Matchbox Advent Calendar with CTMH

Perhaps you've seen those cute advent calendar's floating around on Pinterest? Maybe you've even seen the tutorial at Split Coast Stampers? Yes it's those cute matchbox-dresser style calendar's!

When I saw them, I fell in love, and was possessed by the desire to make one as soon as possible! I had, however, just completed making one of these beauties from this season's CTMH Workshops on the Go.

Even I probably don't need 2 adorable, freshly made advent calendar's in one year. Luckily my sister-in-law happened to mention how much fun having one of them would be, AND they were in town over American Thanksgiving! I could totally pull this off, and have it done in time to send home with them.

This is what I came up with:

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out! I simply followed the basic directions from the SCS tutorial (see link above) but instead of using the die they mentioned, I cut my boxes using the Artiste Cricut Cartridge from Close To My Heart. In fact ALL the cardstock, paper, stamps, brads, ribbon and so forth are from CTMH except the cardboard (from some random packaging I had laying around), a tiny circle punch from the dollar bin at Michaels, and the glue I happened to use is Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive. I like it because it dries so quickly and has a super fine pointy nozzle that has never clogged on me yet!

For the boxes I used my Gypsy to size and position the cuts just right on the mat. I sized them to 2.9 and was able to get either six inner boxes or six box wraps from each sheet of cream cardstock. I didn't cut the decorative papers until after I had the chest pretty much made and assembled, so I could make them to measure for my version of the chest.

Here are the tools and materials I used:

Tools:
Cricut Expression
Gypsy
Bone Folder
Trimmer with scoring blade and cutting blade
Small circle punch
Paper piercer and mat
Small number stamps (I used ones from the Nov SOTM - Capture the Date)
Clear stamp block
Stamp scrubber
Ruler (for adding gold edges)

Materials:
8 Pieces of Colonial White Cardstock
3 different coordinating B&T papers (the ones I used are retired CTMH papers)
Cardboard (approx 6" x 6")
Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive
Gold marker
Shimmery Ribbon
White poinsettia embellishments (retired)
Colonial White Brads (24)
Desert Sand ink (use whatever coordinates with your papers)
Stamp cleaning spray
Glue dots

I THINK that's everything!
If you have any questions or comments I'd love to hear from you.

Paper Pumpkins and Turkey Table-topper

I'm getting ready for Thanksgiving. Are you? This morning I woke up early and the baby slept a bit late so I was able to create some fun Thanksgiving decor. I was inspired by this Turkey Die cut from Lifestyle Crafts.
http://www.ohmycrafts.com/lifestyle-crafts-turkey.aspx

Cute, no?

BUT I'm Canadian, and Canadian Thanksgiving is THIS coming Monday. I don't have time to go looking for this die, let alone order online and wait for it to arrive. Then I remembered: There is an adorable turkey shape on my Close To My Heart - Artiste cartridge! Hooray!

See it here on pg. 78 of the Artiste Handbook. It's not a 3D item though, so I had to improvise. I cut the top half of the 3D pumpkin out of two different B&T papers from the retired Abundance paper pack for the tail feathers. Then I cut two slits into the top of the turkey to slide them into. Make sure at least one of the feather pieces slides far enough down to rest on your table and help the turkey stand upright! For my next one I may play around a bit with the placement of the slits for the tail feathers, but all in all, I think it turned out pretty cute!

Next I made a whole patch of cute little paper pumpkins using B&T papers I still have from the retired Abundance and Felicity paper packs from CTMH (It really is amazing how much you can get out of a paper pack!). If you know me, you know I just love all things pumpkin. Just yesterday, when I brought home a lovely little pumpkin candy dish from Home Sense, my husband told me I may need an intervention (he hasn't even seen the craft Pumpkins my son and I picked up from Micheal's a few days ago...). Ha! Intervention, indeed....

Anyway, the pumpkins are made with the same shape as our turkey tail-feathers, as well as it's bottom half and the little leaf/vine in the bottom corner of the same page in the handbook. Using my Gypsy I was able to fit two tops and two bottoms for each of 3 sizes on ONE sheet of paper! Pretty sweet, eh? I got a total of 12 pumpkins out of just 3 sheets of paper (two orange prints for pumpkins and one greenish one for the leaves) - a very economical set of thanksgiving table decorations! And the best part is, they fold flat for easy transportation and storage. Yay for decorations you can use again but don't take up a lot of room!

Sorry the pictures are a little odd. I'm still just learning how to use my fancy camera and the editing in Picasa. I hope you enjoy these fun ideas nontheless. Have a craftabulous day :)

Sweet Little 1 - Watermelon Birthday Party

 My baby girl just had her 1st Birthday - which completely explains the total lack of posts for the last several months. I decided to do a watermelon theme because a) Alanna is sweet AND juicy, just like a watermelon b) the pink and green combo is super cute and c) I had a watermelon stamp I was just itching to use! And so, without further ado, one more example of my craft crazed self in overdrive:

The Cards:

Here's the invite sent to various family members. Note the watermelon stamp  that got this ball rolling. The watermelon and face are from Peachy Keen stamps - coloured using copic markers. Shapes were cut using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge from CTMH. Edges inked with bubblegum from CTMH. Sentiment from various CTMH stamp sets. Paper and sparkles from who-even-knows-anymore, aka, my stash.

This is the card I actually made FOR Alanna, with lots of sparkles and the watermelon on a spring, because she's a total girl and I know that king of thing amuses her. Paper, ink, sentiment stamps and spring all from CTMH. Sparkles form Dollarama. Watermelon from Peachy Keen, coloured with copics.

 The Decorations:

Here's a little welcome sign I whipped up using paper from my stash, the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge, Wild Card cartridge (the font), the GYPSY (to weld letters, and choose NOT to cut some parts of the shape). The seeds were drawn with black Stickles glitter glue.

Here's a "sweet" little banner using Art Philosophy and Wildcard cartridges.

Over the table. These are very easy to make, although a bit time consuming. There are many video tutorials online so I'll spare you the details. If you want to learn to make these fancy little guys just search for "tissue paper pom pom tutorial" on you tube.

In the corner. 

Entry way

Some very large ones in the living room

The Treat bags:

Watermelon Rice Krispy treats. I followed this recipe  http://www.glorioustreats.com/2012/06/watermelon-krispie-treats.html

What I included in the treat bags: Watermelon Krispy on a stick (because everything is more fun to eat if it comes on a stick, right? And some Sour Watermelon candies.

All the Treat bags ready to go - so cute!

Bags are from Wilton. Tags cut with my Cricut using Art Philosophy Cartridge.

Stamps and ink from Close To My Heart. Thank you CTMH for making stamps that  can bend so I could fit them in the little circles!

 The Food:

Sorry it's sideways. I don't really feel like uploading it again though. Cupcake liners from Wilton. Stand from Dollarama. Used my Tupperwear decorator for the piping (Thanks Erin!).

I used this recipe for icing made with lime jello.  http://coleensrecipes.blogspot.ca/2010/11/kid-friendly-jello-frosting.html  For the Cupcakes I just piped it on in swirls and topped with a sour watermelon. For the big cake I iced it smooth and then dabbed/painted the stripes on using my silicon pastry brush and green food colouring.

Check out my mad painting skills. lol

I used one DH cherry chip cake mix and added LOTS of food colouring to get it this colour. Half the mix made 12 cupcakes and the other half I baked in a mixing bowl to get this dome shape. It's hard to see in this picture but there are mini chocolate chips throughout the cake for a watermelon seed effect.

The party scene. We had a fruit tray, Watermelon slices (of course!), and slush punch (which in hnidsight should have thawed a bit more before serving). Pink and green plates, napkins and utensils and tablecloths were all from Dollerama. I also wrapped water bottles in the same paper I used to make the invites, with little watermelon stickers in the front.

Here's the birthday girl scarfing down her cake. I'd like to point out that she ate half of at least 3 other peoples cupcakes as well. This was AFTER she'd been eating fruit and things for at least half an hour before everyone arrived!

Here she is opening her gifts. Yes! That is an adorable watermelon romper! Thanks for noticing :)

Happy Birthday sweet little 1!