Saturday 2 October 2010

Flip Over Advent Calendar

I found this Advent Calendar below and thought I’d like to have a go at making something similar:-http://www.fiskarettes.co.uk/index.php/date/2009/11flipover
But, when I started making it I didn’t actually save the site or picture (which I have since found again)  so I was working on a vaguish memory of what I thought it looked like, in my head.
Flip Over Advent Calendar 1
Putting it together was a fiddle as I have only ever made small books using my Bind It All before, in fact I very nearly gave up! Please bear with me as the instructions may not be too detailed as I was making this very much on the hoof and was concentrating more on the making rather than remembering to take a picture at each stage.
Picture 131
Each square measured 4 1/4in x 4.1/4ins and I used the width of a ruler to make the bottom of the calendar.  I then cut it out and scored the middle lines, followed by punching both ends using my Bind It All.
Picture 135 Picture 137
The pages measure 4ins x 4ins, and were punched and then very carefully cut in two.
 Picture 140Picture 138
For my first attempt  (above) I used 3 coils for each side of the calendar, but it looked wonky, as you can see, so I did it again, this time using just one length of 6 coils.
Flip Over Advent Calendar 2
I created a set of numbers using Publisher on the same colour card as the calendar base and then added a K & Co. Christmas paper as a background. The rest is all the fiddly twiddly bits…….. which included lots of faux stitching using a white gel pen, large holly leaves made with a punch, and red foil holly berries. I tried to  use red flat backed gems for the berries originally, but it made the right hand side of the calendar far too bulky.
Flip Over Advent Calendar 3
I am not 100% happy with what I have made, if I were to do it again, I would make the number panels shorter to give me more space to vary the decoration at the bottom of each page, at the moment they are all pretty much the same. Having said that, it’ll look very nice on my festive desk at work.