Archive for the ‘Hints and Tips’ Category

In part 1 of this post we outlined how we painted and assembled the Kaisercraft Advent Calendar. In this post we describe how we decorated the Advent Calendar with the recently released December 25th collection from Kaisercraft.

You can, of course, use a wide range of different papers to decorate your Kaisercraft Advent Calendar but I wanted to give it a vintage feel to match the photo I planned to use at it’s centre. As described in the previous post, I had already covered the drawers with papers from Kaisercraft’s December 25th Collection and painted the whole calendar in Kaisercolor Raw Umber paint. This post continues from that point.

1. I started by applying a little gold paint around the front edges of the drawers using a Ranger Acrylic Paint Dabber. This gives them a slightly distressed, vintage effect and adds a little sparkle at the same time. I printed out the numbers 1 to 24 on a colour printer and glued them to the front of the drawers before applying some Crystal Lacquer to give them shine. 
2. I decorated the outside edges of the calendar with strips cut from the reverse of the Wish paper (P719) from the December 25th collection. The calendar is just slightly longer than the paper so small corner pieces are needed to fill the gaps. I also cut some “wrought iron” corners from Pinecone Bazzill Cardstock using the Cricut Expression and the “Ornamental Iron 2″ cartridge to further decorate the corners. Then I used the Gold Paint Dabber again to add some sparkle to all the front edges of the calendar.
3. I decided to decorate the centre of the Advent Calendar with a Christmas photograph from the past. I started by cutting a piece of the Noel paper (P718) slightly smaller than the central area, distressing the edges and colouring them with the Paint Dabber. I mounted it in the centre of the calendar and layered on a square of the reverse of the Wish paper and then the photo (printed in sepia tone). The date plaque is a Kaisercraft Square Bookplate Wood Flourish (FL332) coloured with a Brown Ink Pad and distressed with the Gold Paint Dabber. The date itself is printed on a colour printer onto a scrap of the Wish paper.
4. The present decoration in front of the photo is a ScrapFX Present Corner Chipboard Shape (2009278C). The presents have been decorated with scraps of paper, coloured with Ink Pads and embellished with coordinating December 25th Jewels. The ribbon scroll is coloured with a Lipstick Ink Pad and then Red KindyGlitz Glitter Glue. The Chipboard Shape is glued to the corner of the calendar using Crystal Lacquer as a glue.

I hope you like the end result and it inspires you to create your own unique version of the Advent Calendar. Oh, and in case you are wondering, the little girl with the brand new doll on her lap in the middle of the photo is indeed me. Every time I look at the photo it makes me smile – and I think that’s what any Christmas decoration should be all about !

Chrissy xx

We’ve had a few requests from customers to provide instructions on the best way to make the Kaisercraft Advent Calendar so we’ve painted and assembled one and written this (rather long) post – hopefully you will find it of use.

Actually, this is the first of two posts on this subject – this one describes how we have assembled the main part of the Calendar and drawers. The next post describes how we decorated it.

There are probably other ways to assemble the Advent Calendar but what we’ve written below certainly works for us. If you have any further suggestions please feel free to get in touch.

1. Once unpacked the Kaisercraft Advent Calendar will contain one sheet of chipboard numbers, 25 chipboard drawers (24 for the calendar and one spare), a large MDF base (or back) board and a number of other MDF parts as shown in the picture below. The two parts marked A below are joined by tabs and are 32.6cm long – just a few millimetres longer than the four parts marked B which are 32cm long. There are two shorter parts marked C and 20 parts marked E (joined into two sheets of 10).
2. We would recommend that the parts are painted before they are separated since they are much easier to hold that way. If you are using Kaisercolor Acrylic Paint then, for dark colours, you will probably need to apply only two coats while lighter colours such as white may need three coats. You should not paint the tabs since they will then be more difficult to insert into their respective slots. The part marked D on the picture only needs its edges painted while all other parts should be painted on both sides (although, as mentioned, tabs should be avoided). The picture below shows the same parts after painting.
3. The backboard is also best painted at this stage. You should paint all around the edges but you do not need to paint the back or the centre if you intend to cover it with paper. Try to avoid getting paint inside the slots in the board since it will make assembly more difficult.
4. The best way we have found to separate the tabbed parts is using the Tim Holtz scissors but you can also use a strong, sharp craft knife (in which case it’s best to make a V-shaped cut from one side and gently separate the pieces). Tidy up the cut edges, especially on either side of each of the small pieces (marked E on the image), using a sharp knife or a file.
5. We’ve found that the tabs can sometimes be very tight to assemble – they are tight fit to start with and, unfortunately, the paint can cause the MDF to swell slightly making them even tighter. We would recommend using a sharp knife or file along each side of each tab to make them into a wedge shape (as shown in the picture below) – this makes them much easier to put together.
6. The next image shows the painted back board and indicates where each tabbed piece goes on the board. Place the back board flat on a strong desk or table and insert the tabbed parts carefully before pushing them home firmly. You may need to place a piece of scrap wood (or something like a strong coaster) on the top edge of the parts to push them home (but make sure you don’t push them over sideways and break the tabs). We would recommend assembling parts C (marked in yellow) first, followed by parts B (marked in green) and then parts A (marked in red).
7. The small tabbed parts (E) should be inserted after A, B and C. Again, place the back board on a firm surface and push the parts in firmly using a scrap piece of wood if necessary, making sure that they are all aligned vertically and the individual gaps for the drawers are all the same size.
8. If the tabs were particularly tight to assemble then glue may not be necessary. However, we would recommend that you apply a little wood glue or PVA glue to the back of each of the tabs to fix them permanently (and to the corners of the Calendar if necessary). We use Evo-Stik Wood Adhesive (available from Homebase) for this because it is very strong, dries clear and is extra fast acting to save time.
9. Because the back board is slightly larger than the main body of the Calendar, it may cause it to lean forward slightly. The part labeled D in the first picture can be glued to the front-bottom edge of the Calendar to correct this lean if required.
10. After gluing it may be necessary to touch-up some areas of paint (for example around the outside edges) – now is the time to do this. Once the main part of your Calendar is completed it should look something like the image below :
11. There are probably many ways to make the drawers for the Advent Calendar but the best way we have found is by sticking each corner of each drawer together with short strips of double-sided tape. The same tape can then be used later to stick the paper onto the drawers.
12. To cover each drawer you should cut a strip of paper the same height as the drawer and long enough to wrap around three sides plus a few millimetres at each side of the front. Squares to fit the front of each drawer can be cut from the specially designed Kaisercraft 12×12 papers (e.g. the Believe paper from the December 25th collection or the Milk & Cookies paper from the Silly Season collection) or from other papers of a suitable colour. To cut the finger hole into the square, turn it over and use the drawer as a template to mark the shape of the finger hole before cutting it out with a small pair of scissors (curved nail scissors work especially well).
13. The cover each drawer, remove the backing from the double-sided tape on the drawer, optionally use a glue stick to dab a little extra adhesive onto the chipboard and then wrap the paper around the drawer before sticking the square on the front. The next image shows each stage of this process.

At this stage you should have a fully assembled Calendar and 24 fully assembled drawers. From this point onwards there are many ways to decorate your Advent Calendar to make it unique. In the next post we’ll describe how we decorated ours.

One of the most frequently asked questions we have had over the last few months is “What is the best way to stick patterned or plain paper to an MDF Beyond-the-Page product” ?  In this post we describe the method we use which works particularly well for us.

The method we describe is excellent for sticking large areas of paper to BTP projects. You will need a sharp craft knife, a cutting mat and a glue stick. We use the the Kaisercraft Glue Stick which seems to be particularly well suited to this task since it allows repositioning while its wet but sticks very firmly when dry. Other glue sticks will probably work fine although we have not actually tried them.

If you intend to paint the edges of your MDF then this is definitely best done before sticking the paper down. Leave the paint to dry thoroughly before using the glue stick on it.

1. Start by cutting your paper to roughly the right size, leaving about 5mm all around. Place the paper face down on your desk.

2. Now use your glue stick to completely cover the MDF surface. Make sure the glue covers right up to the edges. You don’t need to put any glue on the paper.

3. Place the sticky side of the MDF onto the paper on your desk and press down to make sure it doesn’t move.

4. Turn the MDF over and use your hand to squeeze any air bubbles out of the paper. Make sure that the paper is firmly down all over including around edges (you can use the glue stick to apply small dabs of glue around the edges if you find any unstuck areas). It may be best to leave the item for a few minutes at this point to allow the glue to dry a little.

5. Turn the item face down on a cutting mat and use a sharp craft knife to cut the excess paper from around the edges. Try to keep the craft knife vertical to make sure that the edges are evenly cut.

6. If you wish you can sand very gently around the edges with very fine sandpaper (we use the flat file from the Kaisercraft File Set). Keep the file at about 45 degrees to the paper and only sand enough to remove any rough edges.

7. If you need to make holes for book rings then this may be the time to do it. If you use a round tool of about the right diameter (we generally use a Fiskars Eyelet Setter tool) to push the paper through the hole then you should get a nice even effect.

8. Depending on the paper you’ve used and the look you are trying to achieve you could be finished now. However, if you wish you could now finish the edges with an ink pad. You could just use it to hide any white edges of the paper or you could also use the ink pad to colour the edge of the MDF itself (giving a more subtle colour than paint would normally give).

As an alternative to the above method you could use double sided tape instead of a glue stick but we have found that there is more risk of getting wrinkles in the paper. We would advise against using a wet glue (e.g. PVA glue) since there is a much greater risk of bubbles and it takes a long time to dry.

We are often asked about Kaisercolour Acrylic Paints – how good is their coverage, how thick are they, etc, so we thought we would try and answer some of those questions…

Kaisercraft’s range of Kaisercolour Acrylic Paints includes more than 40 colours although, unfortunately, there is no published colour chart. Our shop includes images of each colour which are useful but their accuracy cannot be guaranteed because everyone’s computer monitor is set up slightly differently. The Kaisercraft Q1 and Q2 magazines each include a page showing all the different colours which is fairly useful although the images are a little small.

The paints themselves are neither runny or thick – think of HP Sauce (the squirty bottle variety) and you’ll be about there. They are best applied in two or three thin costs with a soft brush in which case they rarely leave brush marks on the MDF Beyond-the-Page projects that they are often used for. We would recommend lightly sanding MDF, especially around the edges, to remove rough patches.

Kaisercolour Acrylic paints give a Matt finish – for a Gloss finish we would recommend a final coat of Kaisercolour Gloss Varnish. We also stock Metallic Gold and Metallic Silver.

As far as we can tell the paints keep for a very long time as long as the cap is secured. You’ll sometimes see colour streaks inside the tube (usually when new) but just a brief swirl around with the brush before applying it to the product will make them disappear. By the way, we use paper cake/muffin cases to squeeze the paint into when we actually need to paint something – they’re cheap and easily cleaned up after use.