always believe....

Hello friends...

I don't know about you but has Christmas suddenly crept up on us at an alarming rate? Where did November go? Eek, time is flying but amongst all the preparations for the big day, I thought I would share a project today, that I've made using some of the wonderful new Holiday idea-ology from Tim Holtz.

Every year I love to create advent pieces, and this year was no exception but I wanted to make something slightly different and decided to make an advent box instead. The idea of this box is that I'm going to fill it with chocolates and each chocolate will have a number attached to count down the days until Christmas and what will be left at the very bottom of the box is a key for Santa, so that he can let himself in through the front door ~ just in case he's too tired to come down the chimney!

But of course no box is complete without decoration and it's time to introduce you to this darling little girl called Clarice, who is patiently waiting for Santa to arrive and in this post I'm going to take you through what I did to bring this little scene to life together with some of the techniques I've used....

To begin with I took three Vignette Boxes ~ the largest, the next size down and then the smallest together with the largest Vignette Panel and a Vignette Frame that will fit the middle sized box. 

Each box was then covered in my favourite papers from the stash ~ oh how I love that festive foliage design, so much so I've actually chosen a similar design as wrapping paper for my presents and I started with the largest box, cutting panels of the festive foliage design to size and then adhering them onto the sides of the box with Matte Collage Medium. For the Vignette Panel, I chose the star design paper from the stash and again adhered this with Collage Medium.

I continued to cover the medium sized and smaller sized box with the papers, adhering it the sides, to the inside and to the fronts and backs of the boxes. Also, once these boxes are layered on top of one another, the smallest box at the top actually acts as a handle so that you can lift the entire top section off to reveal the box underneath...

...which I covered with some striped paper from an older Tim Holtz Christmas paper stash. This will eventually be where my chocolates are stored.

On this particular project I really liked the wooden edges to show on the box, so I chose not to cover these or apply design tape and kept it really natural looking.

So once everything was covered and the medium was dry, I then applied some Crackle Paste around the edges of the larger box and the smaller box. I allowed the paste to dry and work it's magic before using the Gathered Twigs Distress Crayon to just add some ageing, giving it the look of it being an old box.

Finally, I added a Vignette frame which I painted white and placed this onto the front of the medium sized box before adding a little gliding wax to accentuate the beading.

Right, all the boxes are now covered and before I build them up on top of one another, I would recommend that you decorate the inside of the medium sized box and the smaller box now, as it's so much easier to do at this stage, before they are in place. This is actually going to represent an open fireplace, so I placed some Spanish Moss along the bottom and added some pinecones into the mix. Along the top of the box, I attached some of the Christmas Fringe to create a garland and place two little bells hanging down in the middle. You can just see the decorations inside the box in the photo below...

On the small box, I added Quote Chips to the front ~ '25' and 'always believe' and then placed two mirrored stars either side of the chips. Finally, I added hex fasteners to each corner, cutting off the legs at the back of the brads and then attaching them with collage medium.

I can now build up my boxes starting with the largest placed horizontal at the bottom with the lid over the top, the medium sized box next with the aperture at the front and the small on top with the solid side facing forwards. On the top of the small box I attached a small Vignette Finial again painted white with a touch of gilding wax. I also added a decorative Curio Knob to the largest box.

Now for the fun part of decorating and you can choose exactly how you want to decorate your box, that's the fun part but I'll take you through how I decorated mine...

...starting with the little table that I made using a Vignette Finial base piece, again painted white with a touch of gliding wax. I then added a Wood Slice as the top and attached it with Collage Medium. On the table, I've added a little bottle of milk for Santa which is a Tiny Corked Vial, painted white and then had a Christmas Snippets Ephemera piece attached, complete with date. I added twine around the neck and added a Clippings Sticker 'for santa'! I also added some tiny keys and a Christmas card, made from a Snippets Ephemera piece just folded in half.

The Christmas tree is a Woodlands tree, which is coloured using Peeled Paint Distress Spray Stain. Just spritz the tree with the stain and allow to thoroughly dry. I then placed the tree into a Thimble painted with Festive Berries Distress Paint.

The baubles are all coloured with alcohol inks ~ Turquoise, Red Pepper, Botanical and Sunshine Yellow. I place my baubles into a sealed container, add a few drops of the inks and then swish them around to ensure they're fully coated. Tip them out onto a piece of kitchen towel and then attach them one by one to the tree using Collage Medium.

On the left hand side, I used another of the Thimbles to act as a container for the remaining coloured baubles.

The presents are actually dice that I've wrapped in some of the Tim Holtz papers and tied with twine and added a Clippings Sticker for Clarice.

I attached all the elements onto the box, using Collage Medium as my 'go-to' adhesive and I also arranged a piece of dyed cheesecloth in the centre. Finally, the star of my show, Clarice ~ the little girl ready and waiting for Santa to arrive and for this I used a Paper Doll, coloured using Distress Marker Pens. I then cut a strip of Mummy Cloth and dyed it with Antique Linen Distress Spray Stain. Once the cloth was dry, I wrapped it around Clarice's neck to keep her warm as she heads out for one final shopping trip, to get some cookies for Santa. I attached Clarice to my box and added the finishing touch of a star at the top of the tree.

All that's left now is to fill the box with 24 chocolates, each with an individual number....

...and add the key ~ I used one of Tim's Word Keys and tied a piece of green ribbon around it.

So, I really hope you've enjoyed this project and enjoyed how I bought Clarice's Christmas Story to life ~ I just love making these little scenes and this was such a fun one to create!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and a huge thank you to Tim, Mario and Paula for letting me play with all the wonderful new idea-ology products, I appreciate you all so very much!

See you all again soon...lots of love, Emma xx

Recipe for project:

Distress Spray Stain: Antique Linen, Peeled Paint

Distress Marker Pens
Distress Paint: Picket Fence, Festive Berries

Idea-ology: Christmas Quote Chips, Hex Fasteners, Christmas Clippings, Large Woodland Trees, Thimbles, Christmas Snippets Ephemera, Vignette Finials, Tiny Corked Vials, Christmas Word Key, Baubles, Wood Slice, Key Adornments, Christmas Fringe, Christmas Paper Dolls, Vignette Frames, Curio Knobs

Mediums: Matte Collage Medium, Crackle Paste
Alcohol Ink: Red Pepper, Sunshine Yellow, Botanical, Turquoise

Surfaces: Christmas Paper Stash, Vignette Boxes, Vignette Panels
Vintage Gold Alchemy Wax

Tim Holtz Media Glass Mat

Tim Holtz Guillotine

Heat Gun
Mummy cloth from my own stash