Happy December!

Greetings to you on this fabulous first day of December!

I'm very excited for today's post because it is a fun challenge over at Imaginisce!!!  Cari found the most amazing color palette and asked us to create using this as our inspiration:

Coincidentally one of the teachers at our Preschool asked me the other morning if I would have any use for this willow Christmas tree she had.  I took one look at it and thought --- perfect for something fun! 

Want to see what I did with all of this inspiration?  Our kids are young yet and the oldest absolutely loves candy and treats.  I decided that an Advent Tree would be easier for us to manage for the boys right now.  I used the adorable "Santa's Little Helper" line to coordinate with the color scheme:

To give you some context of the scale, this tree is over 2.5 feet high!

Here are a few pictures with the lights on.  Hopefully it gives you an idea of the effect.  Every day starting today, the boys will pull a tag counting down until Christmas day.  I will get them their treat and we will put their tag into a jar.  : ) 

Techniques used:

• Cut 6 pockets from 4 different card stocks for a total of 24 pockets using a Provocraft pocket die
• Punch 24 tags from the "Santa's Little Helper" papers by Imaginisce using Marvy Uchida punch
• Decorate pockets using Chipboard elements and Sticker Stackers from "Santa's Little Helper"
• Cut apart the Sticker Stackers dimensional decorations so the scale works to the pockets.
• Use a variety of trims including baker's twine, hemp, seam binding ribbon and ric-rak for added texture.
• To create the star; Cut two stars using the largest Spellbinder Star Die, then score them to create dimension.  Carefully glue together using a coffee stir stick for the stem.

Tips:

• If you happen to find one of these trees, you will definitely want to use our i-rock LED lighted tweezers like I did to help you thread your trims through and tie. 

Thanks so much for stopping on over today!  Make sure you stop on over to the Imaginisce blog for even more amazing inspiration from the rest of our uber talented Design Team gals!  We really hope you'll play along with us for the last challenge of 2011! 

Have a super scrappity day!

~ Rhonda