I've made my first Christmas present!

I love looking around 'blogland' seeing what other crafters have made, and seeing something, and thinking 'what a great idea that it', and adding it to my never ending list of things I want to try.

In between making my Christmas cards, I felt the need to make something completely different, and having been inspired by Karen's Blog, and seeing the wonderful things that she make as presents, I wanted to have a go at making one of her 'Kitchen Organisers'.

So very late on Saturday night I started to play with my stash, and this is what I have come up with:

The paper I have used is from a huge stack of pretty papers that I bought when it was on offer in WHSmith some time ago, and I thought I would try my first Kitchen Organiser with a bold patten, as I know I would probably never be this bold with any of the cards I make!

I was worried about how to attach the ribbon at the top so that it would not come away when hung. I had to work out how to attach the ribbon so it would be strong enough to hold the weight. In the end I went with attaching the ribbon to the A4 mountboard with DST, covering it with DP paper and then fixing an eyelet with my crop-a-dile to the middle of the ribbon, hoping that this would give it the strength that it needs.

My next dilema was how to attach a pen to the board, and again, I have used a piece of ribbon, that has been stuck to the card at the back of the shopping list pad with DST, and I have once again added an eyelet to hold the ribbon securely in place. The front page of the shopping list pad has been covered in the same DP paper.

I felt that the patten of the DP was too bold, so wanted to try and break it up a bit, so did this by backing the shopping pad; calendar tab; useful telephone numbers and stamps pocket with some matching green card. I have used a 'nestie' labels to cut out the useful telephone numbers list, and a smaller one to cut out the word 'shopping list' and stamps. I wanted to add the 'stamps' pocket because in my house, I can never find any when I want some, and it was a perfect way to use up a small space I had on this organiser.

This one will be for my Auntie, who loves spots and green, and now that I have sussed out how to make one of these up, I will definitely be making some more as Christmas presents this year.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Craftalicious Challenge - anything goes
The Crafty Pad - make something for a friend
One Stop Craft Challenge - alter it [i've altered a plain white piece of mountboard]