24 Boxes of Advent (January) - by Kim

 The best definition for Advent I could find was basically a count-down to Christmas. So I thought, anything goes!

My inspiration for this one is, finding an old rusty safe and not knowing what treasure lurks inside. I started with an outside all-over base coat of grey (DecoArt Zinc), with the inside black (Ebony).

From my 'Tando's Leftovers' stash I found screw heads and a keyhole from Industrial Elements and stuck them on the front of the drawer. These were base coated with grey, too.

For the 'industrial decay' I used DecoArt Media Fluid acrylics. I tried to replicate the way corrosion runs down. First I used Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide, then Quinacridone Gold, then a little Green Gold. On the top, where the rust meets the paint I used Paynes Grey to define the edges.

I thought the idea of an interior lid would be fun - like a safe deposit box, so I made one with coffee stirrers, hinged at the back. 

To bling it up a bit I cut a No1 from waste grey board and painted it a bright, shiny gold.

Products:

Tando Boxes of Advent

Coffee stirrers

Offcuts/leftovers from Tando Industrial Elements

DecoArt colours - various Americana and Media Fluid Acrylics

Free for All - ADVENT CALENDAR

Every year I seem to make an Advent Calendar up.  They are all different and somehow I don't think my build up to Christmas would be the same without them hahaha!  This year Tando Creative have brought out a new 3D one which looks like a house ;-D  I like that idea!!!  Of course you could decorate it completely differently and use it for trinkets or stash!!!  Please forgive the photo's, its so difficult to get all the sparkle on camera...I either lose the sparkle to get the true colours (which are darker than you can see) or have sparkle!!!  Use your imagination...

The house comes flat packed and is very easy to put together.  Most of it just slots into place.  The roof and the end pieces are the only pieces to glue on.   On the other side are the remaining drawers for the rest of the month.  I used acrylic paints and on the 'outsides' I have used 2 masks with dimensional paste before adding a top coat using all the colours to match the drawers.  Some Stickles and Treasure Silver makes the whole thing sparkle.  I also added some Tando snowflakes to the roof and sides that I added Stickles to.

The roof looking down...

and the sides...

 

If you decide to make one do please email us with a picture as we would LOVE to see it.  Take care, Karen xxx

Advent Calendar with All is Bright

I love the octagonal Advent calendar and I have seen so many beautiful ones this week and across the web, even my kids were desperate to have one of these in our house (not only because of the chocolate it will contain :)).  In fact my youngest helped me cover the main tree structure with old book paper - so I had an extra special helper for this!

Once I had covered the frame with the book paper I then gave it a wash of PVA and acrylic mixed together, I also used that same paint/pva combination to paint the draws.  Once that was all done I made myself 3 little templates for the different drawer sizes.  I used loads of different items to decorate the drawers trying to make them all a bit different and the lovely mini bags of reindeers, snowflakes, stars and stockings were perfect.  I used part of the stocking to make crowns, and then embossed the rest with a glittery embossing powder, I covered the reindeer in brown ink and then a layer of glossy accents, then used white embossing powder on the snowflakes and silver for the stars.

I have lots of pictures so here are a few more.

Katherine

Advent Calendar

Hi, here's Caro ... I'm sure you have seen the wonderful Christmas chipboards of Tando Creative? Well, there's that advent calendar that has caught my eye immediately:

Together with a 3D-Snowflake

and some Tando Mini's

I have created this Advent Calendar: