crafting

Nick and I have been talking about what we were going to do for Christmas cards this year, I wanted to do a photo card with a picture from our wedding (I mean, you only get married once & we should celebrate that!) & he thought that this would be too expected.  So we decided that I would scrapbook cards instead.  Only problem is, I left ALL of my supplies in AZ!!!  A trip to a craft store was in order…  But I had searched before for & had no luck.  So…

On a side note, I was watching Martha Stewart on Monday this week and she made an advent calendar on one segment.  Nick walked in the door from class as they were completing the calendar and said he always loved these & that we had to have one.  So I added this to my list of things to buy at the aforementioned craft store…  Also in this episode Martha went to the BRAND NEW Michaels Craft store in NYC just up on the NW side of Central Park to surprise customers in the store taking her holiday crafting classes.  So problem solved!!  There is a crafting haven for me after all!  but this could be dangerous…  :)

 

my inspiration

Martha used metal tins with clear fronts from Ikea & glittered discs with numbers on them.  I DID NOT want to hassle with glitter, because lets be honest – the end result is pretty & sparkly but once you use it it winds up EVERYWHERE & when you think you’ve scrubbed your hands and rid yourself of it ALL you find traces of it in your hair, on your keyboard, etc. WEEKS later!  So I opted to go a different direction.  Since I was already buying scrapbooking paper for cards, I decided to use that for the calendar too.  For the tins, I had to get creative because I wasn’t going to trek all the way to Ikea in Brooklyn for one thing, so having just got married & spending UNGODLY amounts of time (& money) in stores like Michaels in their “wedding” aisle, I knew that they sold favor tins that looked just like the ones Martha used.  I bought a set of these, they were smaller in diameter (which will present a challenge in filling them), but will work!  I also picked up a magnet roll to affix to the tins so we can display the calendar on our fridge!  Armed with my 3 bags of goodies I set off toward home to start a day long crafting experience!     

our advent calendar

 

close ups of a couple of days

 

I filled each day with one of Nick’s favorite (bite sized) candies, homemade treats, & some have little love notes in them too.  The first day was Reese’s Pieces and when Nick opened it up he was thrilled, but told me that I was starting off with a bang, and that I should have began with something less “exciting”, like a gum drop, & work my way up to the Reese’s Pieces on the last day.  (I will remember this for the future when we have kids!)  I didn’t want to buy 25 different bags of candy because I would end up eating it ALL!!!

After the holiday I was planning on using the tins to hold / display spices, I even think we can write the spice on the plastic “window” with a dry erase marker and change it if we need to.  I will have to test this out though.

Posts to come of the Christmas card progress…  :)