Kicking and screaming towards the holidays...

I don't mind hearing Christmas music at the grocery store.
I don't care if you put up your tree the weekend before Thanksgiving.
When someone says "I'm finished my Christmas shopping" I'm happy for them and more than a little bit envious.

But, for the most part, I'm not one who gets into the spirit.  I'm not cranky or bah-humbug, I just...I just like routine, and Christmas (holidays in general, in fact) really messes with that.

So you can imagine my reaction when I found out that I had to create a Christmas decoration using Silhouette's Advent Calendar.  I was centered somewhere between a knot of dread in my stomach and full on panic.  And that lasted for days.  Every moment in the shower, driving to work, loading the dishwasher and folding laundry was spent wondering how I was going to pull this off.  Surely, I thought, my Christmas non-spirit would show through, and everyone would know I was a big, fat phony when it comes to Christmas cheer.

And maybe that was true in the beginning.  Maybe I was faking-it-til-you-make-it, but just as that implies, somewhere along the way a switch got flipped, and I started to have fun. Then I started glittering stuff and then I started having a LOT of fun.  And then I noticed glitter in Kerig's beard and, well, you just can't get any more fun than that!

Maybe you're asking yourself "So what did you do with it??"  Or not.  But let's proceed like you were actually curious, shall we?

After all the thinking about how I was going to do this, I finally came up with the idea of combining two of my favorite childhood Christmas traditions.  Our family didn't decorate the tree until Christmas Eve (I know, right?  Ridiculous!) so we didn't have the same level of daily anticipation that "kids these days" have. We did get the cardboard Advent Calendars, and the best part of them was hunting for the day.  What was behind the door was never really all that great, but there was something about looking at all the numbers and finding the right one - that was the exciting part to me.  The other thing that I liked was this thing that my aunt made for us.  It's too hard to explain, but it suffices to say that it had 25 peppermint candies tied to it and every night after dinner we got to untie one and have our mint.  Twofold greatness: candy AND getting to watch the line of mints get shorter every day!

So my thought for this was to combine the two elements I liked best - the hunt for the right day and candy.  On December 1st, this will be nothing but rows of numbered bags. On the first day, we'll find the number 1 bag, and have the Hershey's Nuggets that are inside, and then rehang the bag with the decoration side out.  Every day we'll repeat this process, and as Christmas approaches, it will go from boring rows of numbers to lots and lots of sparkling Christmas and winter scenes.

 Here's a couple of the decorated sides:

Ok. I'm not going to pretend that I don't have favorites.  And this snowman and that penguin? They're the favorites.  You can't tell in the picture, I don't think, but the snowman's eyes and coal buttons are actually black glitter.  Who knew there was an actual use for black glitter??  Well. Now you know! Adorable.  (That is so not humble. But I'm just so pleased with them!)

These are distant runners-up in the favorites category, but it doesn't matter, because the cumulative effect of all these little boxes is sheer Christmasy goodness.  This is going to stay on the shelf behind the sofa, where it'll get seen a lot and is easily accessible to for bag-flipping-and-candy-retrieving.

Be sure to stop by the Silhouette blog to see the other girls' ideas for the Advent Calendar.

And if you're wondering about supplies:
Simple Stories Snowflake-Chevron paper (for the bag)(I *love* this paper and wish I had some left over.  the black/grey chevron is fantastic)
Lawn Fawn Peace Joy Love 6x6 paper pad (for the little patterned bits)(except the snowman's and penguin's nose - that's a scrap of BoBunny paper.)
Lawn Fawn Peace Joy Love Mixed Sequins  and Lawn Fawn Peace Joy Love Snowflake Sequins are the random bits here and there.
The glitter could be from Silhouette or Martha Stewart, and the penguin's hat is glittered using Doodlebug's Sugar Coatin Chunky Glitter
All the shapes except the bag are from the Silhouette online store.  You can see the Silhouette blog post for clickable links for those.
The bag itself is something I made so it would fit perfectly within the structure of the advent calendar and be wide enough to hold a couple of Hershey's Nuggets.  If you're interested, ask for it in the comment section and I'll send it your way.
And, ohmygoodness, is that another aflairforbuttons flair? Why, yes. Yes it is.  And I'll tell you another thing: that link takes you to the set of flair that has the one I used, but I didn't buy that.  I actually did the 12 custom buttons option.  I just didn't have a need for 8 (eight!!) Christmas themed buttons.  So I picked a couple of Christmasy flair and then mixed in some more Caroline-friendly themes.  ;)  (No. I'm not in the aflairforbutton lady's back pocket.  I just love these flair pieces.)


Thanks (as always) for stopping by! I hope your December is off to a great start!

Post #18 w00t!

I mean, that's, like, a burning 2.57 posts a MONTH! Whew! No wonder I'm so exhausted!! :P

But it's Circle Journal time again! I loooooove this project. Every month (or so) I get all nervous and anxious about creating a new layout, and every month (or so) I get finished and think "That was fun!!" I would definitely do this again, and would recommend that anyone even remotely interested do it. So much fun!

This month's book is called "It's the little things that make life big" and it's all about the everyday things that we appreciate and make life more of a celebration than a chore. It was fun to think about the things that I just love, but a little harder to boil it down to things that I love *everyday*. And I don't necessarily think that Kathy meant it that way - not strictly everyday - more like ordinary, free/low cost things that occur that you take pleasure in. I guess I added the "everyday" twist. Oops. But still, fun to think about that which brings me joy daily...



So. Uh. Yeah. I used Glimmer Mist on the left page. Lovely. Except that it warped the chipboard! :( I feel like spilled tomato juice on my neighbor's carpet. I really did try to be careful. I even painted it on because I was worried about over-saturating it and ...warping it. I blame the Glimmer Mist!
The other big challenge was the acrylic page. I wonder if people before me went "I'm not dealing with that!" and just rearranged it further back in the book? If they did, I commend their resourcefulness! :P I hope that Bethany (next up in the book) doesn't hate me too much for this orange-y/yellow color that isn't exactly neutral.



Oh, and I have to point this out:


Look familiar? Seriously, why re-invent the wheel. I used this exact same arrangement for my "Play" layout not too long ago, only I used those weird waxy balls in the center. Thanks to a 40% off Michael's coupon, I now have a multi pack of these cute little micro beads. So out with the weird waxy balls and in with the cute little micro beads! And will Kathy know that I totally ripped off my own layout? Only if she reads this blog, which I'm thinking: NOT SO MUCH. Score one for the lazy scrapbooker!

A Smidge Too Late for January…

Go ahead, scroll down. I'll wait til you come back up.


Okay, so this is the project that I've been stewing on for a couple of weeks. I can't say that I've been "working" on it for that long, because truly the actual work time involved was maybe 6 or 7 hours, and that's from the (self-proclaimed) World's Slowest Scrapper. But back in December I found the base of this calendar at 2Peas, as well as the calendar rub-ons, both made by Maya Road. I wasn't certain what I wanted to do exactly but I knew the base would make a fun little calendar, and so into the shopping cart they went.


Shortly after these arrived on my doorstep (complete with a 25% off your next order! Coupon from 2Peas), the new Sugar Rush collection by Basic Grey was posted. Suddenly I had a slightly clearer vision of how I wanted the calendar to go: Fun, funky, ribbons, rub-ons, scallops… I gathered some paper, clicked "Buy Now" and then contemplated the nature of ugly gray naked chipboard. Yes. Something would have to be done with that.


Joann.com to the rescue! Glimmer Mist on sale at 30% off, free shipping on orders over $50 (excuse to buy the previously mentioned Ott-Lite): YAY! Funny thing was, the chipboard needed to be treated before anything else could be done. But once it arrived, Glimmer Misting is fast, but messy (work in an old box, and if possible line the box with papers so it doesn't seep through and ruin your work surface). It took maybe an hour to get all 6 chipboard bases dyed on both sides and another 2 or 3 hours to let them dry fully. This is my kind of project: do something and then take a two day long break.


Once the bases were dry things really started to roll along. I trimmed the paper to the size I wanted and corner rounded two corners and inked the edges. That took maybe an hour or so. No tedious brainwork. In fact, I purposely kept the thought at a minimum on this. With my colors chosen and supplies gathered, everything else was done without too much thought put into it. I knew if I started customizing things too much I'd get mired down, and most likely bored or frustrated and quit. Once the inking and rounding was done, another ½ hour or so was spent gluing the paper to the bases. For this, Scotch brand Wrinkle Free Glue Stick. It's less expensive, archival and perfectly suited to adhering larger cuts of paper without wrinkling.


The only part of the whole process was choosing the pictures. It took me about an hour or so to find pictures, resize them and order them online. I tried to keep them all vertical, because I knew that would fit better, but sometimes the shot that you want to use is horizontal, and you just have to deal. So I dealt. No biggie.


From there, it was only a matter of adhering the pictures, die cutting the scallop circles and rubbing on the calendar months (both done assembly line fashion) and adding some ribbon, jewels, a border die cut from bling cardstock or maybe a little rub on border)















And because the profile is so chunky and fun:

So, in recap:


Calendar base with acrylic flip easel: Maya Road
Dye for naked chipboard: Glimmer Mist
Patterned paper: Basic Grey
Calendar Rub-on: Maya Road
Cardstock for scalloped circles and various die cut borders: Bazzill Bling
Die cuts: QuicKutz nesting scalloped circles, scalloped border, dot border
Rub-on borders: Jenni Bowlin
Gems: Mark Richards
Inks: Staz On for edging pictures, ColorBox for papers
Various buttons and ribbons.
Oh! And teeny tiny staples courtesy of Tim holtz Tiny Attacher


Fun, fun, fun and guaranteed to on display and admired for one full year.