Easter Bliss

Friday, 5 December 2025

Creative Artiste #122 December 2025

This is the final challenge of the year for Creative Artiste. Now I can concentrate on making my Christmas cards, buying presents and wrapping them, getting the Christmas food and snacks, attending the Christmas school concerts and putting the decorations up. Phew!

But, before I do all that ....

  ....Welcome to a new challenge at

Creative Artiste is a monthly challenge blog for everyone who likes to mix their media. So, as long as you like to use various mediums on your creations, we'd love to see you enter the challenge.
A big Thank You to everyone who entered the challenge last month. Your projects were all wonderful and our winners have been announced on the blog.
Our theme is always
"Anything Mixed Media Goes"
We have opportunities to be a Guest Designer for all our winners.

I have upcycled a couple of boxes to use instead of gift bags this Christmas. The boxes measure 
8.5" (W) x 6.5 (D) x 4" (H)  (22cm x 17cm x 10cm).

The boxes have a front flap with a magnetic closure. One box is gold and the other is pale blue. I decorated the gold box with red and the blue box in blue but the process was the same for both boxes.


1. I started by gessoing the box tops with white gesso.
2. I used texture paste through a stencil across the top.
3. I painted on some DecoArt Glamour Dust on the texture dots for sparkle.


I used a resin frame I made with a Prima mould and some woodchip snowflakes. The metal flowers, metal snowflakesleavesstars and numbers are all from Prima. I added some plastic ornaments and some red beads from my stash. Everything was stuck in place with Prima 3D Matt Gel.


I added some pretty papers from Graphic 45 on the front panels, back and sides of both boxes.


I also  lined the inside of the blue box with G45 papers too.


I tied ribbons around the front flaps and added some fussy cut G45 poinsettias to the gold box. I finished both boxes with some fine white glitter to give a frosted look.
Now, just to fill them with Christmas goodies.

Now it's your turn to have fun and create your mixed media projects. You can enter our challenge as many times as you like. A full list of the rules is on the challenge blog. For more inspiration please visit the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog to see the fabulous mixed media projects created by our multi talented team.
Remember to have fun crafting and enter your "Anything Mixed Media Goes" creations in our 
December challenge. 

The Creative Artiste Design Team will be taking their usual winter break in January but we'll be back on February 6th 2026 with more mixed media inspiration for you.
Until then, MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
May 2026 be kind to you xx

I have entered these boxes in the following challenges:


Monday, 1 December 2025

Crafts Galore Encore December 2025

December is finally here. Now the Christmas panic can start. So much shopping, decorating and wrapping to do. And not to mention all the food prep and eating.

And then it will all be over in the blink of an eye.

Meanwhile .....

.... there is a new challenge starting today at

Thank you to everyone who joined in with last month's challenge. The winners have been announced on the challenge blog. This is a month long challenge and you can enter up to three times. There is a full list of rules on the challenge blog.

Our theme every month is the popular
"Anything Goes"
and our sponsor this month is:


who are offering a prize of $25 to spend in their store for our lucky winner.


The team was lucky enough to be allowed to choose a collage set each from the store to work with this month. I chose Nature's Winter. The collage sheet has 8 lovely wintery images. I printed 6 of the images to make a set of six Christmas cards that are 7"x 5" (18 x 13 cms).


I thought these three images would look wonderful with blue backgrounds. I used silver mirri card for matting and some lace ribbon on the rabbit card. I cut the background layers to look like hills on the polar bear card. The snowflakes, poinsettia, sentiments and trees are cut with various dies and I finished these cards with silver gems.

I used the images with Red Cardinals* for the second trio of cards. I paired them with a red and green and gold card. The snowflakes and sentiments were cut with various dies and I used fancy scissors for the gold trims on two of the cards. I finished the set with red gems.

Now please visit the  Crafts Galore Encore challenge blog where you can see the wonderful projects and cards created by our talented team using Gecko Galz images.
Grab some inspiration while you're there and enter your "Anything Goes" creations in this month's challenge.

* I was excited to see my first Red Cardinal in real life this summer. Also Hummingbirds. So little and perfect.

I have entered this set of cards in the following challenges: