25 histoires avant Noël / Advent story book

Je suis en plein bricolages de Noël mais c'est très frustrant, je ne peux rien montrer. Avec une copine, nous avons décidé de nous faire chacune un colis de Noël, rempli de 25 petits cadeaux faits main ou achetés, à défaut d'avoir été prêtes à temps pour faire un calendrier de l'Avent. On s'échangera les colis juste avant Noël et chacune l'ouvrira le 25 décembre, en rigolant j'espère ! Impossible donc de montrer quoique ce soit mais les petits lutins du Père Noël cogitent et bidouillent à fond depuis mi novembre !

I'm currently in the process of making lots of Christmas small handmade gifts but I can't show anything. It's very frustrating! A friend of mine and I have decided to make ourselves one Christmas parcel each, filled up with 25 small handmade and store bought gifts. We'll swap our parcels just before Xmas and open it on Dec 25th. I hope we will laugh!

Entre temps, j'ai voulu faire un livre de l'Avent pour Jade, la fille de ma filleule, inspiré par celui-ci sur Pinterest. Le calendrier sera pour une autre année (j'ai le temps, elle n'a que 3 ans) mais je garde cette idée en tête depuis un certain temps. Pour aller plus vite, j'ai rassemblé 25 histoires (gratuites, trouvées sur le net), les ai mises en page dans Publisher, ajouté des cliparts pour les illustrer, préparer un sommaire, quelques pages supplémentaires, plastifié et relié le tout à vitesse grand V pour être prête à temps !

In between time, I made a "25 stories to read before Christmas" book for Jade, my Goddaughter's daughter, inspired by this one found on Pinterest. I wanted to make an advent calendar but I quickly realized that I won't be able to finish it on time so I keep this idea for another year (she's 3, I have plenty of time!). I made this book very quicklyin Microsoft Publisher, found free stories on the Internet, added cliparts, a few more pages, a cover, coated it with plastic and binded it with my Bind-it-all. Everything being done in a hurry to be ready at the beginning of December!

Couverture / Cover

Page de garde / Fisrt page

Sommaire / Contents

Elle devra coller une gommette dans une case du calendrier à chaque fois qu'une histoire sera lu... pour faire patienter le Père Noël :)

She will have to add a sticker on the calendar each time a story will be read, waiting for Santa :)

J'ai pu lui remettre le 5 décembre avec quelques jours de retard et quelque chose me dit que j'ai très bien fait de plastifier toutes les pages.........!!!

I finally gave her a few days late on Dec 5th and something tells me that was a very good idea to coat every page with plastic........!!!

Thank you and birthday cards + an ATC + a calendar

One of my online friends, Michelle from Sri Lanka, had her birthday lately. Here are a few things I sent her lately, both for her birthday and also to thank her for the fabulous prize I won on her blog in June.

Here is the thank-you card. You will probably recognize Betsy Bluebell from Penny Black.

I colored the stamped image with Promarkers and added a real tag to the bouquet.

Now, this is the birthday card I made using the pumpkin Nestabilities, embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder, and Marianne D dies for the leaves. As Michelle's birthday was on Oct. 24th I gave it a little (a big!) Halloweeny feeling...

The pumpkin bear is a digital stamp by Dustin Pike (DoodleDragons) colored with Promarkers. The sentiment is by Hero Arts and belongs to the Cupcake clear set I won on Michelle's blog.

Then I made an Atc, still Halloween theme, inspired my the card I made a few weeks ago:

 The ghost, the spider and spiderweb are from the Owl-oween clear set by Hero Arts. The spider doesn't show very well even though there's some Glossy Accents on it. The background is made with alcohol inks.

To complete this, I made a little calendar for "dates to remember", using my Bind-it-all:

Again, the owl is a digi stamp by Dustin Pike. I really love his drawings. The clouds are from Hero Arts. I clear embossed the stamp and heat it with blue embossing powder with my heat-gun. I run the green paper through my Cuttlebug to make the grass.

The printable calendar is a freebie I found on the PaperCrafts Inspirations blog.

Thanks for looking!

***

Voici quelques petites choses que j'ai envoyées à Michelle (du Sri Lanka) pour son anniversaire dernièrement et aussi pour la remercier du "blog candy" que j'ai gagné sur son site en juin dernier.

Sur la carte de remerciements, j'ai utilisé le tampon transparent "Betsy Bluebell" de Penny Black et ai ajouté une "vraie" étiquette au bouquet.

La carte d'anniversaire est très marquée "Halloween" puisque l'anniversaire de Michelle tombe le 24 octobre. La citrouille est une Nestabilities, embossée avec la Cuttlebug. Les feuilles sont des dies de Marianne D. A l'intérieur, l'ours habillé en citrouille est un digi stamp de Dustin Pike. Le sentiment est de Hero Arts.

J'ai ajouté à ça une Atc faites avec des tampons du set Owl-oween de Hero Arts, inspirée de la carte que j'avais faite il y a quelques temps.

Et pour finir, j'ai fait un petit calendrier perpetuel pour noter les dates à retenir. La chouette est aussi un digi stamp de Dustin Pike (que j'ai retournée et un peu effacée pour la faire de dos). Les nuages sont un tampon Hero Art et l'herbe est faite avec la Cuttlebug.

A la prochaine !

PS : t'as vu Laurence, j'ai pensé à la traduction ;-)

Stamps + Bind-it-all = Calendar!

When I bought my Bind-it-all last year, making a calendar was one of my multiple projects. But as usual, time flies and there was still no calendar... until last week!

Sometimes I have obsessions and one week ago, during the weekend, my obsession was  making absolutely this calendar right now whereas I had tons of other more urgent things to do. Don't try to understand, sometimes I just can't help! And believe it or not, I made it within 2 days!! I still can't believe it... I suppose it is what happens when I really have the whole project in my head before starting everything.

My other excuse :-) was that one of the  girls of my cross-stitch club (yes I do attend monthly a cross-stitch club where we do not cross-stitch at all but where we chat a lot, laugh and have dinner!!), so one of the girls offered each of us a tiny 2011 calendar and challenged us to make something with it for our next meeting. I think most of the girls will do something cross-stitch related as we are only 2 or 3 (out of 10-12) who scrapbook.

Right away I "saw" my calendar made with these coasters I had. I would use the coasters for the covers and embellished them of course. Then I just had to find some stamps in my stash matching the 12 months. I loved looking for these perfect stamps! Finally I ended up mixing my favorite rubber and digital stamps companies.

Here is the result of my stamping, coloring, collaging and binding...

 

The coasters are 3,5" x 3,5". I used them to make the covers and cut scrapbook papers to size for the inside sheets.

I used a digi stamp from Dustin Pike for January and ran some white paper through my Cuttlebug to make the snow.

On February the snowboarding penguin is an Inkadinkado stamp. The snowy background has also been made with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.

 

This bouncing frog celebrates Spring and is a Penny Black stamp. The clouds are cut from the "Clouds background" from Hero Arts.

This shy rabbit and the eggs are also Hero Arts clear stamps.

Here is Betsy Bluebell, another character from Penny Black and a Cuttlebug embossed tree.

 

For June I ised Miles the Mouse, from Kraftin' Kimmie and designed by Steven Leary. The clouds background is from Hero Arts.

Here comes July! These two stamps are from two different Stampin' Up sets I found on Ebay. I had dreamed of palm trees during the whole summer, I had to make a palm tree scene!

In August Miles the mouse is back with his surfing board! The sand is made with sandpaper.

 

For most of us September is usually a "back to school" theme... At this time of the year summer is still here and I still go and have a walk around a lake near where I live. And I like watching ducks dabbling... ok it's not a duck here! Not a problem I love this High Hopes stamp! (designed by Dustin Pike too)

October sees the Halloween spirit coming! This owl is a Hero Arts stamps that I love! The ground is made with orange scrapbook paper run through a pumpkin Cuttlebug embossing folder and the bat is also a Cuttlebug die.

This calendar wouldn't have been complete without Fluffles! I love this little cat from Stampendous!

December finishes the year with another owl from Hero Arts. Hoo hoo hoo!

I've added a piece of wire to hang the calendar on the wall but I will have to improve it. This doesn't really work! Otherwise it stands on the desk.

Here is a overall picture of the 12 months. I colored all the stamps with Promarkers and really enjoyed it.

I so enjoyed making this calendar that I've started another one... I just hope I will finish it!