Advent Calendar

Here is a new advent calendar.  It comes straight from Christmas Village.  I chose the one in keys 41 - 45.  I felt like it looked like a Middle Eastern (Bethlehem) village.  The one on the top row, keys 1 - 5 looks more like a Victorian Village.  If I get a chance in the next couple of days, I'll try to make that one also.

Because I was making a Middle Eastern town, I was looking for more earth tones as opposed to greens and reds.  In the end though, I decided the earth tones needed a lot of work.  It ended up looking far too bland.  So, I blinged it up. 

Here it is without any decorations.  I like the colors but they need a little something.

And now a picture with the domes decorated.  I used stickles on the first one.  That worked all right.  I liked the gold stickles at the very top of the dome.  On the second and third domes I used gold Perfect Pearls. This is the first time I've used Perfect Pearls, I'm in love.  I rubbed versamark all over the dome and then I "painted" the gold perfect pearls onto the dome. 

Look at how wonderful that dome looks.  It covers beautifully.  A little really does go a long way.  I'll definitely be using them again.

For variety, I used the copper Perfect Pearls on the last dome.  I loved the way that one looks also.  In order to get a nice line, I used blue painters tape and very carefully pulled it back off the paper after I was done with the domes.

I tried doodling and once again I'm reminded that I'm not a doodler.  This ended up looking like something a middle schooler might do.  If I was a middle schooler that would be fine, but I'm not.  So, I had to figure out whether I cut this piece again or try to cover up my doodling.  I decided to cover it up.

In order to give it a little more depth, I covered most of the doors and windows with a pattern paper.  It all came out of my scrap piles.  I used Effects Papercraft from Canson (I have no idea where I bought this and I tend to ration it because I love the iridescent and translucent papers). Then I used Deja Views' global Treks.  I love this paper.  It has a very Middle Eastern feel.  Finally, I used DCWV's At Home stack.  I think I have three or four stacks of this one.  I inked all of the doors and windows, some of them got an extra shot of ink across the front.

If you have made it through this entire post, I should give you the one bit of information I think would be helpful when making this advent calendar.  All of the boxes for the calendar are in the top row on Christmas Village.  They are keys 7 - 10.  But there is no information on the packaging to tell you how many of each you need.  Here is what I learned: 
1 of the large box (Key 7)
8 of the tall skinny box (Key 8)
6 of the medium box (Key 9)
10 of the small box (Key 10)

I don't know why this insists on going sideways but you can still see the boxes.

Here is the back of the advent calendar so you can see all of the boxes.  I used score tape to affix them.


If you want to see my other advent calendar you can see it here.  Later in the week I hope to have a couple more advent calendars to show you.  This one is going to Moma's church for the kids to use this year.