I am so excited to share these two Christmas Countdown Advent Calendars I created using a simple $1.00 Ikea Frame. I have a fun, whimsical version and then a fancy glittered one below. Hopefully one will work for you!
First you'll need one of the following frames from Ikea. These fun frames can be spray painted or glittered...so go crazy!!
Fun, Whimsical Countdown Calendar
Here are the full, color instructions if you would like to know how to create this step-by-step.
Note: However, the collection I used to create it, Santa's Little Helper by
Imaginisce is from a past release and will be hard to find. But their
holiday collection currently out in stores or the darling Doodlebug
North Pole Collection would work just as well.
The following are the PDF files for the printables:
Then you just need to take your crop-a-dile punch and punch two holes through only ONE sheet of the plastic. Insert the sheet backside the frame and add your 1 1/2-2" binder rings. Start adding on the cards (see below).
You can click on the images below to see what they look like. Sadly I cannot find the digital file for the printables. If I do come across them, I'll add them back to the end of this post.
If you love this idea, I'd love you for PIN it to Pinterest!
For my long time followers you might remember that I had the fun privilege of teaching at Pre-Inspiration Unlimited last year. It's Teresa Collins' premier scrapbooking event held at Green Valley Ranch outside of Vegas about this time every year. And last year, it was my first ever event that I stayed and attended as a student and LOVED every minute of it!!
So when I was asked again if I'd like to teach and attend again this year, I said absolutely. Now I don't want you to think I get in as a student for free...I don't. I pay the same tuition as the other students and I am spoiled just as much as the other students and I LOVE it all!! Teresa and her team are amazing hosts and this event is beyond amazing thanks to Ginger from Down to Details. She coordinates EVERYTHING and makes everything so much more amazing.
Here's a sneak peek of the classes I'll be teaching at "Pre-Inspiration Unlimited" this year. This day of classes is open to ANYONE in the area that would like to sign-up at attend. Or heck with this short of notice, drop by the Green Valley Ranch and see what classes are still open. I know my Doodlebug and Echo Park/Kiwi Lane classes haven't filled up completely.
Turn a simple school composition book into a beautiful gift.
I used Imaginisce's Petal Roller Tool and Paper Roly Rosies, along with their i-top tool to create this gorgeous floral cluster on the front of the book. Then with the help of my most favorite tool, the i-rock tool and some copper bling I created the fun flourishes on the cover too!
Cut: 6 x 9 3/4" Caramel Apples (red dot side); 5 x 9 3/4" All Spruced Up (stripe side) - stripes horizontal; Use Brown Cardstock with Bracket Pattern.
Adhere red dot paper to outer edge of the front and back of composition book using liquid adhesive. Smooth out and sand off excess paper.
Slightly crease striped paper and adhere over binding of book.
Trim around "Better Friends" quote, ink edges and adhere to center of brown bracket.
Wrap green tulle around book where striped paper and red paper meet. Tie brown pom pom ribbon around knot in tulle.
Use i-rock tool, swirl stencil and gold glam rocks to create swirl.
Create assorted Roly Rosie flowers and adhere to book as you desired.
Optional: Use i-top tool to create small green brad and glue to center of one of your Roly Rosies.
Teresa and her team thought of this last year....and thought oh this will be fun for our new thing for 2011! How about some Pre-IU fun for those attending IU, and for those that may not have been able to get into Inspiration Unlimited as well! That is right....we have something brewin' and it is going to be off the wall fabulous! Something to get your creative juices flowing for Inspiration Unlimited!
Thursday, September 22nd......the fun begins at 8 am and continues through until 5:30 pm.....if you are up to it! It is all in how you want to play! So if you're in the area or willing to make a trip to Vegas baby, then join us for the pre-Inspiration Unlimited fun!!
We are going to have classes for you! On Thursday! Classes from some of our favorite manufacturers at that! Get creative with the latest and greatest tools from Imaginisce (and me)! Here's a sneak peak of my classes and link to their registration page:
Only 30 spots available in each class! Registration open now. Classes are filling up fast...so you won't want to delay in registering when it is time to do so!
My friends at Oh My Crafts (great online retailer) asked me to join them to teach my first live ustream craft demo for them down at their studio. It was super fun and I was thrilled to find that I could pull the recording for those of you that missed it.
The demo features Imaginisces i-rock tool and the many ways it could be used. It was a fun surprise to have Sandy jump in and join me as well. Oh and we took a little time to teach Sandy how to create Roly Rosies, popular i-bond (cordless glue gun) with Imaginisce's Petal Roller tool as well.
Be sure to check out the Imaginisce blog often, they give away i-rock tools and more all the time!! Thanks Imaginisce for sponsoring my first uStream video.
I was playing with a new online publishing site this morning and loved this new one. So I uploaded a fun double-page layout instruction sheet I created featuring Imaginisce's B-Day Bash Collection for everyone to check out too!!
I am very excited to be invited to do a segment on Good Things Utah on Wednesday for Imaginisce. I'll be featuring ideas for Simple Christmas Neighbor Gifts. Best part is that you can make these with very little effort and all of them feature the Gingerbread Village border paper...
Christmas Fudge Gift Idea
This has been one of my favorites over the years and couldn't resist sharing these with everyone. It's super simple and only requires those large candy bars, like a Hershey's bar or Symphony bar. Wrap it with some Cottage Christmas paper and print out the poem (download your copy below).
love the shiny "sticker glass" on this project
Download a copy of this poem to reprint for your neighbor gifts. Christmas Fudge Poem
Bucket of Popcorn
My families favorite thing ever are those big buckets of popcorn for Christmas. But when I saw these fun clear paint buckets at Ben Franklin (or Roberts...can't remember) I had to put caramel corn in it and dress it up a little. Again, I've only used a strip of the border paper, added a ruffle and center fan folded flower piece and voila, a darling gift for a friend or neighbor!
I'm going to post a tutorial on how to recreate this fun embellishment next week on my blog...come back and visit to learn how easy these are to recreate!
Love making these lolli flowers and the ruffled ribbon was the perfect finishing touch under the cardstock sticker!
Washer and Dryer Gift Idea
A good friend of mine, Andrea McAllister gave this darling gift out to her neighbors last year and I had to copy it! In fact, I started shopping for clearance dish clothes and hand towels I could use for this. But it's the darling poem that makes this gift rock. Scroll down to download a copy of the poem to reprint!!
I used my i-rock tool to add a little BLING to my projects!
Fillable Paint Bucket Instructions
This project was the one that we showed and assembled on air. The directions are on the Good Things Utah website, but here's the information for my readers as well. I'll post the GTU video as soon as it is available.
Trim one 12” and one 6” piece of the the gingerbread house border strips and adhere together to make a long strip. You will need two sheets of this paper to create a strip long enough to wrap around the paint bucket.
Trim two 1 x 12” and two 1 x 6” strips of the Swirly Snowflakes paper with scallop scissors or punch along one edge
Adhere one 6” and one 12” strip of the red scallop border strip together and then adhere to the bottom edge of gingerbread village border strip.
Adhere a second 6” and 12” strip of the red scallop border together that will be used along the bottom edge of the paint bucket.
Add some bling! Use the i-rock tool and mirror glam rocks to heat set a gem to each scallop.
Adhere gingerbread strip along top edge of bucket and red scallop border along bottom of paint bucket.
Place “holiday Wishes” sticker stacker to top of bucket.
Use i-rock to embellish sticker.
Add Glitz Snowflake to sticker stacker.
Tie tulle and Holiday Garland ribbon to handle of paint bucket as shown.
Add candy cane or small ornament to complete!
Hot Cocoa Gift Idea
Hot cocoa is a big hit at our house during the winter and we never have enough of it. How easy is it to take your scraps of paper and wrap the containers. I then tied some of my bakers twine around the container and strung Holiday Wishes Chipboard Stickers and a candy cane to the front. Note: You'll want to peal the adhesive backing off the chipboard stickers and punch a hole through the top!
Cookie Box Gift Idea
Fill a plain box with treats you purchased or made and wrap it with one of the paper border strips, add a little bling with your i-rock tool and embellish with rub-ons and stickers.
About the Box: I was at Roberts Craft the other day and came across these yummy treat boxes in the "scrapbook" section. They're new from TPC Studio and love them!! They are plain (this one shown is about 6 1/2" square and would fit four cupcakes very easily! There was also a larger and smaller size I believe. In addition to that they had templates, chinese food boxes, food liners....I was so excited I had to incorporate something into my segment. I tried finding a link on their website to the products, but no luck, they did have a small post about it on their blog and I found out it's part of their "So Delish" Collection.
GIVEAWAY:
Now no blog post is complete without a fun giveaway! As a thank you for stopping by and reading through this very long post, we'd like giveaway a 3Holiday Traditional 6x6 Mini Album KITS with an i-rock tools (you need one to complete the album)! This giveaway of course is sponsored by Imaginisce and this is how you can enter!
1. Go check out the 12 Days of Christmas posts on the Imaginisce Blog and let us know what you've like the most!
2. Follow my blog (and leave a little comment LOVE)
3. Follow Imaginisce's blog
Enter a comment for each thing you complete! We'll announce the winner on Monday, December 9th.
A couple of months ago I challenge my readers to start thinking about their Holiday cards...start early to elevate the stress of doing them late (like I do most times). Then again, earlier this month my cute friend Heather Carpenter posted over on the Imaginisce blog about taking the "Holiday Card Challenge."
So I wanted to show that I started working on some ideas for Christmas cards this year. I haven't settled on one yet, but here's the first a a few design.
The cute title for this card was created using my Cricut Expresison. The "Merry" is from the Christmas Cheer cartridge and the "Christmas" is from the Simply Sweet cartridge. After cutting those from the backside of one of the Cottage Christmas papers from Imaginisce I coated the paper lightly with glossy accents from Ranger.
I have seen this cute "banner" technique in a few popular magazines and have wanted to try it for a while. They're just circles folded in half over a string. I then added rhinestones on the title with the i-rock tool.
Now girls, are you ready to get busy on some Holiday cards??
Imaginisce is hosting it's monthly Sketch Challenge on their blog and I really liked Sarah's sketch. So I thought I'd see how fast I could throw something together using a sketch and it was super easy. I love using the new Apple Cider Collection papers and figured they'd work for anything with the right color scheme. Oh the layout took me about 30 minutes to throw together (making the flowers took the longest amount of time).
The top flower was created using all three sizes of the i-top punches. I spritzed them with water and then crunched them up and added a small brad to the center made with the i-top tool. My favorite affect is coating the brads with Glossy Accents by Ranger to make them shiny, yet I love how it matches my project perfectly because it's made with the same papers. The flower below is just a spiral flower and super easy to put together.
If you'd like to be entered to win a great goodie box from Imaginisce by leaving a comment here on my blog and then hoping over to the other Design Team member blogs to see what they did with the sketch. Be sure to leave a comment on their blogs and the Imaginisce blog to for multiple chances to win!! Trust me (I know) the prize package is worth your time!!!
