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Christmas Countdown Banner

So I'm a little bit obsessed and if pinterest is any indication, so is the rest of the world right now with advent calendars and countdowns and activities leading towards the holidays, I have created one that's twelve days of christmas as opposed to twenty four but with this kit you can actually really easily make all twenty four you'll have enough supplies to do that we're going to do twelve and the reason I do twelve personally is because I like to put activities in them as opposed to just candy and it's a busy time of year I can think of twelve things studio, but twenty four things may not happen on dh, so I like to kind of lower the expectations of all of my children and tell them we're going to be doing twelve things throughout the month that are way try to do service oriented things, but sometimes it's fun things like going to get hot chocolate from starbucks or something like that. So we've created because of that I created envelopes as opposed to like little presence or things ...

like that because I knew that I wanted to be able to either write down what the activity is or be able to include a gift card and sometimes the service is taking gift cards and giving them out and like the parking lot of wal mart to people if they go in so I like tio have envelopes for that and this line is perfect for this so this line is called christmas on market street if you're familiar with my mind's eye around a year ago we had a line called market street it's sold so well was really, really beautiful everyone wanted it to come back on and now it's back in the form of christmas and so it coordinates really well with that and I love it. The other thing I really like about it is it's not your traditional christmas line, so we do have a traditional christmas line called cozy that's, the reds and greens and everything you expect from christmas but this is a little bit more floral a little more hand painted and that actually inspired one of our garlands that's coming later and so it just has a little bit of pink in mint and gold in it so it's just a little bit unique for christmas and they really love it because of that. So what we're going to do first is create the envelope base for this project and I'm gonna lay out some of these final envelopes so that you can see them on the other really great thing about this is because add vents are so popular right now we actually have number tags in both christmas line, so if you wanted to create an advent we actually have the numbers already created for you so we're just gonna lay these out right here so you can have all of our final guests we should do it in order, right? Count backwards to twelve. I can do that. So you're making these envelopes out of six by six paper? Yes. So let's, go to the website really quick and we can show them what this includes. So this project includes school right down and you can see detailed photographs of it here, but it includes our six by six paper pad right here again with gold boiling and again double sided, which is actually really perfect for these envelopes because when you open them up, the inside looks like you've lined it. So it's really pretty for that. And then we'll also get your chip board your number tags um some brad's so there's quite a bit in this project and there'll be a lot left over for you tease on other things too, like gift wrapping these gold stickers, which puffy stickers remind me of the eighties and they love them on and enamel dot s so we're going to be using all of these products in this particular project. Um, again, I really love layering everything I feel like it just gives that extra kind of richness to projects when you do that so let's start right into it I used for this, we will include just a a regular standard envelope template for you, but I think it's a lot faster to use though we are memory keeper's punch board on, I don't sell that, and they're actually even, like, a little bit of a computer. And so that's how much I like it that we're using it today. Um, it's, this particular punch board is really handy. They called the one to three it makes envelopes, bows and boxes. Today we're just using it for the envelopes, but itjust quickens the whole thing makes it really fast in handy and also has the math for you. And I'm an artist, not a mathematician, so I really love that. So I'm going to show you how to use it really quick, and we'll make a few envelopes before we start decorating them. So the first thing you have to decide is what size you want your envelope and again, I've already said kind of white shows envelopes and why wanted them that sides, but I wanted to be sure that it could include a card with any kind of project I wanted to do with our family and the activity and also hold. A gift card. S o that kind of credit card size. So that's why I decided this, but the main reason I decided it is because I wanted I knew I wanted to use six by six paper, so I had to pick a size that that that so on this left hand side is the guide. That and it will show you all the different size envelopes you can make and what paper you need to start out with. And so I picked one that was just under six inches because they didn't have exactly six inches. So it's, five and three quarters. So the first thing you need to do is just cut down all the six by six papers you want to use, and again, the pad comes with twenty four, so you have enough to do one envelope for each day leading up to christmas if he wanted tio. We're just doing twelve today, it's all about expectations and um before we start doing that actually want to talk a little bit about why I'm using this and not a paper cutter or paper tremor so I grew up with a mom who obviously so because I just said she's so did nothing for me um and we at one point owned aircraft and fabric store and so I did a lot of fabric covering growing up well quilters rulers and quilters mats are so much easier to measure out guides then using a paper turner trimmer and trying to eyeball and make sure it's in the exact right place because the quilting ruler is clear if I need five and three quarters I can literally lined it up right there and I see a guy exactly where I'm cutting so it's just really really easy and then I use rotary cutters that quilters use as well to cut my paper this is super handy especially if you're doing larger projects like with gift wrap or things like that as opposed to trying cut and keep that line straight with the rotary I just run it right down and it's done so it makes it so easy to trim paper on but I know it's not like a common thing but I just find it makes all my job so much faster and because of the clear ruler I can make really straight cuts which is important to me so you're going to cut multiples of these let's cut you how many can you cut it one time with the rotary each other on how sharp your blade is at the time. But I for me, I'm just I slip a lot like it'll slip a lot, so I usually just stick with one, but you can do two or three at a time and it would be fine. Yeah, so I just want to show a few of these papers that were picking out. Um, this is one of my favorites, and this actually inspired the flower garland we're going to use or create later, but again, you can see every side as double cited and we have really beautiful gold boiling on everything packages thiss floral, they ripped so pretty on day. We also just have, like, the stripes and polka dots and really simple patterns that would work for any time of year and that's the other thing aside for maybe, like, the present or the trees, this line could work any time of year for you and would look really pretty ok, so I'm just gonna pull some of these and start trimming and, well, we'll try to do it right now. I'll be risky, it almost made it through, I think with a little pressure would be fine. Um, and you can see I I actually at home to have a table that's high enough that I can just stand at it so that I can apply pressure when they need tio yeah, because you want the straight lines on an envelope, otherwise it'll look a little bit funny. So these I do think this is one time where a really clean straight line matters a lot, um, and we'll show you why in just a second, and just like, with any paper craft it's usually just the repetitive cutting over and over again, that's takes the longest for this project, so you can see as I cut these when I use this matt, um, I lined it up and you can see the lines, aiken line it up exact right on that quarter, so it makes it really easy, and then you have to apply pressure, so you're matt doesn't slide while you're cutting, but you can line up anything, and even if you're starting with a piece of paper that's crooked because you can line up with square because cultures need that, it makes it really easy to straighten your lines back out. Ok, so we're going to start making our envelopes now just gonna slide that out of the way, and the way we do that is you decide your size, which we did, it was five and three quarters, and then it will tell you the exact punch guide measurement you need so for five and three quarters, it's two and five eighths. So I just line that up and once you line it up the first time, you don't have to do it again, so I punch it comes with a little bone folder, which is really great for scoring and there's a line right here, says envelope blind a that you just run it right down so that is giving me the little notch on my envelope, it's giving me my score line and then I just turn it and match up the score line with the score line on the left I punch score again, just turn it match up the scoreline punch scored again, not just the scoreline punch and one of our producers yesterday was saying how satisfying crunching is like it just makes it still so finished on official, so I've just created an envelope and then all I have to do from there has just pulled it right over and I now have perfect little envelope it also on the same thing way our memory keeper's is going to love me today, um, does corn around ing that I could make it even look a little bit more finished I like to do the top in the bottom piece, but I leave the sides because they don't even show so there's no reason worrying about that so now I have my envelope, I am going to use some double stick tape that I just can't okay, does anybody else do this? I make like a huge mass them and I could never find anything that I'm looking for as I'm crafting in fact, I was crafting on the kitchen table for this and I think we ate out for like the last week because I don't wanna move it needed to stay, mike, creative chaos needed to stay eso just to double stick tape, and now we have the perfect little envelope and again, what I really love is just how it has that pattern on the inside, so it feels really finished and complete. Um, so we're going to create twelve of those, and once you've done that, you get to do the fun part, which is the embellishing this is the manufacturer part that again, you do while you're watching football with your kids. Um, I do pay attention to my kids, but ah, but during football games, they're not paying attention to me we live in san antonio, so they're dallas cowboys fan, which isn't going super well for them this year there's just mostly a lot of like complaining and sighing during football games at our house all right, but you can see that first time because we were demonstrating I went through it really quickly um but they're really slowly but you can do these really quickly with this which is so much faster than even trying to cut each one down to size um ok, so let's start decorating some of these envelopes where did you put the double stick tape so right along the edges of the inside and I do that because I know that's going to be covered up but you could also if you wanted to do it along the top flap, it wouldn't matter, right? So right there and now we have our envelope again so, um the cool thing about this again because it all coordinates you really could put anything anywhere you don't need to copy what I did exactly, but honestly if something it's done for you, you know you think about it it's really nice, so that makes it a lot faster. So what I did with the's again because I love being able to display things front and back we I like to hang things over my table a lot I've actually decorated both sides so like the front of the envelope and then the numbers on the back so that no matter what side they're looking at it from or it's hanging from it's going to look good even if you hung them in your tree you know, a lot of times like the wind comes in little flip and it'll still look pretty no matter what. So I like to do that and so we're going toe start decorating so we'll start with twelve and these air the number tags again they come all the way they go actually all the way through twenty five but I don't know about you but twenty five at our house always present, sir too exciting tio want to look at it envelope so I really do that uh oh twelve us right here on dh it's pre punched so you just pop out the whole and not actually on this one because it was so much taller I don't mind them hanging out and in fact a lot of them do hang down past um but I wanted it to be just a little bit shorter so I just took a pair of scissors and cut right off the top. I love how the tags are different sizes and styles. Yeah, so they kind of do all the work for you of like making each one a little bit unique on dh then for the twelve and added on one of our puffy stickers so ah lot of these projects I kind of I used in fact tomorrow will be making a village and they used you know, half on that and then half on this you want your money to go as far as I can but these I have been using on um wrapping present and they look so pretty just that extra puffiness everybody always wants to touch it too and so that is all we did we added our tag we added on one simple little sticker and actually to the front of this one I used the joy as well because I wanted to echo the foiling in the polka dot so we're just gonna pull this sub carefully and then we're just going tio at it right to the top and add a little dot for jay and that tag is done so just takes a few minutes and it goes really quickly after you make those envelopes so let's decorate a couple more so this is our number nine and for this we've used our number tag has a cute little illustrated tree and here's a little recommendation just something to think about that I didn't do it just time I'm going to tell you all my mistakes you guys don't make them just watch out where your pattern is you want the vertical letters on the front of the envelope so when you do decide which flaps to fold up just make sure that your pattern is correct on the front side yes somebody was wondering can you due to a time to papers at a time in the punch board the punch board is not that strong so I would not do to it a time with that I would just stick with one and actually and part of that is our pattern paper are extra heavy there are a lot heavier than most scrapbooking aircraft companies because we do a lot of paper crafting projects and so we wanted that heavier consistent like high quality card stock on dso a lot of times when you're doing cuts in fact in the silhouette I always listed as cover stock and cut at an eight as opposed to just pattern paper because ours is much heavier weight so that's important to know if you're going to be coming that at home okay, so for this envelope we've added our nine I just pull it out syria and then we've used a decorative brad so I'm gonna open this up see race conceive these brands were huge and scrap booking for a long time on dwi have kind of gone one step further with um and you can see we've added extra details to them so we've got little flags banners tags for you already and really beautiful patterns so I'm gonna pull the red and they come in a card like this so that the back our home messed up if n shipping so really nice package e and then to put this in, I'm going to use you could punch a hole, but I actually like to just use an exacto knife because then it's not wobbling around, it will keep it right in place. So I place my tag where I know that I want brad to go and you just do one tiny slit vertical because the browns they're lined up critical and then we just pop that right and unfolded over now if you wanted teo, you could run like a ribbon across the back to cover that it doesn't bother me, I it's gold, it looks fine to me, so I've left it that way, but if you wanted to cover it with a little trim, you could, so that is the back and then on the front all we've done is added one of the ship ford element and these I also really love for things like rapping as well. So comes in a twelve by twelve sheets and it said he's sieve so they are already will stick on you not to do anything extra to them, which is really handy you just punch it right out and take off the back and stick it right on I mean, it couldn't be easier and look prettier, so that is our number nine envelope the kit will actually come with this sheet of vellum as well and then I just used an extra piece of this scrap one of these to make this little flag notched flag and then one of our chip board flowers right on top and on the back I've added one of the brad's with the flags on him let's go ahead and do number six and I'm going to use the snowflake paper and so the stripe because I can't um then that's just kind of what I love about crafting is just experimenting and trying things aa lot of already stuck that one down aa lot of the um kids I put an extra pieces of pattern paper things like that so that if you do make in the steak you don't feel like you would have to buy it all over again so because I know for me that's just a part of the creative process and I don't want to be stressed out about missing are messing up something and not enjoying the whole process so for the number six has a really cute little floral garland and the little punch out nagy and I've actually added in this case one of our enamel dots instead of a brad because I didn't it would be really hard probably because I didn't think ahead of time tio put a brad all the way through down lower because because of the back pull that end I'm going to stick the tag down first, this because the sticker it wouldn't be as strong, and I will add the dock right on top and then for the other side of actually layered chipboard elements. So I took one of our flags right here. It's pulled that off and then also one of the circle medallions, and it says easy is peeling and sticking it is really fun, just everything coordinates so well together and makes it so easy to just make it look like you really thought things out without having to do all the thinking, really young child putting it together? Yeah, and that's another really fun thing about this project, especially if you just have a photo and you're just going through and doing it together because so much of it is sticking things down and repetitive that it is a really fun thing to do with with your children. So we do not sell these clips, but these clips are available at michael's and they come in sets of twelve another perfect reason why twelve or twenty four works so well, and they're just little gold bull clips, and so I have just added them to the top toe hold it on, um and I chose this is actually a yarn uhm and they have it at most hobby stores. And I just like the added bit of sparkle to sort of echo and it's got that stretch that yarn does. And so all I would do is just go in order, of course, or you could mix it up and make them look for it every day. That would be a fun thing with, like, a smaller kids and then just clipped them on and then you can hang it anywhere in your house that you want. Um, yeah, and you can also do it. I might even cut it into two or three pieces and hang it on a door. So that's, why? I liked kind of having the ex sensibility and it's kind of fun to like, look for it, they get to pick it out, open it up like a new little present every day. Do you see all the envelopes on the back? I don't because I want to reuse them, but if you want, if you knew you weren't going to use it another year and it was just kind of a fun thing to create that year, you could steal it. Yeah, and I would just use a little piece of double sticker glued on the back right there. The other thing that will show you later is you can buy in the sewing section velcro dots that they use for quilting and you, that way, you could open and close it if you wanted tio. But it would still be reasonable. All right, really fun project. And this is actually something that even my teenagers like to, because they know that we're going to be doing something cool with it. And it's kind of fun and interactive. And anything I can get teenage boys to like, be happy about is great in my book, especially if it involves pink, and I can get them to like it.