Christmas Crafts

This past year my parents decided to relocate to the other side of the world to spend more time with there grand kids, as us kids are not really kids any more. Although it was bitter-sweet to see them go, the timing was right. My older sisters have their new families, I'm starting a family of my own, and our little sister is all grown up and at university...

What does this have to do with Christmas crafts? Well I'm getting there...My mother was always the crafty one in the family...making scrapbooks and home made birthday cards. In the many years since she started all her crafts, she has managed to build up quite a catalogue of crafting accessories - stamps, stamp pads, stickers, papers, scissors, embellishments, etc... All of this had to go somewhere when they decided to move and it all went to me....I was giddy with excitement when I got the large and very full tubs (yes, that's right tubs!) home, and jumped right into figuring out what to do first....

Now with Christmas coming up, I decided I wanted to make my own Advent Calendar....

So this was the final result.....I found some great green envelopes, sealed them and cut them in half to make the pockets...

To make the numbers, I found some really cute number stamps and stamped out the numbers in red ink onto small square pieces of paper...the red ink I used wasn't coming out as dark as I wanted it to so I coloured the numbers in with a red marker afterwards...I found some great scissors that cut the edges of the square to look ripped and then rubbed the edges against the red ink pad... For some of the pockets I tied this cute red & gold ribbon in a bow and hot glued it on.

For some others I glued red & gold stars on the corner. It's best to use a glue stick for these, if you use a hot glue gun, the hot glue makes the star curl and shrink a little.

I found a really cute flower cutter for this one but I think they look like little snowflakes...again I just used a glue stick for these..

and finally I put some really cute Christmas tags on some others....

This was such a fun project, very rewarding to see it up in the shape of a Christmas tree as well....I printed up some Christmas themed activities and put one in each pocket as well as a little chocolate. Some of the pockets had Christmas trivia in them, some had instructions to make our own Christmas ornaments for the real tree, there are many ideas out there on the Internet for your own...Happy Crafting!!!