Tradition

Huzzah! Finally I've finished my mammoth Christmas project, so here are the pics and steps for creating your own advent calendar with a difference. But first, a little back story.

For the past few years my sister, mum and me have been taking it in turns to pass between us a cardboard, pre-printed Christmas tree advent calendar with our own little treats inside. It's always been from me to mum, mum to Emma and Emma to me.

Last year the cardboard tree finally gave up the ghost, so this year I decided to finally get round to decorating the wooden advent tree I've had for about 5 years now to create a long-living alternative.

I've been working on it for a couple of weeks and finally finished the project last night, so here it is.

P.S. Ignore the appauling quality of my photos. Here's hoping Santa brings me a new camera this year!

Materials

Wooden Christmas tree
Kiki Art Sunny Bay Collection patterned paper
Lily Bee Three Little Birds Double Dutch patterned paper
Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 Ginger paper
White paper
Chestnut American Crafts Hildi MiniMarks letter rub-ons
Craftwork Cards Card Candy
Paper Cellar glitter star embellishment
Pearlescent star embellishments
Blue Cath Kidson thread
Ribbon
Heliotrope ColorBox pigment brush inkpad
Lilac and Tide Pool Eco Green Crafts acrylic paint
Zig 2-Way glue pen
PVA glue
Foam pads

Tools

1" tag punch
Hole punch

Step 1
Remove the drawers and paint the main body of the Christmas tree with Lilac paint. Set aside to dry.


Step 2
Paint the outsides of the drawers with Tide Pool paint, leaving each to dry before turning and painting the next. This also helps fight against the looming threat of cat hair invasion that I have to tackle on a regular basis!


Here's a little piccie of the drawers back in the tree unit once everything had dried nicely.


Step 3
Punch 24 tags from three different patterned papers using a 1" tag punch. Punch a hole towards to top of each tag (I used a medium eyelet hole punch for mine).


Step 4
Take a length of thread and fold four times to give you a long enough length to tie through the tag and create a loop. Do this with every tag.


Step 5
Ink the front edges of each drawer. Pass the thread loop over the handle and secure the tag in your chosen position with foam pads. Tie a length of ribbon around the handle.


Here's a little piccie of a close up on the drawers in position once the tags, Card Candy, ribbon and ink have been added to each.


Step 6
Apply rub-on letters to white paper and cut each out. Adhere to the tags with a glue pen. For the 24th drawer, attach a glittered star embellishment to the tag before adding the numbers. Stick a pearlescent star embellishment to each drawer.


And here's the finished advent calendar!

Readers' gallery call

Here are the themes for upcoming readers' galleries I'm looking for layouts for:

Winter
Pets
Children's Toys

Get scrapping and email your layout pics to me at lindsey.hopkins@practicalpublishing.co.uk.

Off to work we go

We're cooking on gas here at Scrapbook Magazine HQ as we add the final touches and make the last minute tweaks to issue 51 which prints next week.

There are more treats in store this issue with a new Make Your Own feature by Kirsty Maluga for a scrapbooking essential, we check out another different style, get the designers scrapping their adult siblings and much, much more!

Here's a sneak peak of just one of the fabulous layouts in the next issue.


Issue 51 goes on sale 2nd December, so keep your eyes peeled for it in the shops for more inspiration, ideas and competitions to get you scrapping.

After Five

If clean and classy is your thing, then be sure to check out the new After Five Collection from Australian manufacturers Kaisercraft.

After Five is an elegant range with a black, white and grey colour scheme. Perfect for scrapping those wedding pics, using with black and white photos or creating a thing of beauty for home décor.


As always with Kaisercraft, there's a great selection of Beyond The Page products available which sit perfectly with all of their paper ranges. After Five is featured alongside this amazing Photo Display Pack which comes as a creative kit and includes the photo frame, Cufflinks paper (with patterned sections perfect for adding a different style to each of the sections on the photo frame), wood flourish embellishmens and even paint, allowing you to create a beautiful piece of artwork for your home as well as a way to display your photos.


Head over to Merly Impressions to get yours!

Go Blitzen!

BasicGrey have given new life to yet another must-have retired product range with the digital release of the Blitzen Collection.


This hugely popular Christmas range is suitable for all kinds of festive crafts as well as scrapbooking and is available in a great selection of digital forms. Choose from starter kits, textures, elements, card templates, and you can even buy the individual digital paper designs themselves.

A real Christmas treat!

Bits and Pieces

Take a look at the fab new Bits embellishments from American Crafts!

These cute little accents are sure to help you add those finishing touches to your pages and are available in a selection of colourways and styles to suit your theme.


Each tag embellishment features a patterned paper or title element with metal trim and eyelet-sized holes, making them super easy to add string, ribbon or Scrapper's Floss and use them as extra accents on your pages.

They're available to match American Crafts paper Collections to be sure to take a peek!