, to put in these. Very very easy to make, like I said, no dies are needed and these can be used as a gift box to put under the tree or you know to maybe pop in someone's stocking or on their bed, bedside it's entirely up to you, but very straightforward so let me show you how. Okay so like I said this is a square version, but I have circular ones, I've got hexagons, I've got jumbo style ones, I've got triangular ones, there's all kinds on that playlist, so do check it out if you're interested. Okay so to make these you want a piece, this is just default A4, so it's about 11 and 3 quarters by 8 and a quarter, but if you've got 8 and a half by 11 you can still make it even with the same measurements, score lines that I'm going to give you, it just means that the end of yours will just be slightly shorter, so you'll come in probably up to where the pattern paper is. Okay so what you want to do is along the whatever your A4 is because it does, it's always usually just under 11 and 3 quarters or just over 11 and 5 8, but you're going to score each end so it doesn't really matter, so it's at 2, 2 and 3 quarters and 3 and a half, and then flip it and do the same, 2, 2 and 3 quarters and 3 and a half. Okay so whether you've got A4 or letter paper size it doesn't matter, and then pop it along the short side and you'll want to score at 2, 4, 6 and 8 and do that for as many as you need. Okay next we want to fold and burnish all of those score lines. Now what you want to do is you'll have three score lines together here, so you can just see 1, 2, 3, the middle one you actually want that to become a valley and these two would be mountains, so you want it to be that shape. Okay turn it over and it doesn't matter whether you have this flap on top or this one it really doesn't matter and you're going to snip along, you're going to create like little sharks teeth, so I'm just going to start off there and each time you snip you're just snipping up to that score line, but you're going to do little triangles but you need to keep the top joined, so can you see I've got it's joined there, so when it opens it's still attached but attached by a very small amount. The smaller the better that means the person can rip it apart, so I'm just going to work my way along like so. I'll just do this little section just so you can see how it should look and just pull those away and don't worry they don't need to look even or anything this is all going to be hidden you can see there look how they're all hidden with the ribbon look, so you know don't worry but now when someone pulls on that that will soon rip and that's what you want, so I'm going to carry on doing that all along here and then you want to do the same at this end so that middle score line from the three of them make sure that that is amount a valley and then you're snipping along with that folded piece you know side facing you. Okay now when you get to the end where this tab is see this section here what you want to do is actually cut just up to the first score line so this score line here and just remove I'm going to do this on the other end before I start it because it's going to make a lot more sense in fact I'm going to do it on this end here so before you start cutting where you've got your little tab here just remove that completely like so okay so that's what I'm just going to do here the fact by the time I cut that so I'm going to snip that all away because that really doesn't matter there we go okay so you can see what I've got so I'm just going to whisk through the side okay so now you should have something like this it will become quite a delicate piece at this point so yeah you just want to be a bit careful with it but your next going to just take a little wedge off of your tab down and you're going to do it on the inside pieces I'm not going to worry about the ends there and then what you want to do is grab a cracker snap so these are there's more than 12 in here because I have two packs and I've just put them all together but these are cracker snaps from Hobbycraft they were very inexpensive maybe a pound pound 50 I'm going to grab one of these basically there's like a little I guess it's like fireworks like gunpowder in there you just pull them apart I'll do it quickly okay but that's what it does so I'm going to grab another one I love the smell as well and then what I'm going to do is I like to stick both the sides down or at least one of them so I'm just going to grab my glue here my tape and I'm just going to pop it on this one here doesn't really matter which one but I'm just going to stick it in like so okay then I'm going to fold this one over with my glue I'm going to put that all along the tab don't worry about your gifts you can put them in when it's all together because you're tying the sides you know the these pieces together with ribbon so you can just undo that at any point I'm just going to make sure that's all stuck down okay and now you should start to be able to push your quacker in like this now as you do this will obviously poke out because you actually made it shorter so I'm just going to snip away at that and then I'm just going to another little bit of tape again you don't have to be too precious with these things because they all get ripped up like so it just guarantees that that will pull away and actually snap yep that's fine next you want to add your mats and layers so I've got I've only got three pieces left in this so I didn't do the bottom you're not going to see it's going to be on the table so it's up to you though obviously if you do want to cover all of them but these pieces are so we've got what was that it was two yes it was one in three quarters by four and a half and then these pieces again were scraps and I didn't want to so you'll see mine don't fit that square but I actually don't mind having that thicker red border at the end so I've made it work for me just so I can use these kind of scrap pieces again one and three-quarters but mine are one and a half but if you've got letter size you'll probably find that is the perfect mat size anyway but if you do want to make it bigger than I would suggest because it's two inches I do one and three-quarters by one and three-quarters yeah so I'm going to go get these all stuck down okay I assumed to have misplaced one but I know I do have a little bit left so I'll cut that one after the tutorial but now you can see how cool does that look I love these also the papers I've used are from photo plates here comes Santa six by six I was actually giving this by friend last year so again if I can find any it's 2018 if I can see you know find any links then I will share them and then my decoration I'm actually keeping quite simple I mean if you look on some of the other ones that I've done I've gone quite over the top I've got ones where there's a massive big Ponsettia flower on them with this one because my table has got quite a lot of other things going on I've got the centerpiece and things like that these are going to look really nice on my I've got candy cane striped dinner set for where's my Christmas set so I'm just going to pop one of these I'm just going to add a bit of hot glue so I always think it just holds it a little bit better and that's just going to go in the middle there you would have noticed I flattened them as well while sticking the mat style just makes it easier and again you know if you want to store these because you can use crackers for all occasions they're really really nice I remember I went to my friend's Indian wedding and made the crackers for the they had confetti all in them so when people pulled them confetti went everywhere it was really nice so but now I'm going to use some of this white ribbon and I'm just going to tie up the ends so like I said now you can tie up one end and then you pop your gifts in pop your you know your joke and your hat and I'll be doing all that because I've I've ordered the hats because I didn't have any left from last year and the jokes I just go online and you can just type in cracker jokes or just jokes in general and you can write them yourself so but you can also go on to places like Amazon and they do cracker kind of teapacks so in the in the cracker party pack will be the snaps the hat and the joke and also gifts as well but again I've already got my gifts sorted and I like to always put a personalised gift and you could put the person's names you could this could become a name place what's it called a place place name oh my gosh what is wrong with me this is the last of four four tutorials that I've filmed so maybe I'm just I'm ready to finish now so I'm just going to I'll seal the ends off better but I've done that one there let's just do this one okay I'll tie do those up a little bit better when I go to put the gifts in so I need to undo them again but now I have these crackers I've got a few more to do but I'm really pleased with them and yeah can't wait for them to be pulled and for the people to enjoy what I've put inside so I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial today again I will link everything that I've used in the description box below check out the cracker playlist because like I said these don't have to just have the cracker snaps in and be pulled they actually make really nice gift boxes as well so thanks for watching I hope you've enjoyed all of my Christmas series all of the Christmas projects I've shared this year have a wonderful festive period even if you're just you know enjoying the holidays whatever you're doing stay safe and I will be back with my next tutorial it's going to be I think a fun fold card thanks for watching and have a lovely time bye