Advent Calendar DIY

Advent Calendar

Stamping out the tree

Sooo last year I made an Advent Calendar for myself and my sister in law....

As you can see I used my daughters hand and foot prints as my stamps for a Christmas tree.

#1 I bought about a yard of plain muslin, and 2 yards of the christmas fabric.
#2 Purchased the little ornaments that are meant for the pint sized mini-trees. 25 of em.
#3 Lots and LOTS of iron tape. (I don't sew!! I wish I could)
#4 Green yarn
#5 Two different colors of Green, and 1 brown.
#6 The little clasp fasteners "Hook and Eyes"
#7 Some green-ish thread for stitching on the previous item.
#8 Green felt - for the top star.
#9 Wooden Dowel and round ends.
#10 Ribbon that I already had to hang the calendar onto the dowel.

This took me forever and since I made two I did each one a little different.
First I made the one for my sister in law

I took this picture only so that she'd see how it was meant to work. (I mailed this to India, where she was living and working, with the paints included for her to stamp her sons hands and feet with. So that's why the tree is blank.)

On mine I went ahead and puffy painted the numbers on. It was MUCH faster and easier to read.

Here is how I did it:


A) Iron tape the green and blue pieces together (these would be your festive fabrics) all around the edges.  Be sure to place your loops of ribbon in that sticky iron on tape too! This will hold onto the dowel at the end for easier hanging later.

B) Iron tape the three rectangles to the lower portion of your Advent Calendar. Only iron tape the two sides and the bottom. You want to leave to top open for your ornaments later.

C) Take Your Muslin fabric (which will become the triangle) and stamp your child's hands and feet in the shape of a Christmas tree. I put cardboard under mine so that the paint didn't ruin my floors!

D) Carefully cut around their tree leaving about an inch of extra muslin.

E) Stitch on the tree to your Advent Calendar using the green yarn. Also sew "pockets" for separation of your ornaments and days. 

The lines above are not exact. And as you can see from my pics, neither one was the same. 

F) Stitch on the "hook and eyes" to the calendar and the ornaments you've purchased. I sewed the "Eye" portion onto my tree and the "Hook" portions onto my ornaments. Some were sewn into the ornaments, hot glued, and even knotted onto them. Depending on which method worked the best. 

G) Puffy paint on your numbers.

H) Insert Dowel (and hot glue the round ends on if you want to) and Hang up! 

Tada! 2010 Christmas.

My little girl loves this Calendar! And when she's all grown up we'll marvel at how tiny her hands used to be! 

Time, stop going so fast!

 I love you EmJ, you are the light of my life. 

Thanks for stopping in!

Love,

Bri

Pretty Peacock

So remember when I gave you that little teaser last week????

So after I helped my munchkin make some beautiful art,

I let her go to town on her own art!

I love those little hands, with the little dimples... they slay me.

So after all this fun, I saw something in her artwork:

This is what I saw... 

{via}

So after it dried I grabbed my permanent markers, puffy paint and turned her pretty little art into this:

This is what I could muster up.... Now i know it's no Picasso, but I like it! Now I just need to get it framed! 

Oh and while my back was turned here is what my daughter was doing....

A little war paint never hurt anyone! ;)

I'm just glad that a little internet picture from Project Balancing Act could inspire so much fun with my baby girl! Thanks for watching! 

Love ya,

Bridgette

"As Seen on..."

So I want to start a new thang....
I always see these super cool things online that I really want to try. And in the days before Pinterest, all these amazing things that I saw all over the web would be forgotten about in all of 15 minutes. So now that I have Pinterest I am able to remember all those cool things I wanted to try. But ya know what.... I'm still not trying anything! Uggh!

Why is it that I don't do the things that I love???? I should be trying to do these things that bring me inspiration! Instead who knows where my creative time is being spent!  I watch tv. (a little more honest) ;)

So I'm going to change this! Every month I'm going to attempt something I've seen on the world wide web! I figure that once a month is a good start for me, and if I find that I want to add more, then bigolly I will! So here it goes!!!!!!!!!

The first ever "As Seen On..."                (I'm so excited! EEkkkk)

So the other night I saw this adorable little piece of artwork

{via}, also on my DIY board on Pinterest

I loved it so much that I wrote "I'm doing this tonight!!!"

And you know what???? I DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hooorayyyy!

Sho here's how it went down:

I grabbed my pumpkin princess and we went to town! Well, we went to the dinning room, that's close enough to town right????!!!!

So here's my little tutorial:

My cast of characters

I cut out a good shape and then put the paper side up. It's awesome because the back of the freezer paper is plastic like, and this acts as a barrier for your paint too!!!

Grab your paints and pour them into your plates. (I didn't use actual finger paints, but you totally could. I just used regular craft paint that I already had, along with some puff paint for some glitter.)

Then I started getting her little feet dirty!!! It was super fun!

Then I washed up those feetsies and let her shake out some more glitter on her butterflies!!

Once all of this has a chance to dry, take a permanent marker and draw in the butterflies body, face and antennae... 

You know what the best part of this whole thing is??? My little munchkin kept saying "I want to paint wit Momma! Thank you Momma, {insert kisses here, kisses to my face, arms, hands, and anything else within her reach!!!}"

 I had so much fun with my little girl! It was a real bonding moment! Thank you Project Balancing Act for bringing me and my daughter together! And with such a cute little piece of art to hang in my daughters room! And what a fun thing for her to look back on and see just how little her feet were! 

This little project also lead to this:

After I was done with her feet butterflies, my munchkin still wanted to paint!!! So I set her up in her high chair and let her go to town.... 

What do you think I turned it into? I'll show you later in the week! 

I'd love to see your creations!