December Daily 2013 - day 2

See I like to break the rules with this project, the buying of the tree, well it happened the day after Thanksgiving.  Doesn't mean I can't put it in my December Daily, it's a Christmas tree after all.  Make your own rules, its your album, right!

I always keep track of how much we pay for our tree and was super surprised this year that it was the exact same price as last year.  Not one penny more.  We found a really great tree this year and its super tall! Thankfully we have nice high ceilings to accommodate a large one.

I kept the embellishments to a minimum as you can see.

I did add a little glassine bag to the middle to hold the tag from the tree and I added another picture of it all decorated.  I'll definitely do another shot of the tree in the daylight later on in the album but this was from the night we decorated it and I kind of liked it.

I like a lot of lights and this year we added quite a few. Its never been this bright before and I love it!

December Daily 2013 - Title Page and Day 1

It's December can you believe it!

I kept the red and gold theme going for my title page for this years album, a lot simpler than last years and I love it.

I found the gold foil cardstock at Michael's but have also seen something similar it at my local stamp store if you don't have access to a Michael's.  The cut file is from the Silhouette Store its from Basic Grey.  The banner is also a cut file that came as a free file download recently with a wreath design.  This cut is super intricate and some of the parts are quite small. I used a brand new blade and it still had some issues so dial the speed down and be prepared to wait, its takes a while to cut.

I love how reflective the gold paper is.

Every year I always start day one with the advent calendar.  This year I bought my daughter her first Lego Friends calendar and she was super surprised. She carried that box around with her all day yesterday and that's pretty cool.  Last year I paired it with a letter to her and did the same this year. She is super excited and very in touch with the notion of believing in the magic of Santa and said something pretty cute to him Sunday night that I wanted to capture so it's part of my letter.  The veneer tag in the upper right is from Two Peas, the rest is all from the Studio Calico kit, the woodgrain paper is from Studio Calico but not part of the kit.

Looking over my calendar for the month and I realize this year is going to be super busy and super lively. My brother and his family will all be here for Christmas which is a gift in itself and I cannot wait for Simone to have all kinds of fun with her cousins this year. We will have a packed house on Christmas Day and I'm so looking forward to it.

I hope you all have a magical month and I look forward to sharing more as the days count down.

If you are interested in learning more about this project, make sure you check out Ali Edwards blog, she started this whole thing and what she does with it is truly amazing.  You can see her posts here.

Project Life 2013 - week 47

I ended up using a lot of cards from the recent Cuppa Project Life kit from Studio Calico. The cards just all seemed to work in the spots I needed to fill and I always love when that happens.  I find that with the protectors I'm using Design D and F I need to make the cards work for me like I did with the numbered cards.

We celebrated Larry's birthday this past week, my mother in law looking ubber stylish on an outing, my sweet girl being sweet which is super awesome.

The calendar date card was in the kit and I really wanted to make sure it got used before the month ran out. I added a little bit of red stitching to tie it in to the few pops of red on the layout.  The holiday music has started but I'm trying to take it slow until after Thanksgiving.  A little holiday cheer for my phone wallpaper, a picture of my DD cover, a lunch date with my friends and their kids, some stuff about me underneath the woodgrain card that I loved. Me in camo, never thought that would happen, like ever.  Some photos of my girl playing indoor soccer courtesy of my super talented friend. Our holiday DIY projects and our first Christmas movie of the season. Let me tell you how happy I was that Simone watched this. She's always been afraid of him but I coaxed her thru the beginning and she ended up loving it, yay!

Here is a close-up of the stitching on the title card, super simple back stitches but I do love the pop of red on the grey.

I hope you all have a really lovely Thanksgiving and if you're hitting the stores late or early please be safe.  I'll be attending Black Friday via my comfy sofa while under a blanket.

Holiday Decor projects

Last Christmas I had all kinds of ideas for fun things to make and many of them never happened so this year I started early to make sure at least some of them happened.

A few months back I found a super cute idea on Pinterest to make your own mini marquee lights from paper and really wanted to do it until I found this while browsing Target.com recently.

 

They are large (12" high) metal letters with lights and are ready to hang if you so desire.  They also have Believe and Noel. I would have loved to get the Believe since that was the word I had in mind for the paper version but because these are large I didn't have enough room on my mantle to put it with the other items I have planned. 

 

I happily found it in stock at my store despite their online stock checker saying it was out of stock.

 

 

At only $19.99 I thought it was a bargain since I didn't have to make and assemble it myself.  It comes with a super cute woodgrain look but I was hoping for something a bit more shiny.

 

We removed all of the outer clear bulb covers and left the lights in place, we didn't think the plugs for the lights would come out easily enough so we opted to leave them in.  We just wrapped painters tape around each snug up to the metal base and pinched it closed at the top. I also removed the metal rings at the top of the letters with a pair of pliers. I knew I wasn't hanging mine so carefully and with a bit of force and wiggling they came off no problem.

 

 

As far as the paint choices, here is what we used;

 





The Metalcast primer my husband had on hand for another project but it ended up being a really great primer for both of the projects we did.  The white Ultra Cover was okay, it cracked and came out of the can a bit yucky but it could have just been our bad can.  It didn't matter too much in the end since we covered it up with the glitter spray which hid everything well.  The top coat was just to seal the glitter in so it doesn't go everywhere.  He ended up doing two coats of the primer, three thin coats of the white, several coats of the glitter until it looked the way I wanted it too and one coat of the sealer.

Here's how it looks all done and lit up, the white is pretty much covered but it definitely helped to cover the brown up first before applying the glitter. You could probably skip the paint step and just go with a white metal primer instead.

 

Because the won't stand on their own, especially the J and the O my husband took a piece of wood he had on hand and cut a little angled channel in the top and the letters sit down in that just great on their own.  He's painting it white for me to blend in with our mantle and as soon as it's dry I'll add a photo of it.

For my second project, I had found this super cool paper mache deer head at my local JoAnn's a month or so ago when I was there for something else.  It's labeled Craft Essentials item 1279-7577 and it's a nice size about 16" from the bottom to the top of the antlers.  It was $14.99 and with all the other seasonal Christmas crafts at the front of the store.

I thought this would be great painted gold so this is what we used;

The same Metcalcast primer and this Gold Foil paint.  He did two coats of the primer and two coats of the foil paint and this is how it turned out.

 



It's like it was dipped in gold and I love it!  I'm not sure how this paint will work on its own but in combination with the primer it was amazing!  We decided not to seal it so it wouldn't dull the look of the piece.

 

I look forward to adding both of these items to my Christmas décor that will go up in the next few days.