Advent Blog Hop

Welcome to Ruthie's Advent Calender Blog Hop. Ruthie has assembled 16 crafters, and challenged each of us to come up with an advent calender. I was so thrilled and honored ot be asked - Thanks Ruthie :) If you came here from Melissa's beautiful blog, then you are in the right spot. If you just happened upon my blog, then you should start back with Angelica's, and feast your eyes on all the wonderful advent calenders we have for you.

So, confession time: I almost emailed Ruthie at 2 o'clock this morning to back out... Do you ever have an idea that seems amazing but when you come down to executing it - not so amazing. When Ruthie first asked me to be a part of this hop, I was so excited. I LOVE Christmas. When my sisters and I were little girls, my mum used to make an advent tree. She would get a branch and set it in plaster of paris, and wrap 24 little wooden ornaments. Each day, we would open an ornament and hang it on the tree. I decided to try to recreate that idea with paper. I thought it would look so cute. Here is what it looks like:



I made 2 seperate parts. One has 24 little numbered envelopes on it, and it houses the little ornaments before they are hung up. The other is the actual tree.



The tree is cut from Winter Frolic at 18 inches, which is as big as I could make it - which I thought would be big enough. I don't have a 12x24 mat, so the tree is actually cut in 2 pieces, on my 12x12 mat. I just changed the mat size on my Gypsy, and then cut out half of the tree at a time.



Each of my little ornaments were cut at 2.5 inches. I initially tried to make my ornaments smaller, but the pieces were so miniscule, I couldn't get them to cut properly. This was the size that worked best - unfortunately they are a bit too big for the tree...



The idea is, that each day the kids will take a decoration out of the envelope for that day, and hang it on the tree, counting down till Christmas. Santa and Baby Jesus are saved for last.



The envelopes completely filled... which is how my children will see it in the morning when they wake up. Hmm... I had better put the dot on the I before they wake up. My son will notice that immediately :)



You can see the blank tree here. I used mini brads as ornament hangers. They are only pushed in half way to the paper and then opened. I taped down the back of the brad, so that it stuck out from the paper a little and wouldn't move, making it much easier hange the ornaments off it.

It looks a bit like how I imagined, just more cluttered. Tree to small - ornaments too big - strings to long, or too short - you get the idea. I had my little pity party, after hours of trying to get the ornaments to hang right, and look the way I had envisioned. Like I said, I first considered backing out of the hop, and then thought about taking the pictures and throwing it all in the garbage. During said pity party, my husband came up and asked how it was going. I told him I was really unhappy, that it didn't look at all how it had in my head. My husband looked at it, and said to me "Well the kids will love it". He's right. They will, and that is all that really matters :)

So on to my blog candy... I am giving away this cute little winter stamp set:



How do you win this adorable stamp set? It is so easy!

1) Follow my blog (if you don't already)
2) Leave me a comment on this post - You have until midnight on Monday November 29th to leave a comment.
3) Check back on Tuesday to see if you have won! My last blog hop, a winner did not contact me, so I will be redrawing that on Tuesday too!

I had a really pretty "next blog button", but my computer skills leave something to be desired, and I could NOT get the the button to work, so NICOLE is the next stop along the way. Thanks for visiting today!

Here is a list of all the participants in today's hop, just in case you get lost:

Angelica http://handmadebyangelica.com/
Dawnica http://dawnicakorner.blogspot.com/
Gale http://www.thehappystamper.com/
Janie http://www.typicalscrapbooker.blogspot.com/
Joanna http://scrap-making.blogspot.com/
Joy http://joyslife.com/
Mary http://cardztv.blogspot.com/
Melissa http://www.apaperjourney.blogspot.com/
Michelle http://www.mumoftwoblog.blogspot.com/ - you are here
Nicole http://primpedinpaper.wordpress.com/
Raven http://love4stamps.blogspot.com/
Theresa http://www.thescrapbookingqueen.com/
Tracy http://www.craftjunkietoo.com/
Yolie http://yoliebean.blogspot.com/
Denise http://cricutmyway.blogspot.com/
Ruthie http://septemberninth.blogspot.com/

** Edited to add** I forgot to list my supplies - sorry :) I am not home right now, but here is what I remember, I will update later:
Gypsy
Alphalicious
Winter Frolic
Christmas Cheer
Joys of the Season
Doodle Charms
Lots of paper, including K and Co, Stampin Up, and various tings from my scrap box.

A la prochaine...

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