Christmas Gingerbread and Candy on teal - my entry to Spoonflower's Challenge

With such a fun theme I couldn't miss out on designing for Spoonflower's Gingerbread contest!  This colourful design is created from my pen, watercolour, coloured pencil and felt tip pen illustrations of gingerbread houses, gingerbread men, Christmas trees, candy canes and lollipops.  This was a really fun design to make and I loved working with these colours!

Printable Advent Calendar Town Tutorial (video!)

I am excited to introduce my latest design - a printable colour-in Advent calendar town!  You may already have seen (or even made up yourself) my Advent calendar village and the houses in the new town are larger than the village houses.  They are all designed to the same scale though, so you can mix and match small and large houses to create your own Advent calendar with space for different sized sweets and gifts!
You could also make up the houses to use as gift boxes, or decorations at Christmas.

I have created a video tutorial sharing tips and instructions on how to make up the town.  I hope that you enjoy it!



If you have questions or comments please leave them below! :)

Visit my Etsy shop to buy the printable kits and make up your own:
Colour-In Advent Calendar Town
Colour-In Advent Calendar Village

Printable Christmas Church

Tomorrow is 1st December and Christmas is approaching fast (I'm sure time starts to speed up towards the end of the year!). It also means that it's time to get your Advent calendars out - do you have one? My Advent calendar village will be displayed in my home again this year and filled with sweets!  It has been lovely to hear how much fun my customers have had colouring and making up their own villages too.  I know one customer is also using the little houses as gift boxes rather than as an Advent calendar.  If you don't have one of your own, you can still buy one from my Etsy shop - they're available as Instant Download, so you can start downloading and printing the sheets as soon as your payment clears.

Find the printable Advent Calendar Christmas Village in my Etsy shop here

Happy Christmas!

It's Christmas Eve, which means today is the last day of sharing photos of my printable advent calendar village on my Facebook and Instagram pages.  These are just a few of the ones I took this month...


My shops will remain open over the holidays, although I will be taking a break, so may take a little longer to reply to messages than usual.

I wish you all a Happy Christmas!

Free Printable Christmas Labels

Have you finished wrapping all your Christmas presents yet?  If you still have a few to go and are looking for last minute labels or gift tags here are a few free printables for you!  All you will need is a printer, some scissors, a hole punch and some pretty string or ribbon...
The first set of free printables are ones I designed and shared here on my blog a few years ago, the rest are all ones designed by other people...

1.  Free Christmas Printables; tags and circles with holly, puddings and Christmas trees; download from my blog post here

2. Bright, Fun Holiday Gift Tags; modern, customisable tags; download from Our Best Bites and the Little Umbrella

3.  Christmas Stickers; 8 fun Christmas designs; download from Foodpackaging Labels

4.  Free Printable Holiday Tags; download from Petit Pippin

5.  Free Printable Tags for Christmas Packages; download from Skip to my Lou

Printable Colour In Advent Calendar Village

Today I wanted to share some pictures of my new printable advent calendar along with a little tutorial on how to make it up.

The advent calendar is a printable, colour in village with mini house boxes which you could fill with sweets or other little gifts.  It could be used in different ways - make it with or for your children and either colour and make up the whole village before the start of advent, or colour one house a day until the whole scene is complete for Christmas day!  I think the houses would look lovely along a shelf, windowsill or mantelpiece.  Alternatively you could have a treasure hunt - hide them around your room / house and find a new one each day.

About the kit...

The kit is available to buy from my Etsy shop - it is an Instant Download, so you can download and print the sheets as soon as your payment clears.  As it is a printable you can print the sheets as many times as you like (for your own personal use only) - so you could have one for each child, or print a new one to make up year after year.

There are 13 sheets included, to make 24 houses plus 2 tree backgrounds to complete your village scene.  Instructions are included on the sheets and it is simple to make up the house boxes...

The houses and trees comes as black and white templates... I coloured mine with felt tip pens and coloured pencils.  You can have fun choosing colours for your houses - will they be pastel, traditional or rainbow coloured?!

Once the colouring is finished, cut around the outsides of the house templates. (For a neat finish with straight lines, I used a craft knife and ruler but scissors would be easier - and safer! - for children).

Then score along the dashed lines (I used a bone folder and ruler with craft foam laid under the house).

Fold along the dashed lines, then start gluing the tabs marked glue.  I suggest gluing tabs A and B first, then C and D to the insides of the house.

Then glue tabs E and F to the inside of the roof.

Fold over the remaining tabs on the roof and tuck inside the house.

It is now ready to fill with sweets or a small gift!

I will be sharing more photos of my advent calendar village through December over on my Facebook and Instagram pages.  I would also love to see what your houses look like - what colours have you used and how are you displaying them?  If you share your photos on social media tag your pictures #myhfcmakes

More new greeting card designs!

I have more new card designs to share with you today!  There are a couple of Christmas cards, a birthday cupcake card and 2 blank cards which could be used for a range of occasions.

Most of these have been printed on white card with a lovely linen texture - the pigeons and umbrellas card is printed on white card with a very slightly rough surface.  As I print the cards myself I can do personalised cards too; if you like a design but would prefer a different message I am happy to do custom orders.

The cards all measure 12.5cm square (approximately 4.9 inches) and come with white envelopes.  They are blank inside ready for you to add your own message.

Some cards have also been embellished after printing, like this Clematis pattern notecard which has glitter in the centres of the flowers...

My greeting cards are available to buy from my Folksy shop.

Christmas is coming!

I have more new Christmas items to show you today – a set of printable scrapbooking papers and printable gift boxes.

These scrapbooking papers include patterns made from my illustrations of holly, Christmas trees and puddings along with coordinating patterns like spots and stripes…

The Christmas boxes are sold as two printable designs – one in brown with the Christmas puddings pattern and the other with a holly pattern.  These boxes are easy to make and great for giving small gifts!

Each box comes with a coordinating gift tag.  The boxes can be made up in two ways – as a closed box like in the photograph above or as a gift bag by cutting off the top flaps and adding ribbon handles.

Both of these sets of printables are available to buy from my Etsy supplies shop.

London Calling and Christmas note card sets

I have two new sets of note cards to share with you today; the first has a ‘London Calling’ theme.  Each card features a different one of my designs including soldiers of the Queen’s Guard, London buses and taxis, post boxes and phone boxes and zig-zag stripes…

The second set of cards has a Christmas theme – it feels too early for Christmas but the shops are starting to get their Christmas stock in now so I thought I should get mine prepared too!

All of these cards are 10x10cm square and come with white envelopes.  Their small size is perfect for writing little notes!
Both of these sets are only available to buy to buy from my Folksy shop!

Christmas Wreath

This week my internet connection has been quite unpredictable and very annoying.  One moment it's ok and the next it's dropped out again so it's been hard to get much done. :( Fingers crossed it will last while I do this post!

With Christmas fast approaching there's lots to do - this week I made the wreath for my front door...

I hunted around my garden for different plant cuttings to use and wove them around a base I made a few years ago.  I also used some wire to secure the pieces (it's been very windy here recently so I didn't want everything to fall off!) and finished it with a red bow.

It might not be the neatest wreath around but it was a fun (if prickly!) project :)

Pick of the Week

Pretty porcelain decorations for Christmas...



Buy this set of 5 ornaments from LaNiqueHOME on Etsy.

More printable Christmas gift boxes

Although this set of gift boxes matches my Christmas Baubles Scrapbooking Papers (SP011) and Collage Sheet (CS004) I think the patterns on the boxes would be great for any occassion, all year round.

There are 5 designs to choose from - if you purchase the printable gift boxes you will receive 2 designs.

To make the box above Christmassy I used the gift tag and bauble from the coordinating collage sheet and added a silver snowflake for a bit of sparkle!

These printable gift boxes are available to buy and make yourself from my shop: http://www.etsy.com/listing/87741006/printable-gift-box-christmas-baubles-2

Christmas Posting Dates

I can't believe how quickly Christmas is coming!  If you are planning to buy something from one of my shops and would like to receive your order in time for Christmas please make sure you place your order in time!  Here are Royal Mail's recommended last posting dates for Christmas:

~*~  Mon 3rd December - Airmail to South & Central America, Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Asia, Far East, Australia and New Zealand

~*~  Fri 9th December - Airmail to Eastern Europe, USA & Canada

~*~  Mon 12th December - Airmail to Western Europe

~*~ Tue 20th December - First Class UK

I will still be posting items after these dates but they are likely to arrive after Christmas.

My sale is still on in my Etsy shops until Friday - don't forget to use the code XMAS2011 at checkout!

www.hazelfishercreations.etsy.com

www.hfcSupplies.etsy.com

Cyber Monday - Free Christmas Printables and Discount Code!

It's Cyber Monday and time for an early Christmas present to all my blog readers!  I have designed a sheet of Christmas gift tags featuring trees, holly and puddings - they are free for you to download and use in you Christmas crafting projects.

The photos show a few ideas of how you could use the tags to decorate Christmas gifts but you could also use them in cardmaking, scrapbooking and other craft projects.

Download and print the sheet from this album.  The sheet measures A5 (approx. 21 x 14.8cm - 8.3 x 5.8 inches).  You can print the sheet as many times as you like to use in your own personal projects - (please do not sell them in any form).  The copyright remains property of Hazel Fisher.

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I am also holding a Cyber Monday sale - 10% off everything in my Etsy shops!  You can use this code XMAS2011 in both my art shop HazelFisherCreations and my craft supplies shop hfcSupplies.  The sale runs from today until Friday 2nd December.  Happy shopping! :)

Christmas Gift Boxes

New printable gift boxes - perfect for little Christmas gifts!  This pair of printable gift boxes matches my Christmas Scrapbooking Papers (SP010).  Each box has a baubles and spots pattern, with one in red and one in green.

My favourite part is seeing the boxes made up and thinking of different ways to embellish them.  I tied this box with stranded cotton and made a bow with shiny red ribbon (it had to be sparkly for Christmas!).

These printable gift boxes are available for you to buy and make yourself from my Etsy shop.

Christmas Baubles printable scrapbooking papers

To coordinate with my Christmas Baubles digital collage sheet here's a new set of printable scrapbooking papers...

There are 8 designs, each measuring 12x12 inches and can be printed on A4 paper.  Two of the designs feature baubles but the other papers in the set are quite versatile so could be used in projects all year round - not just for Christmas!

These papers are available in my shop... www.hfcSupplies.etsy.com

Christmas Baubles collage sheet

It's unseasonally hot and summery here, which is lovely, so it seems wrong to be designing Christmas printables!

This sheet was inspired by vintage glass baubles - I loved the bright colours of the baubles which gave me the idea of moving away from just using reds and greens, like in my last Christmas set, and including pinks and blues too.

My bauble designs started as pen and watercolour illustrations which were scanned and finished digitally.  I then designed the coordinating border strips and tags to include on the same sheet.

This printable collage sheet is available to buy from my shop http://www.etsy.com/listing/82801515/digital-collage-sheet-christmas-baubles

New Christmas printable scrapbooking papers

A new addition to my collection of printable scrapbooking papers is this set of Christmas papers, featuring 8 designs in red and green.  There are lots of baubles as well as spots, stripes, plaid and a paper with 'Merry Christmas' bunting.
You can buy the papers to download and print yourself from my shop here.

Merry Christmas!

Just a little note to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011!

Christmas Magnets

My fabric covered magnets featuring transfer prints of my paintings have been popular recently - here is the newest set to be listed on Etsy. It is a set of three featuring prints from my 'Clockwork Bird Model no.57' and 'Clockwork Robin' illustrations.

Each hand covered fabric magnet measures approx. 1.2 inches - 3cm (the magnet on the back measures 0.6 inches - 1.5cm). The magnets are quite strong and will hold several pieces of paper.