A Busy December Beginning

Yikes, it's almost the middle of December and I haven't posted anything this month yet.  I feel like for every step forward I take this month, I'm taking two backwards.  Things are getting done but I think I need a little escape time from what has to be done to what I want to do.  I know it will all shake out in the end.

There were more cards to be made before they went in the mail and I was able to come up with a couple of quick (or so I thought) designs that I could duplicate.

Having these buffalo checked card bases really helped.  On the first two I used a square of glittered paper that was actually a set of small gift cards from IKEA I purchase a few years back.  I wasn't going to use them in that respect so I used them to back the puffy mason jar snowglobe stickers that I also found in my stash.  Some little bits of die cut greenery in the corner and a quick little sentiment completed these in little time.  Die cutting the greenery took the longest.

This one took a bit longer because I chose to color the Unity snowman and also because I decided to add that die cut bow made from glitter paper.  I spend the most time preparing the paper for die cutting as I've found out that the die works much better on glitter paper if you remove a layer of the backing. But that backing was really on there and took quite a bit of effort peeling it apart.  Die cutting the foliage also took a while with all it's delicacy.  But I was pleased with the outcome and was glad to be able to make a few of them. 

I still had my circle punches downstairs and thought I would try reusing some brown packing paper to make an ornament that I saw recently.  I punched sixteen 2 1/2" circles and folded them in half.  Then I used Tombow multi mono liquid glue to first glue the folded circles once in the middle.  Then I started to layer them together adding two lines of glue - one near the top and the other near the bottom so when you pull the last one around to meet the first it looks like a honeycomb ornament.  The paper was wrinkled from being used, but it didn't affect the look of the ornament. I had some lengths of jute twine in my stash and used that and some leftover round beads to make the hanger for the ornament.  I managed to get enough circles out the piece of paper that I had to make 3 of these.  

I don't know why, but from the bottom it reminds me of a pine cone.

Another ornament I tried my hand at was this quilled star.  I found a youtube video with the instructions as recommended by another blogger that I follow.  I have several quilling kits with the tools needed to do this - a quilling comb and a needle tool, but I did order the gold gilded paper strips that I used for the center of the stars.  This is really not that hard to do.  What helps is having a glue bottle with a fine tip like the Bearly Art Precision Craft Glue.  The bottle of glue comes with a special cap that you can used to interchange the specialty tips with.  There is a fine tip and a very fine tip long with a cap and a pin that can be used to clear any clogs in the tips.  It is recommended to rinse out the tips after each use which I remembered to do.  

There seemed to be a plethora of Advent calendars advertised this year.  I've got several that I was gifted along with our family one that HWNSNBP and I have continued doing even after the kids have grown up.  A blogging buddy of mine has gifted me the Jacquie Lawson Sussex Advent calendar.  This is an interactive calendar that I've uploaded to my laptop that not only gives you a special scene to celebrate every day but is full of other activities that are a lot of fun.  This year there is a little elf hidden to find each day also and there are games too, like card games, jigsaw puzzles, etc.  

HWNSNBP gifted me (after I hinted about it for the last two years) the XO Marshmallow Advent calendar that has a different flavored marshmallow for each day.

And I gifted myself the Unity Stamp Advent calendar this year.  

A fellow stamper was nice enough to create and share a pdf chart that you can use to keep track of the stamps.  I'm looking forward to using these soon.

I like to open the "doors" of the day while I have my cup of Chai tea after I eat my breakfast.  It's a nice way to get the day started.