Festive Advent

Happy Holidays! I hope all of my readers are having a great holiday season. I am so glad I actually had time to jump in and get my Silhouette Challenge done for this month. It was a very close call with everything I have going on lately.

Some pearls are missing because I have a curious toddler. 

This months project is something that I want to pass down as a tradition to my daughter. When I was very young my mom would always buy all of us kids an advent calendar. It was nothing fancy, just the nice little cardboard boxes with flap doors to reveal chocolate candy. The memory of it has held on and is something I do find wonderfully nostalgic. Last year my little one was much too young to really enjoy the festivities or candy for that matter.

Now that she is older we are so excited to share in the holiday fun with her. So with this project I decided to make the advent calendar and make it something very special for both of us. Now, this was not as easy as I believed it would be.  I am positive I made it more difficult for myself than I should have. But that is the point of the challenge, right?

I used a thicker card stock, not sure of the weight because it was pieces in my paper box. I made the design myself in the Silhouette software. It is like a lift top box style with flap doors that are perforated around the edges. I then embellished them with large, easy to read numbers and a little bow with a pearl on top.

My daughter thinks it is "pwettyyy!" and is very excited for her "bite!", everyday. We also work on getting her to say the number on the front, so far she has gotten to number 5, but I don't push it. It's just so much fun to watch her get so excited to open it up and be as excited as I was. These are the moments to cherish with her!

Over the year I will be making a new one surely with new materials that are sturdier and will hold up for years to come. Have a wonderful Holiday Season and Happy New Year! - Alisha

Make sure to check out these amazing projects by our other Silhouette Challenger Bloggers. As well enter for a chance to win a Cameo or Portrait of your very own!

Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?

My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so peruse the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!





1. Pineapples and Pinecones // 2. Simply Kelly Designs // 3. Architecture of a Mom // 4. Just a Girl and Her Blog // 5. Two Purple Couches // 6. Chicken Scratch NY // 7. Creative Ramblings // 8. One Dog Woof // 9. Ginger Snap Crafts // 10. The Thinking Closet // 11. Please Excuse My Craftermath... // 12. Designer Trapped in a Lawyer's Body // 13. weekend craft // 14. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 15. Practically Functional // 16. Living My Given Life // 17. My Paper Craze // 18. The Kim Six Fix // 19. Home At Eight // 20. Queen of Everything // 21. Tried & True // 22. Mama Sonshine // 23. unOriginal Mom // 24. Create it. Go! // 25. From Wine to Whine // 26. GetSilvered // 27. It's Always Ruetten // 28. Nearly Handmade // 29. McCall Manor // 30. Silhouette School // 31. It Happens in a Blink // 32. Create & Babble // 33. Sowdering About // 34. Where The Smiles Have Been // 35. My Favorite Finds // 36. Lil' Mrs. Tori // 37. Designed Decor

Ohhhhhh Shiny...

    You know those awesome candles that are so beautiful and have glitter with those little beads all over them? Yes, those same candles that every time you go to look at the price you are hoping that once maybe they are only a dollar or on clearance. Just to be disappointed every time when they end up being 14.99.  Well thanks to pinterest I found a way around that hefty price tag with a little elbow grease.

   Instead of using candles on this project I used some ornaments. The perks of working in retail is getting to take home those awesome ornaments and such things. Well these ornaments from last year where a little TOO shiny for my liking and way more colorful than I wanted to use this year.

   Super cool, huh? These a pretty good size ornaments. In fact I saw similar ones at a department store and for six of them it was eighteen bucks?! I can't fathom covering a tree with them if I have to pay that much. This is where the experiment comes in. What you need:

Epsom Salt
Glitter of your choice
Mod Podge
Paintbrushes
Acrylic paints

 
     For this project I used some little diamond looking stones instead of glitter. Also I am going with a cream and gold theme this year for Christmas, so I used a metallic gold and silver paint for under colors. Though first to get my desired effect I had to paint over the ornaments with a matte color so the metallic would go on properly.

After we painted all of them I let them dry for about half an hour or until the paint was dry to the touch.

Then once they were dry I painted half gold and half silver. As well then we laid them to the side to dry. They dried stacked on a large plate since if a little color got on one another it wouldn't matter. Once dry I covered each one in Mod Podge with a paint brush. A small layer is all that is needed.  Then immediately rolled them each into the epsom salt mixed with the diamond stones. Then each one was set out to dry. This took about 45 minutes to completely dry.

     Then once dry I put hooks on them and tah-dah! Pretty awesome huh? So now on your next craft day you can try this out on anything you'd like to get that same effect on.