Card made from Christmas cracker

Boxing day Hubby and I went to my sister's for a meal. 
During the course of the meal my eye kept being drawn to the pretty holly patterned Christmas crackers that lay in pieces on the table.
I couldn't help but wonder how I could re use them.

I gathered up a few pieces and placed them in a pile ready to stash in  my handbag...When I wasn't looking my brother-in -law gathered them up and took them off to the bin.

Bin diving is not my favourite past time, so I sent my sister after him to rescue them before they got soiled and damaged in the bin.

This is a gate fold card I made with one of the Christmas crackers and a die cut sentiment, which I covered in red glitter.

I am not a fan of gate fold cards.
I am never sure what position to stand them in to show off the whole card, so I tend not to make them.

Christmas Cracker Waste

I  have this THING about Christmas crackers.
They have to be the big expensive ones  that contain a gift that's almost worth keeping, a hat that usually fits without splitting and the usual dreadful joke.

But what do you do with all that  beautiful foiled waste card after the cracker the been pulled.

I gather it all up.....usually as soon as the crackers have been pulled   (to stop anyone screwing it up and throwing it all away)  and later in the year,  I recycle it.

This year I have made  Pillow boxes and Milk cartons. I also used the ribbon from the crackers to tie the cartons closed.

The centre section of the cracker was used  for the milk carton as it is slightly  wider than the ends. I trimmed one of the long sides of the cracker to give a nice straight edge.  This edge is the top of the milk carton which I then lined up with the top edge on the die.

The cracker isn't quite deep enough to cut the bottom flaps  of the  carton,  but   it does cut out enough of the  flaps to allow you to fold under and glue to a separate base piece.  I cut  two squares measuring 3.5cms and stuck one to the outside base and one to the inside base to make it look a tidy inside. I strongly recommend using a wet glue for sticking the base pieces together and something heavy to stand inside  the carton while it dries.  I used  snail adhesive but it wasn't quite strong enough to hold it all together for long as you can see from the photo the bases are  starting to lift.

I haven't  made any tags or decorations for these yet.  I need to fill them before sealing them, adding tags and decorations.

 The pillow boxes where made from the ends  and the centre sections of the crackers. I varied the size of the pillow  boxes to fit the waste card.

I used the pillow box and milk carton dies from Stampin' up.