Graphic 45 Twelve Days of Christmas Advent Calendar

I'm back with my second post of the day! As you can tell, I'm a little behind on my posts so I want to catch up before the holidays are over!
This project is for my baby girl, who loves counting down the days until Christmas.

 Twelve Days of Christmas Advent Calendar

I picked up a paper mache advent calendar at HL and started off by painting the edges and compartments with Warm White acrylic paint. I then covered the advent calendar with papers from Graphic 45's Twelve Days of Christmas collection ( one of my faves). Each compartment is numbered and decorated with fussy cut images from the 8 x 8 paper pad. The numbers were stamped in Versamark and then heat embossed with gold powder.This really makes the numbers pop.

I sponged gold acrylic paint and Snow-Tex on all the edges to give them a snowy look.

 I fell in love with the signature page of this collection but it was too big to fit on the back. So I decided to "re-create" it , my way .  All the images were fussy cut from  the paper then layered over and  under the song lyrics.  I used foam tape on some of the images to give them more dimension.

I created a cute Christmas morning scene on top of the calendar. The little tree is from the dollar store. I dabbed it with white gesso, added gold bead trim, red bows and topped it off with a glittered star. All the tiny gift boxes and bags were made by hand using scraps from the paper collection. I found the little wagon and teddy bear in the miniature section of my local art store. They are the perfect addition to my Christmas scene.

Needless to say, my daughter loved it and looks forward to opening the little compartments each morning. There is always a sweet surprise awaiting her. 

Thank you so much for stopping by!

12 Tags of 2014, July

Hey everybody! I'm back to share my tag for the month of July. I fell in love with Tim's tag as soon as I saw it and knew I just had to make the time to create my own . Being from Southern California and all, I can't help and be in love with anything beach theme.Since I've moved to Texas,  I think the beach is the one thing I truly miss from Cali...that and the gorgeous weather.

I stayed pretty true to Tim's version and had to purchase the Sand and Sea dies ( any excuse to get new goodies will do) . The background of the tag was created with a combination of Distress paints, stains and inks. The edges are distressed and inked with Frayed Burlap.

I didn't have Shrink Plastic so I just used a piece of plastic packaging and embossed it with the Swirls Texture Fade. It reminds me of waves so it was perfect for the ocean theme. I inked the sea horse with Spiced Marmalade, Rusty Hinge and Barn Door Distress Inks. I also used Rock Candy Crackle and then sprinkled some gold embossing powder on top. I think he turned out awesome!

I followed Tim's recipe to create the "sand" and I've got to say it looks just like the real thing. And it didn't flake off! I'm definitely going to use this technique again. The sand dollar and starfish were painted with distress paints and then sprinkled with gold embossing powder. I also used Distress Stickles on the starfish for added texture.

I had so much fun creating this tag and can't wait to see next month's tag.

Hope you are all making the time to participate in the monthly tags.

Till next time, have a great one!!!

12 Tags of 2014, June

Hi guys! It's been a couple of weeks since I posted on my blog, but I've just been super busy. The kids are on summer vacation and I've been putting in a lot of hours at work. So that  leaves me with only a few hours here and there to craft or do anything else, for that matter! Don't you just hate it when life gets in the way of crafting, lol? Well, I did manage to squeeze in my tag this month with just a few days to spare. Let me know what you think!

 

Tim showed us a really cool way to use our stencils and Distress inks to create a watercolor background for our tag. This was my second try since I didn't like the way the first one turned out. I guess it's because I don't have any of the mini ink pads and it was hard applying several colors onto the stencil without it turning all muddy. Some of you may know, I have an obsession with all things "Alice" and having just ordered some new stamps from Oxford Impressions, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to play with my stamps.

 

 

I used the harlequin stencil ( which always reminds me of Wonderland), Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Peacock Feathers, and Black Soot Distress Inks to create my background. Then I stamped large flourishes using Versamark Ink and white embossing powder. I randomly stamped small script over the tag with Barn Door Distress ink for a pop of red. I colored Alice with distress inks and a water brush and aged the tag with Vintage Photo.

 

 

The two little wooden toadstools are by Recollections. I inked them with Barn Door Distress ink and sponged a bit of white paint on the tops then I lightly inked them with Vintage Photo. You may not be able to see it all that well, but I also added gold embossing powder on the edges of the tag.

 

 

I used the same colors as my background to ink up the seam binding and then I made the Paula bow and tied it on my tag. I had some cute charms that I thought would go well with my tag so I attached them to the bow using a charm clip. That's it!

 

I love the way my tag turned out and I'm really glad I found the time to participate this month. You still have a few days to play along, so I really hope you'll give it a go. Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll see you all real soon.