advent | Oopsey Daisy

Christmas Book Advent: Day 1 {Santa Beard Countdown}

December 2, 2010 46 Comments

Welcome to Day 1 of our Book & Activity Advent! It took me all day long to get this little advent rolling, but we made it!! Our first book ended up being Little Man's bedtime story. He loved it so much that he insisted on reading it twice and wanted to take it to bed with him. Success!

Here Comes Santa Claus is a song book--Little Man's favorite! The words are the lyrics to the popular song "Here Comes Santa Claus", and the illustrations are gorgeous! I thought this would be a good way to introduce Santa to Little Man. Even though my singing voice was atrocious, he must have loved it because he demanded an encore!

What better way to begin our book advent than with a little countdown made just for Little Man?! This activity is something I did each year with my first grade students. I taught year-round school, and we were off track during the month of December. This activity was something they completed at home with their families to anticipate Christmas.

Say hello to a less-hairy Santa. But don't worry, he won't be beardless for long because every day during the month of December, we will be adding a cotton ball to his face to form a fluffy, white beard!

For this project:

* I created this little poem in Photoshop using this Echo Park Paper kit.

* I found a cute Santa face here at Vector Jungle. I just cut off the beard when I printed it out.

* I mounted all of it on a couple of pieces of green cardstock joined with coordinating scrapbook paper.

* Santa is looking jolly on our refrigerator.

EDITED TO ADD:
If you are having trouble printing the Santa, here are some tips: Download the entire Christmas clip art pack. In photo editing software, clip just the Santa face. Then insert into a Microsoft Word document. Adjust size as needed and print! I hope this helps!

Little Man loved putting the first cotton ball on Santa's beard tonight with his Daddy. I have a feeling he will grow to love this even more as the days go on. Little Man loves his routines! We have plenty of advents around this house... lots of way to look forward to Christmas!

Come back later for a book and activity for Day 2!

Thanks for reading!

Edited to add:

Of course I would LOVE to share this Santa and the poem with you. However, the Santa graphic is under copyright at Vector Jungle, and the digital papers that I used for the poem are copyrighted by Echo Park Paper. I have received several comments from readers creating their own downloads for this activity. Please be sure you are following the appropriate terms of usage! We all need to be following copyright laws. This is why I directed you to the link of the Santa clip rather than offering it as a printable. Thanks for understanding!

Filed Under: advent, book advent, Christmas, holidays

Christmas Tree Countdown

November 26, 2010 17 Comments

Alright, it's Black Friday, and now I can officially welcome in the Christmas season! I try to save my Christmas celebrations for the day after Thanksgiving. So now that my favorite time of year is here... bring it on!

Anticipating a special occasion is half the fun--am I right?! I think I own at least 3 Christmas advent calendars--so you will see more ideas! But today I want to share the tutorial for making my latest and greatest countdown.

Come along with me and see how I made this sweet lil' Christmas tree countdown!

I had the opportunity to decorate this Christmas tree from Say It With Letters. There is something about unfinished wood that is so exciting to me--all those possibilities! I was so excited when this package arrived in the mail!

As soon as I saw this tree, I knew I needed to go shopping at my local scrapbook store. I cut strips of the new My Mind's Eye Christmas paper and used my Fiskars scallop punch on some of the strips. I overlapped the paper strips and mod-podged all of the paper onto the tree. I covered both sides of the tree and even the edges. Then, I trimmed it all up. I even sanded the edges so there were no sharp paper edges.

I decided that this tree needed some BLING. I gave the tree a thick coat of mod podge and started dumping on the glitter! Next, I added red sparkly ribbon and green sparkly ribbon stripes. This little tree definitely shines!

I decided that it would be fun to use this tree to count down the days until Christmas. So I found some glittery snowflakes at Hobby Lobby and used E-6000 to secure magnets to the back of each snowflake.

Using my Cricut, I added vinyl numbers to the snowflakes so we could count down the days until Christmas! You could also use paper numbers.

Using chipboard letters, I made the "days" sign, mounted on more scrapbook paper. I also distressed the edges.

I just glued 2 magnet tape squares onto the tree so that the snowflake numbers would stick. Then I topped the tree with a big red ribbon bow.

I glued these fun epoxy buttons all over the front and back of the tree as ornaments. (This is the back side.)

I found this cute star box and spray painted it red. Then I mod-podged paper and ribbon around the box's edges. Now I can use this box to hold the extra snowflake numbers! I am excited to start counting down the days until Christmas! Here are a few close-ups:

I can't wait to see all of the fun Christmas crafts this year!!

Merry Christmas!!

Filed Under: advent, Christmas, holidays, wood crafts

Guest Designer

November 4, 2010 7 Comments

I had an amazing opportunity to be a guest designer for the fabulous Deb at Say it With Letters. You can find all kinds of wooden block letters and other unfinished wood at Deb's shop! I had so much fun selecting this 12" Christmas tree and decorating it as a countdown to Christmas! Today, I am sharing my tutorial. Head on over to Say it With Letters and come say hello!

Thanks for making Oopsey Daisy part of your day!

Filed Under: advent, Christmas

Gratitude Tree Advent Calendar {With download}

October 29, 2010 36 Comments

I often feel that Thanksgiving is not given its own due credit. I am often guilty of jumping straight from Halloween into Christmas. The last year or two, I've been trying to make Thanksgiving more meaningful for our family.

I saw this Halloween advent calendar at Heartland Paper, and I was completely inspired! My idea is using this magnet board gratitude tree as a sort of advent calendar. At the start of the month, we will begin with a blank tree. Each day, we will take turns as a family mentioning something we are grateful for. As we do this, we will add a leaf onto the tree!

You can make your own gratitude tree for your family, too! Come along with me and I'll show you how!

I already had a magnet board collecting dust, so I got to work creating the tree. I sketched a tree outline on the back of a piece of brown scrapbook paper. I am NOT an artist so I looked at a tree picture while I did this.

I cut out my tree and cut out several layers of "leaves" to fit the tree. There was definitely no exact science to this. I just cut out layers of scrapbook paper and overlapped them to create the shape of foliage. I mod podged the leaves and tree onto the magnet board. I also painted a layer of mod podge over the top to protect the whole tree!

Next, I created these leaves in Photoshop and cut them out. I created 30 leaves so we could add a leaf to the tree every day during November.

I am excited to tell you that I made my first Etsy purchase! Now I know why I stayed away from Etsy for so long... it is addicting! I purchased 100 resin glaze drops along with 100 bottle caps at Sun and Moon craft kits. (You definitely don't need to buy these to make your own, though. You could use clear glass pebbles to make these, too!) Now I attached the leaves to the resin glaze drops.

Now, I used E-6000 to attached the resin drops to the tops of the bottle caps and the magnets to the bottom of the bottle caps. Again, remember that you could use clear glass pebbles to create magnets in the same way! It's much cheaper! 🙂

Aren't those bottle cap leaf magnets lovely?!

I hung my magnet board with green ribbon. Now I can stand back and admire it!

But for now, we're starting with a bare tree at the beginning of November.... can I just add the first leaf to tell you how grateful I am for YOU?! I so appreciate your kind comments and thoughts. They really make my day!

If you wish, you can download your own set of leaves here. I would love to see pictures if you make your own gratitude tree advent calendar! You could even make a tree on your refrigerator and add leaf magnets every day during November. **These leaves were made to fit my bottle caps, so you may have to resize these just a smidge smaller to fit clear glass pebbles. Or just trim them up a bit!**

Enjoy your weekend!

Filed Under: advent, craft, download, fall, holidays, magnets, Thanksgiving

Halloween Advent Calendar {Tutorial & Download}

August 27, 2010 73 Comments

Don't get me wrong--I absolutely love summer! I love the warm weather, the carefree attitude, and I treasure all of the family fun in the sun! But yet I find myself itching for fall. I am already planning the holidays and definitely gearing up for Halloween! What better way to anticipate Halloween than with an advent calendar... and a yummy one at that!

Let me introduce you to our Halloween advent calendar! The idea is that each day of October, you eat a piece of candy and look forward to Halloween! Mr. Oopsey Daisy doesn't enjoy sweets all that much, so it's just lil' old me! Eat a piece of candy every day?! Yep, I can do that!!

I cooked up this project in time for our family reunion. I wanted to have a crafting "Super Saturday" with my Mom and sisters!! So I gathered supplies and made them little kits, and we made a few different crafts together one quiet afternoon while the little boys were napping. (Don't you just love our matching t-shirts?!) It was fun to sit back and help them craft while I shot pictures!

We started out with magnetic cookie sheets from the dollar store. I mod-podged some cute Halloween paper onto the cookie sheet.

The paper didn't quite cover the edges of the cookie sheet, so I mod-podged ribbon strips to create a border on both sides.

I cut strips of scrapbook paper and mod-podged them on to create a calendar grid, 5 rows by 7 columns.

I wanted to be sure that I could tape candy onto my calendar year after year, so I gave the calendar a good coat of mod-podge over the top of it all.

I used the Cricut to cut out an October heading and laminated it for durability. I threw some magnets on the back and now I have an adorable heading!

Next, I wanted to create cute marble magnets as the numbers on the calendar. I made these calendar numbers in Photoshop, cut them out and mod-podged them underneath the glass marbles and added magnet tape to the backs of each. As magnets, I could slide the numbers around to create a new calendar each year.

Not too shabby, eh? I love the marbled look to them!!

Missing something?? Oh yeah... let's add the candy!!

Whew! That's one busy calendar, jampacked full of chocolatey goodness! I found that double stick tape worked best to secure the candy onto the calendar. I can hardly wait for October 1st to roll around so I can start munching on some of my favorite candy!!!

If you would like to make your own Halloween advent calendar, you can download and print these numbers to create your own magnets! You can download your own set of numbers here.

**By the way, I am going to be switching over all of my downloads to Google Docs instead of Scribd. Thanks to some helpful readers, I have learned that Scribd charges for downloads after a certain period of time. If you've had troubles downloading my printables in the past, I hope to get this changed over soon! **

Enjoy your weekend!

Filed Under: advent, craft, download, fall, Halloween, holidays, magnets