Thursday, December 29, 2016

To Die for Friday - Lawn Fawn Scalloped Treat Box Advent Calendar 2016

       Hello all. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  I was so happy to get to spend Christmas with my family including my soon to be brother in law. It helped raise my spirits to talk somethings out with my mom and getting to see the look on the kids faces when they opened their gifts. I am look forward to a fresh new start in the new year. Things for me will be changing and I can only hope they will work out just how I want them. The last few months have been a real downer for me (and not just because my 80's childhood ideals have passed on) not sure if its the weather or the way my life has ended up but I am determined to change it for the better. Now I know that the end of the year is here and Christmas is over but I want to make sure I got this up before the ring of 2017.


      In the last couple of years we had been getting the girls advent calendars (mostly to help stop the youngest for bugging us everyday it tomorrow was Christmas lol) and  I wanted to do something a little different this year. Most of the ones we get a filled with chocolate and I thought it would be fun to make my own advent calendar and fill it with toys for the kids. When I saw the Scalloped Treat Box from Lawn Fawn I knew right away that was the box I was going to use. It would be a good size to fit just about anywhere in the house and it was not going be easy for the kids to peek inside with out us knowing. Now that I had the idea of what I was going to do I knew my biggest problem was going to be figuring out what to put in side. 

     I decided to have half the boxes in red and the other half green and the add the opposite color number to the boxes. I used Lawn Fawn Finley's 123's dies for the numbers and just cut them out of the scrap card stock left over from cutting out the boxes. Cutting out the boxes did not take as long as I thought it was going to since I had to cut out 48 pieces. But it was a little boring even though I was sitting in my living room watching some TV. By the time I was done my arm was still making the cranking motion any time I lifted it lol. Once the boxes where all die cut out I used some score tape to put the pieces together. 


     Once I had the boxes filled and put together I had to figure out the best place to put them. The only place that made any since to me was around the TV. I wanted to hang them on the wall but didn't think they would hold up well, if this went over well with the kids and the boxes held up I was hoping to do this next year too, but we don't have any other flat surface other then on the TV itself. This worked well to a point, the boxes stayed up there nicely facing the way you see them in the picture but the kids wanted to turn the with the number facing await to they could see it counting down. We had a few boxes fall behind the TV.

     Now I'm sure your wondering what I came up with to fill these cuties. I had realized that I needed to find something small that I can add two of in one box because I was not going to be making 48 boxes so each of my kids had their own set (love my kids but no lol). So after walking the toy aisles with my kids (in the hopes of getting a idea of what they would like most for Christmas) I decide to go with a mix Tsum Tsums and Shopkins. Both of my kids just love those and they are small enough that you can fit two in one box. Now I will say this is not a cheap advent calendar but I knew I would not need to fill their stockings and since the Tsum Tsums came in 3 to a pack or 9 in a pack I would be saving some money there instead of buying a ton of mystery ones (although thinking about that now that could be fun too) and shopkins you can either buy the mystery ones which come with 2 to 3 in a pack or you can get on of the big sets and save there. I bought a few of the mystery packs only because I was trying to go with a Tsum Tsum theme but they didn't have enough different packs. 

     The kids loved seeing what they could end up with and that there was a mix of two of their favorite little toys in there. I would call this advent calendar a huge win for me and can't wait to do it again next year (I might even start shopping for what will go inside now). I can see this being a new family tradition. I hope this give you guys some great ideas to make your own fun advent calendars. Thank you all for joining me and have a safe and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!


Happy Crafting










Thursday, December 15, 2016

What What Wednesday - Wedding Card






     Hello all. I first want to start off by apologizing for this going up super late. Like I said in my update video I have just been in a real funk and even after I did the video I was just having a hard time getting back to my computer to edit it. I am hoping that once Christmas is over I will snap out of this funk and get right back into posting and making videos again. On to today's post.


     I made this card before we left on our vacation. Hubby was going to be heading out of town to a wedding for one of his very good friends and I knew that I would not have the time once we got back to make a card. When I saw the Happy Wedding stamp set from Lawn Fawn I knew right away this was the stamp set I wanted to use for this card. The two little birds just reminded me of the bride and groom so much. I wanted to incorporate the wedding colors into this card. Their colors are Cerulean and Mustard. I had used one of the sketch layouts that I had to help with the look of the card.

     I used one Spellbinders Small Scalloped circle dies and cut that out in black and then took a Die from the Spellbinders Small Circle set and cut it out using some scrap white paper. I then took the heart garland stamp and inked it up with Memento tuxedo black ink and then stamped it off 2 times on to some scratch paper and then stamped it the third time on to the white paper to make a beautiful background. I stamped the birds and the cake onto some 110 lbs cardstock using memento ink. I then took my copics that matched as close as possible to the wedding colors. I used C0 and C02 for the cake and for the birds with a little R20 for their cheeks and Y26 for their beak. I used the BG49 for the flower in her hair. I used R29 for the hearts on the cake and I used Y26 for the garland and BG49 (which matched the closest to the Cerulean color) for the cake stand. I then used the matching dies and cut everything out. I took some tombow and glues everything into place.

     I took some of the 110 lbs cardstock scrap and used BG49 to color it. I then took the sentiment and stamped that using memento ink. I wanted to add a little bit more or the Y26 to that card so I took some white pearls from my stash and colored them using the Y26 marker. 
     For the main panel I used some pattern paper from an old 4x6 paper pack that I have. Its called Just Married by Pebbles Inc. I just trimmed that down so there was a small white border. The card size is a side folding 4.25x5.5 card and the card base is 110 lbs cardstock. I added the sentiment to the card once I had the circles glued down and the panel was attached to the card base. I then just trimmed off anything that was hanging over. 

     For the inside of the card I used the to birds hugging  and colored them the same as the ones on the front of the card and die cut them out. I then took another one of the sentiments for the stamp set and stamped that out with memento ink. 
     That finished off this card. I really like how cute it turned out and I am really hoping the couple likes it and has a wonderful wedding. Thank you all for joining me and I will see you next time.

Happy Crafting