Advent Calendar Introduction

I've been creating an advent book for my own young kids and thought I might as well post it here. Maybe it will be helpful to you! Let me know if/how you're using it!

Advent Calendar Introduction

The word "Advent" means "arrival" or "coming" and symbolizes the approach of Christ's birth (and fulfillment of the prophecies about that event) and the awaiting of Christ's second coming.

In advent we get to light candles. Candles remind us that Jesus said, “I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of Life.” (John 8:12)

There are 5 candles:

1. Prophesy candle symbolizing hope
2. Bethlehem candle symbolizing humility and preparation
3. Shepherds candle symbolizing joy
4. Angels candle symbolizing peace
5. Christ’s candle symbolizing love

Advent

I never did any kind of advent growing up so the idea is a little new to me. I like it, but without any real traditions to fall back on I've really been making it up as I go:

First, I impulsively bought this adorable 25 boxes advent calendar a few years ago on clearance. I really don't want to put candy or any other kind of gift in it (the kids get enough of that stuff as it is) so I've been looking for a nativity sceen set to go in it ever since. I've been using a make-do one for the last two years but it's mismatched weird. I've been thinking about trying to make something or paint pieces or something!

Second, We had an advent wreath the last two years because our church offered great kits for a suggested donation, but I never kept the cheap foam ring base because it was already disintegrating after a month. So now I'm trying to scrounge around my house and make something into a wreath. Fortunately I kept the candles and I've got a lot of other junk around here.

Third, we've been using a little homemade pamphlet our church handed out in 2009 for a daily devotional to go with advent. Even at 2 years old, NJ understood that he had to sit through it before he was allowed to see what surprise awaited him behind the cute numbered door on the advent calendar. However, the material was way over his head and even now at 4 years old, he's not getting it.  So I've been working on a little advent book with daily devotionals he might understand.

How about you? Help me out here!! What are your advent traditions?

The Thanksgiving Tree

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Looking for a fun quick craft? The instructions for this felt turkey were very straightforward. I did it all with glue, two staples, and two quick hand stitched spots to avoid having to break out the sewing machine. This little gobbler covers a star on a photo holder tree.

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I was looking for a way to incorporate something daily into our November- kinda like an Advent calendar for Thanksgiving- so each day we write a few things we've thankful for on leaves and slide the leaves into the photo holder spots. Tomorrow we start adding some yellow leaves too! I made a little word file with the leaves so all I have to do it print on colored paper. Email me if you'd like the file, I'm happy to pass it along!

How did this all come about???

I recently stopped by a client's house and noticed her Christmas tree was up. I'd LOVE to have mine up but my hubby has this crazy rule about waiting until Thanksgiving is over. So I quickly said, "I love that you have your Christmas tree up!" She sweetly told me it was actually their Thanksgiving tree and on closer inspection I realized that all the decorations were, in fact, fall-ish! The lights were orange and brown, the glass ornaments were fall colored, and under the tree she had a cute little scarecrow and some pumpkins and a fall leaf garland. It was perfect!!!

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I texted a photo to my husband before I left, but he still wasn't sold. We'd been talking about how part of what makes me want to put up the Christmas decorations early is all the wonderful holiday traditions that make it a month long celebration! We started doing an advent calendar a few years ago and we all love it. Each day we read a little devotional and scriptures together and then open a door in the calendar. Each door holds one little piece of a manger scene- baby Jesus comes on Christmas day! The kids really get into it, even if they have a hard time sitting still for the full devotional and it's great family time. I'm hoping this Thanksgiving tree turns into an equally well loved holiday tradition!

Wonderful Mother

Here are a few more Mother's Day Cards!

I used the Stampin' Up! Build A Blossom punch and a little technique my sister showed me for curving the petals up a little. It's super fast and easy and makes all the difference in making the flowers pop!

Behind the pink flower you'll see a white piece of paper that I embossed with my sister's Big Shot. I think the texture really adds a lot to the card!

On this second card I used a bolder pattern of paper for the petals and glitter embossing powder on the sentiment. 

Baby Bump

This layout is actually a full spread, but I censored the other half because it had several photos of my bare giant pregger tummy and you don't want to see that.  However, I wanted to post this right side because I like the balance of it. 

I cut the brown floral piece in the upper right with my sister's bigshot (a super cool cutting machine) while I was visiting her in Texas last month. I made myself several of those to spare, so hopefully they'll show up in other layouts too!

The blue flowers are also made with a big shot- although Cheryl was the one to make them. She actually made a bunch of them for some other project and offered me a few leftovers! They're made with a Big Shot Stampin' Up! Embosslit Die, so one run through the big shot cuts AND embosses! Cheryl then put some Stampin' Up! Smooch Pearlized Accent Ink on the raised piece and added a pearl in the center (did I get that right, Cheryl?). I love them so much I'm tempted to buy a big shot myself! (but only temped)

In the Hospital

This is a pair of layouts I created to tell the story of our hospital stay when Gunner was born.

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 This first one is very plain, but the photos are so meaningful to me that I really wanted to keep it simple. There's a bunch of text below the photos that I've blurred out, but otherwise, it's as you see it.

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 The second one turned out much more interesting- at least I have more to say about it: First, the footprints were done with this carbon copy type thing that keeps all the ink off the baby- very interesting. However, the ink rubbed off and smeared when you touched it. So, I scanned the image and reprinted it on acid free card stock. I hope this will preserve them nicely.

The second cool thing on this layout is that I used a borrowed mirror stamp to get a second seahorse facing the other direction! it worked very well and was much easier than I imagined (although I'm not sure what exactly I imagined would be hard about it).

First Days Home

 This spread, also for Gunner's baby book, is all about those first few days at home.  Even now, barely more than a year ago, I've forgotten the crying and fatigue and I just remember how sweet he was (and is).  Babies sleep so much those first few weeks- that in itself is a miracle!

Again, I'm branching out here with so much pattened paper, but given how much I have in my cabinet just waiting to be used, it seems only logical to try to incorporate more.

My favorite part of this layout is the journaling block on the left side. My digital blurring makes it loose a lot of the detail (and almost makes it ugly!), but it's the large stamp from the Stampin' Up! 'Notably Ornate' stamp set. It's a really beautiful stamp!

The big dream tag was something in my sister's stash, although I redid about 6 things on it, so maybe I should have just starter from scratch on it instead of destroying a tag!

Also I'll point out that every page in this baby book has something ocean-y on it. I'm hoping it'll tie the whole book together while allowing for a lot of variation from page to page. I guess I'll have to wait and see how it works out!

Coming Home

Here's another single page layout I did for Gunner's baby book. This is from the day we brought him home from the hospital.

I'm usually not one for so much pattern in my paper, but I love how this one turned out!

That piece at the end of the word "Adore" is a Tim Holtz fragment. I used glossy accents to apply a piece of paper to the back of it that I had stamped to match the shell to the upper left of "Adore."

(As always, my journaling is digitally blurred to keep my hubby feeling safe from the cyber-stalkers.)

Nice to Meet You!

I've been working on Gunner's baby book and I've gone outside my norm and done a few single page layouts instead of all spreads.  Here's the layout about NJ meeting his new baby brother!

(As always, click on the photo for a larger version)

I love the little green tag you see here. I made it by covers some chipboard with a scrap from the quilt my mom made Gunner. I have quite a few scraps from his quilt and I hope to add more when ever I find ways.

More Mother's Day

Mother's Day

Mother's day is barely more than a week away so I've been working on a few cards for all my moms!

Positively Splendid

I just love giveaways! Check this awesome one out! Positively Splendid is giving away an Epic letterpress!

Challenging

My sister's mother-in-law got a nice big stack of scrapbooking paper at a garage sale for a great price, and was nice enough to bring it out at Christmas. She let us pilfer through it and swipe whatever we wanted from it (she's very generous like that). However, buried among the beautiful stuff was several sheets of this seriously funny paper covered in pink poodles! After several comments back and forth about how nothing good could come from this paper, someone suggested that we all take a sheet and accept the challenge of making a card from it. I think the only rule was that the poodles had to show.

Here's my answer to the challenge. I was quite impressed with myself, making a passable card with such crazy paper and even including an adorable pun on the card until I saw Deanna's card. You MUST check out her card too! It's OMG cute- chic even! She was on such a good role that she even made three more!

A Valentine

Yes, it's been almost 6 month since I've posted, but I've been in a serious dry spell- I call it "Crafter's block." Fortunately, I got to hang out with my sister over Christmas (after a full year apart!!!) and she got me back on a papercrafting roll!  I came home with some new supplies (thanks to Sister-Santa and my favorite SU consultant) and a new lust for paper!

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I wanted to work on my husband's Valentine's Day card completely unrushed, so on the first day of February I got to playing. Of course it took most of two days due to my sporadic availability (can you believe my one year old needs supervision?) but didn't it turn out pretty? I'm not sure exactly what to call me style, but this is it! A little bit vintage, a little bit botanical, a bird, a butterfly, something mechanical... (dude, that rhymes! I think that needs to become my blog tag-line!) If you come over anytime in the next ten years, I'm sure my husband will have the card predominately displayed.

Nuts and Bolts: As you can see in the lower right corner of this collage, the card is one of those accordion style cards- do they have a real name? I find the format so much fun to work with because it allows you to make depth without covering a bunch of stuff up. The clock and large butterfly are from Stampin' Up! (SU) stamps and are embossed with Chocolate Chip craft ink.  The bird was made with the SU Bird punch and that faint butterfly behind the bird is also SU. The heart in the upper left and very back upper right is Tim Holtz (LOVE him!) grunge board, inked with SU ink and the heart in the lower right is hand shaped wire. The middle butterfly is hand cut from the DCVW Mariposa Stack (I love it so much I had to buy two just so I wouldn't be so stingy with it). The very back has a small envelope with a tag slid in it. That tag is where I wrote my personal message.

Happy Birthday Dear Sister!

I'm so excited to finally be able to post pics of the card I made Deanna!  I had to wait until she got it in the mail, you know!

This is what the professionals call a Shutter card. It's a lot of fun to make and turns out so pretty!