Sorry I haven't posted in a while but I have been a little under the weather, as has my Mum bless her who has been unwell since her last big dose of radiotherapy. What with school hols and the bank holiday weekend I haven't managed to finish much of anything in the crafty sense so I will apologise in advance if you visit me on Twitter because I'm going to show you something that already appears on my Twitter page. I was sat with hot drink in hand earlier today (What's happened to our Summer?) and I heard Dawn Bibby mention that people would be starting their Christmas cards soon and I thought well, before this past week, I had already started on some Christmas projects so I thought I would show you an Advent Calendar I made last year. I am making a very similar one for someone else at the moment but the one below I made for my youngest son and he loves it. Problem was he didn't want to put it away!
The Calendar is an MDF kit from Kaisercraft and the papers used came from a Graphic 45 collection called A Christmas Emporium and it is just lovely. The MDF kit comes with all the little draws to assemble and the numbers too. I sanded down all the pieces. Painted them with Kaisercraft paint in Soft Moss and used Tim Holtz's Distress Crackle Paint (Clear Rock Candy)over the top. I then ran over the cracks with Vintage Photo Distress ink and I edged all the papers with the same. When all the papers were stuck I gave everything a coat of Claudine Hellmuth Matt Multi Medium for added strength and protection.
The little trees are from Tim Holtz and come a natural colour so I put these in a little bag with some Adirondack alcohol inks (Meadow and a little bit of Stream), shook the bag until the trees were coated and left them to dry. I added a little glitter at the tips but that doesn't show up so well on the photo. The main picture was a piece of paper from the collection that I decoupaged up and added a few Kaiser pearls for the tree.
The Reindeer and the tree were chipboard shapes that I had. I think they were from Tando and the sleigh was cut on my Cricut using the A Quilted Christmas cartridge. I used Flower soft for snow.
Sorry I couldn't get this pic the right way but it shows one of the sides. The poinsettia was cut using Spellbinders Layered Poinsettia. The Naughty/Nice list came from the paper and I just curled it with a bone folder to give it dimension.
The great thing about doing one of these is that you can fill it with whatever you want. It doesn't have to be all sweets and chocs if your worried about what your kids eat although Christmas is a time for all that indulgence! You can also put little notes in to increase their excitement and the best thing is that if you get bored with it you can recover it!!
Well whether you start your Christmas crafting now or not give these calendars a go as they give lots of pleasure and are lovely to make and if your like me and you have a ton of Christmas cards to make for personal use and for others get crafting now. You'll be glad you did.
Back Soon (That's a craft promise!)
Michelle x.
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