on the fourth day of christmas the crafty cow made for me....

 ...a whole heap of groovy christmas crackers!

 

man oh man these are soooo easy to make

here's a tutorial on how i made mine

grab a peice of a4 paper-i used some red photocopying grade stuff that would fit through my printer. for more luxurious ones feel free to use thin card but given mine will be thrown straight in the bin i am going for the cheapest paper i can use. i used my jumbo so swirly roller with black ink and rolled it all over each peice of paper.

 then i went here and grabbed a printable copy of where i needed to cut out my diamonds and stuck all through my printer

 i folded the paper in two mountain folds and cut out approx 4 peices at once

 ta da! this is what they should look like when cut

 all the left over epices of diamonds. my daughter was quite excited...goodness knows what she will make with all those leftovers lol...i was plannign on using them for packaging for any presents.

 next on another peice of paper i stamped my greeting using the gifted set from stampin up. I also rubbed an ink pad all over them just to give them a bit of a lift....plus if the truth be told...i managed to drop an ink pad over a couple and figured they could all look a bit like that rofl-nothing like a creatable moment huh?!

 i also rubbed the crakers with ink pads to to give them a bit of a lift

 then using my oh-so-not-pc peice of cut up toilet paper roll i glued both sides and the middle with some glue stick and carefully rolled them up and stuck them together.

 here we go-ready to do the rest. so far the crackers had taken me about 30 mins to do and i had made 24 so not a time consuming job at all...yet....

 here i stuck the sentiment on to cover the end of the paper roll and strenthen the cracker too.

 now here is the time consuming fiddly mucking about part.

put the cracker strip through the middle and sellotape the ends to the paper

 tie down one end-then the presents wont fall out when you put them in!

 i used el cheapo ribbon from my $2 shop-you know the kind that you get a gizzillion metres for $2...no fancy lovely precious su ribbon i'm afraid lol

 here is what i put in mine-a party popper, a balloon, a knock knock joke (because my kids think they are just the best and crack themselves up every time!) and a couple of lollies. I got my knock knock jokes from here. finally i just tied up the end and they are ready to go.

now you could use nicer paper and do more fancy stuff to them but they are just going to go in the bin when all is said and done and if i have spent a long time dong these then i would have a hissy fit i suspect rofl. these crackers took me approx 1 1/2 hours to make from start to finish and look rather good if i don't mind saying so myself. they probably cost me about $5 in materials and a zillion $$ worth of love and i know that family and friends will have a great time opening them christmas day

remember to leave a comment here or on my facebook page to win some lovely home made treats from me. tell your friends and family too!!!

cheers ears