Dec
07

Advent calendar…

Posted by DeAnna

I finished my advent calendar on December 1st! Just in the nick of time ;D I love how it turned out and I know it will be a treasured keepsake for Christmases to come. I used Basic Grey’s Wassail line for the boxes, and I painted the entire frame with my acrylic paints and dry brushed on some silver glaze after it was dry to add a bit of sparkle. I added a few stickers to the boxes after I covered them with papers from the Wassail 6×6 paper pad. I inked up the numbers that came with the advent calendar (I shared it before, but here is the link to get it on scrapbook.com), with my Distress Inks (Fired Brick and Peeled Paint) and my white Colorbox pigment ink. When the white ink was dry I sponged on a touch of Antique Linen Distress Ink to tone down the bright white. After the numbers were all dry I spritzed them with perfect pearls to give them some sparkle. I also made some snowflakes combining a few of my QuicKutz Squeeze snowflake dies and some of the patterned paper. I adhered some bling brads to the front of the snowflakes and then attached them to some of the boxes. I decided not to dress up all of the boxes, only the ones with solid papers. I adhered the numbers using Glossy Accents and then I got to work on creating the middle piece.

I started with a 12×12 Bo Bunny dot cardstock and used the back (solid) side. It wasn’t quite as dark as I wanted it so I inked it up direct to paper with Fired Brick and then sponged on a bit of Antique Linen. I heat set it to dry. Then I took the lightest patterned paper and one of the solid white/cream papers in the 6×6 pad and created some hills. I created a few spiral flowers and used some of the stickers from the Wassail sticker sheet to create a branch with flowers, a title and added a snowflake and a beautiful red and white swirl bird. I glued everything down, and heat embossed two ornaments to hang from the title with glitter embossing powder from Stampendous. Then I used some puffy snow I got from my LSS and sprinkled on some glitter right away after painting it on so it would stick – to give the snow on the “hills” some sparkle. That was it!

I think the hardest part of this advent calendar was putting the pieces together from the calendar itself. I had to use my husband’s palm sander to grind down the connections where the parts separate from the sheets they come in. The calendar does not come assembled – it comes with a back, four outside pieces, four inside parts to create the inner box, and individual pieces that separate where each individual box sits – if that makes sense! All of the main wood pieces are connected to each other and you have to separate them. Separating them leaves bits kind of like when you punch out die cut pieces out of a sheet. The individual boxes are flat and you have to glue them together and then decorate them as you wish. Once it was all sanded, glued together and then painted, assembly went very fast. In hindsight I should have taken pictures as I did it, but I was trying to get it done fast so it would be ready on time and I didn’t think of it at the time.

DeAnna

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