Silhouette & Jenni Bowlin Studio Advent Calendar

I was so very very excited to get the opportunity to work with Silhouette's new Advent Calendar Kit! When I got it in the mail I couldn't wait to get started! You get the wooden box and a download card with your purchase. And the box is nice and sturdy and crisp white! Love that. With the download card you get enough templates for boxes and/or drawers for your calendar. I chose to mix and match boxes and drawers because some of those boxes were just too cute and I like the variation. You also get the shapes to cut to cover the back of each calendar box so you'll have patterned paper lining the back if you choose to do that.  So from now on when I have a special little gift to give I can use these box templates again and again! Check it out here: Silhouette Limited Edition Advent Calendar. As a special treat for our Jenni Bowlin Studio readers if you use the code JENNI at check out you'll get the advent calendar for $29.99 - a savings of $10.00! The promotion runs from November 1st - November 11th.

 

Jenni's paper is so absolutely perfect for this! I mixed several lines (of the heavier weight) but my favorite to work with here is the Christmas 2011 release. You can see from the photo below how the paper looks cute on the inside of the boxes as well! I also used lots of label stickers and number stickers as well as a few numbers cut from the bingo cards. I also used Jenni's Alterable Chipboard Numbers. All other numbers were cut with the Silhouette.

My two tips are this: First when you're gluing the end flaps together glue all three at the same time. That helps hold the position for a minute while the glue dries. My other tip is to learn how to ungroup the lids from the box bases like if you want to cut them out of different papers. Also sometimes with the larger drawers you'll need two sheets of 8.5 x 11 so you'll need to ungroup the two pieces. But it's very easy to do that.

Most of the time I just put the paper in the machine and however the design came out that's what I worked with. But with the #8 box and the Santa box I first cut a piece out of plain paper to see where to position my JBS paper so I could get the design in just the right spot. I really wanted that Santa on the front. On the #10 box I just made the box then cut out Jenni's label from the Christmas paper and glued it on because it would have been very difficult to get that one positioned absolutely perfect otherwise.It's kind of surprising how sturdy these cardstock boxes end up being after you've folded and glued all the reinforcement flaps on the inside.

My son, who is 6, is so so excited about this. He's been going around the house gathering treasures to fill it and I told him I was getting new surprises but he wants to help so much he asked if he could use his old stuff and I could get the new stuff so we could both work with it : ) For the really small boxes, like #5,(the drawer was bigger but I wanted to use that cute box) I'm going to include a clue to find the surprise hidden somewhere in the house. I think this is going to be a really special tradition for us from now on and it's so much more special because I put a lot of love and thought into this project - there's NO way we won't do it now!

So thanks for reading through all of that. I just really love this and had lots to share! I hope you like it and decide to create one for you and your family!

Paper used:
Be Our Guest Home Sweet Home
Christmas 2011 Accessory Sheet
Christmas 2011 Mini Pattern Sheet
Christmas 2011 Wrapping Paper
Coredinations Embossed Cardstock - Poinsetta Posies
Halloween 2011 Starry Night
Haven Accessory Sheet
Haven Dictionary
Haven Peeling Paper
Stickers used:
Black Label Stickers
Butterfly Banner Alpha Stickers - Red
Flag Banner Stickers Numbers
Red Label Stickers
Shadow Alpha Stickers Green/Red
Shadow Alpha Stickers Red/Black
Shadow Alpha Stickers Vintage/Black
Star Banner Stickers Green
Cardstock Alphabet Stickers Red Trim
Cardstock Alphabet Stickers Black Ledger
Other products used:
Alterable Alphas - Numbers
Mini Chipboard Pieces - Star
Doily Flowers - Cream
Memo Book - Green
Ranger JBS Dye Ink Stamp Pad - Cough Syrup 
Bingo Card - Noel 
Mini Bingo Cards - Greeting (Any mini bingo cards with black numbers will work the same)
Mini Bingo Cards - Christmas