A beauty-ful Christmas cracker

For this month’s column I’ve decided to have a little festive fun by showing you how to create a homemade Christmas cracker filled with beauty treats for your nearest and dearest. You can pick up such fabulous gifts for less than a fiver – a sweet-smelling bar of soap, a pretty lip gloss, a coloured chain for glasses, little perfume, etc – or also opt for items that will work equally well for both men and women, like a comb or a set of tweezers for example. You can also use the crackers as part of your Christmas table seating plan by choosing ribbons to tie in with your colour scheme. You’ll pick up all the supplies from your local stationery shop and this is also a great project to make with children, so have fun. Christmas is a time to cherish loved ones and I’m a big believer that when it comes to gifts, it’s the thought that counts, which is why I love this project and I hope you will too.

Also, I’d like to thank all my readers for their support, emails and letters during the year. They really mean a lot to me and I look forward to writing for you in 2019. Until then, merry Christmas and a happy new year. CL

What you will need

Instructions

1 Take two A4 pieces of card.

2 Cut one A4 sheet in half (pictured below). Place the larger A4 piece in the middle, with these two smaller pieces on either end. This will form the body of your cracker.

3 Using double-sided sticky tape, fold the three pieces of card into cylinders, as shown, making sure that the middle section is big enough to fit your gift (test before sticking with tape if unsure).

4 Taking your gift, place it on a sheet of coloured tissue paper with a sprinkle of confetti for extra sparkle.

5 Folding the tissue paper over your gift securely, slide it into the middle of the cracker.

6 Next, line up the three cracker parts along a sheet of red tissue paper, as pictured. Roll the paper over to wrap the cracker up, using a little double sticky tape to secure if needs be. If there is any excess paper at either end of the cracker, you can also trim this down.

7 Use two pipe cleaners to secure either end of the main section of the cracker, so that the gift does not fall out. Tie tightly and trim any excess.

8 Taking your ribbon, cover the pipe cleaners by tying a bow on either end of your cracker.

9 Taking some festive wrapping paper, cut out the images you will use to decorate your cracker, securing them in place with double sided sticky tape.

10 And voila, you’re done. Mery Christmas to you all.

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