Advent Calendar Boxes

I have been trying to get myself organized so that I can start posting some of my favorite Christmas projects. I've been making a lot of my Christmas gifts this year and it's been a lot of fun! I've also been making quite a few decorations. One of my favorite things at Christmas is Advent Calendars. I stumbled on this one on Ali Edwards' site earlier this year and was so excited! I had a bunch of these Papier-mâché boxes laying around.

http://aliedwards.typepad.com/_a_/2007/11/christmas-proje.html

So I decided to make my own version with as much stuff as I had on hand as possible. I did buy paint (Apple Barrel "Burgundy" and Jo-Ann Craft Essentials "Spanish Olive") chipboard numbers and a few boxes, but otherwise I was able to use up a lot of my craft supplies.

First I painted my boxes. I debated on whether or not to paint some of the boxes a chocolate brown, but laziness won out in the end and I just left them their normal kraft color. I really like them though. The numbers were probably the hardest part. It's really hard to find stickers or chipboard that is all numbers, and I didn't want to have to buy 10+ sets of alphabet stickers (Need lots of 1's and 2's!). I finally found a set of chipboard numbers fro Colorbok, although all of the fonts were different and random, I decided I'd work with it. I painted them white and then I also used some white Foam Thickers from American Crafts, some stencils and a few were hand numbered by yours truly :)

Another challenge? Attaching them to the wall. Because I'm not living in my own house at the moment, I decided that I didn't really want to put dozens of holes in the walls. So instead I bought a sheet of 1/2" foam core, cut it down to a manageable size and attached the boxes to it with thumbtacks. And no, my thumbtacks don't match; and yes, it is bugging me, but with the lids all on I'll be fine :) I wasn't about to buy a bunch of thumbtacks that I didn't need. I'd much rather use that little bit of money for crafty things! So now I'm debating whether or not to attach the foam core to the wall with foam poster tape or just setting it on one of my painting easels. We'll see...

I filled each box with a note for an activity for my little girl. There were things such as:

• Driving around to look at Christmas lights
• Picking out a tree
• Playing a game
• Watching a Christmas movie
• Making gingerbread houses
• Singing Christmas songs
• Helping me make a treat, etc.

I also put a chocolate Kiss or other candy or a small gift (princess stickers and lip balm in the three biggest boxes that look empty). So there you have it...my first Christmas craft!

A Couple of Photos

I swore to myself that I would stop neglecting my blog. That lasted all of two posts. {Sigh} I have lots that I want to post, but not a lot of time at the moment to devote to it. I recently spent about 4 days at my parents' house crafting with my mom and taking lots of photos. Most of the crafty stuff was Christmas gifts, so I'll have to wait to post those projects, but I have a few others to post in the next week or so. Here are a couple of my very favorite photos that I took while I was there (the second one is of my little sister):

Gotta love that bokeh!

Crocheted Capelet

I have been working on crafty projects non-stop for the last couple of weeks. I finished these at the beginning of that spurt. I saw the pattern for this cute little sweater and decided that even though I am not very good at following patterns, this one was simple enough that even I could do it. Sure enough, each of these took me about 3 hours to finish. My little girl picked out the blue and I also wanted to make a purple one to match some other things that she has. SO EASY!

And here it is on my little model, as she's dancing away

Blog Neglect...and a Cute Sewing Project

For a while I lost all will and desire to do anything even vaguely creative. All of my creative energy and time was being spent reading ridiculous amounts of history texts and writing long papers on those. Now that I am finally finished with school (until I decide I'm bored and go back) and have had a few months to catch up, I've been immersing myself in new projects. Hopefully this means that I will stop neglecting this little blog of mine.

Many of these are to get a jump on Christmas gifts, so I won't share them yet, but some are just for fun. A few weeks ago I saw the cutest dishtowels in the $1 bins at Target (well, the $2.50 bins) and decided that I ought to try to make a Halloween dress for my almost 3 year old little girl.

Pictures aren't great--

but I think it turned out kind of cute, especially because I spent a total of $2.50 on it. (I had the ribbon left over from a previous project, so no need to buy more!)

T.O.P. July Monthly Special--Fragmentary Portraiture

Yes, I waited til the last day of the month--but at least I'm still within it this time! Here is the link to the Take Out Photo July Monthly Special.

I know this picture focuses more on the candy, but I do love that she was holding onto it for dear life. She is such a candy fiend, but rarely has any at home. Have to love parades in July! I think she was afraid it was going to get taken away. I think it qualifies as "things directly attached."

I love the little dimple in her elbow...it's one of my favorite things.

Take Out Photo May Monthly Special

I'm a little slow--I've been meaning to post this for a while. I took these for the May Monthly Special at Take Out Photo. The assignment was "Color."

I know this isn't very colorful; I tried converting it to black and white, but it looked so much better with the little bit of color that it has.

Callie's Bridals

My beautiful sister-in-law Callie got married last weekend, so a few weeks ago I took some bridals of her. It was my first time doing bridals, but I think they turned out pretty good. These are just a few of my favorites, but I may have to post some more later. Thanks for letting me experiment with your pictures, Callie!

We were just about finished when it began to rain so Callie ran across the street and down the block and waited under here until we came to let her in her mom's building. My little girl loved that she got to hold a flower and hang out with Callie all day!