Ooops! A VERY early Christmas project - Wooden Advent Calendar wth Ski Slope and Welcome Christmas

Oh dear, it's been a lot longer between posts than I intended.  Life has intervened, with two kids starting school for the year, and myself just about to start back at uni after a long break from study.  I've lots of things on my 'to do' list before my course starts, but posting here wasn't at the top of the list, sorry!

So, without further ado, I present a project that is either:
a) very early for Christmas 2011 (because I'm SO organised!)
or



b) so late that you won't even look at it!

Hopefully you'll choose option A!

I used a wooden Advent Calendar kit, and decorated it with the (now retired) Ski Slope Designer Series Papers.  Probably the biggest trick to assembling the pieces is to ignore the advice regarding painting first.  Assemble first!!  Yes, painting might be slightly more time consuming, but not as time consuming (or frustrating) as needing to sand back all the pieces before they'd fit!!!

The little drawers are covered in strips of DSP, and then decorated with rhinestones and Early Espresso marker doodle borders.  I painted the chipboard numbers in colours I blended to match Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood red and Kiwi Kiss.  The beauty of the SU DSPs is that the patterns and colours co-ordinate so well, and the double sided patterns make it a snap to use little offcuts and strips to vary the look.
I sponged the edges of the raw chipboard drawers with Chocolate Chip ink also, to take away the grey look.  The wooden snowflakes were coated in Tombow Multi glue and covered with our Supernova and Galaxy microfine glitters.  So Sparkly!!  I attached them to the frame with mini Glue dots.

The back of the calendar is covered with a 12x12 sheet of textured cardstock in Riding Hood Red, and I used strips of a red Ski Slope DSP to make a border.  I chose a Baja Breeze print Ski Slope DSP for the front window background.  I didn't stick in the page, as I wanted to be able to re-do one with each year's christmas tree kid pic.

The page is 8x8", on Baja Breeze textured cardstock.  I used the "So Swirly" wheel to decorate one edge, and sponged the other sides with Baja ink.  The photo is matted on Old Olive, with a border made with the Scallop Trim border punch.  A strip of Real Red cardstock is at one side, with faux stitching made with the Mat Pack kit and white gel pen.  Under the other side of the photo I used strips of Ski Slope paper cut into banner shapes.  The "Christmas" stamp is from Basic Phrases, and the "Joy" is from Welcome Christmas,  I stamped in Marina Mist, but it still wasn't 'popping' from the background as well as I'd like, so I traced around with the white gel pen to match the stitching doodles.  A snowflake from Snow Swirled was stamped in Whisper White Craft ink and punched out with the scallop circle, and I stamped the ornaments from the Tree Trimmings set in Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze, Real Red and Old Olive, mounting them on dimensionals and drawing 'strings' in with more gel pen.

The finishing touches were the drawer contents, but they are all long gone!!!  The little drawers are a good size to put praline chocolate balls and mini chocolate santa figures (I got mine from Aldi because I love their Moser Roth choc balls!)  You could probably squeeze in about 6 balls.

Hope you like, I am looking forward to bringing it out again for this coming Christmas, and making a new insert page with my cherubs.

Back again  soon!  (sooner than last time I promise!!)