The Festive Face Off

It must be every crafter's dream to take delivery of a huge hamper of craft goodies and be able to make whatever you like with the contents, but that's just what happened to me! The reason is that I am one of the bloggers taking part in the Festive Face-Off which has been arranged by Country Baskets.

Thirty of us have received a hamper of goodies from which we each need to create a decoration. The entries will be judged and there will be prizes, but more importantly the finished decorations are to be donated to charity, along with a cash donation.

My hamper was crammed with all kinds of gorgeous goodies - artificial flowers and foliage, ribbons, lace, stacking boxes, baubles, wires, buttons and much, much more.....

The stacking boxes were what immediately caught my eye, closely followed by the artificial flowers and foliage. I haven't done any flower arranging for many years, but I could just picture the hamper itself as the container for a festive arrangement, with decorated gift boxes incorporated into it.

I started by decorating the boxes. I painted them with acrylic paint, applying it with a fine sponge rather than a brush as I found it gave a more even covering. Then I stuck some of the beautiful lace around the rims of the lids.

Next I made faux bows from ribbon loops and attached them to the lids, topped with some of the little flock snowflakes from the hamper.

Then I turned my attention to the hamper. To bring the arrangement up to the top of the basket, I had to stack three blocks of flower arranging foam, one on top of the other,  and I didn't want that and all the necessary fixings to show through the open wicker of the basket, so I used the hessian in which the goodies had been wrapped to line the basket. I covered the rim with lace to match the boxes.

Before starting on  the arrangement, I decided to make some extra bits to include in it. There was a roll of green wire provided, which I curled around the handle of a wooden spoon to make some "springs" - after all, the arrangement would be springing out of the hamper! Also provided were some wonderfully velvety soft artificial stachys leaves. I couldn't see any immediate way of attaching them to anything, so I glued them together in pairs over a piece of wire.

The tiny glittered apples on wires came from the hamper, as did the matching garland of miniature baubles which I threaded around the base of the stems to hide any bits of foam that showed through. Finally I tucked the gift boxes in behind the flowers and added a spray of glittered wooden leaves on leather thonging (I absolutely LOVE these - I'll definitely be using them again in the future!) to add some interest to the front of the hamper.

I'd like to thank Country Baskets for providing such an amazing selection of materials - the contents  of the hamper were truly inspiring!