Happy Monday, everybody! Have you missed seeing crafty inspiration because I’ve certainly missed having time for it! Sometimes we just have to know when to make a little space for other things — like coordinating major work programs and family time, all of which were time well spent.

But we’re back at it this week with 12 days of crafty Christmas! Each day we’re going to be opening 2 slots in the Stampin’ Up! 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar. Each calendar comes with a box of crafty surprises, as well as a coordinating stamp set. Let’s see what we have in store today!

So isn’t that fun — today we’ll be working with the coordinating dies and 6×6 patterned paper for the Advent Calendar stamp set. The first thing I wanted to do was put everything side-by-side to decide on a theme and color palette for a card design.

The pink floral pattern stood out to me in the selection of papers, so from there I looked for a simple design that would allow me to use the stamps & dies. I pulled out the Holiday Mini catalog and turned to the sketches on page 14 and was drawn to the very first one — clean and simple & a perfect way to coordinate the paper, stamps & dies.

So we have a sketch, our 2 Advent Calendar boxes, and the stamps. We pull coordinating papers together — Strawberry Slush, Pretty in Pink, Mossy Meadow, and white — to get started. To add a pop of interest, I decided to add some texture to the background panel using a *NEW* embossing folder that releases in just a few weeks.

We get started with a base of Strawberry Slush cardstock. The background panel is a quarter sheet of Strawberry Slush that I machine embossed with the new Beautiful Pattern embossing folder, which releases in just a few weeks! The sheet of pink florals is cut and then wrapped with Strawberry Slush ribbon before being adhered to the embossed background panel. Using the Advent Calendar stamp set, we stamp the large and smaller flowers on Pretty in Pink in both Strawberry Slush & Pretty in Pink ink. The center is stamped in Timid Tiger. The flowers are then diecut with the new coordinating dies we opened today, along with coordinating leaves from Mossy Meadow. Our flower is adhered over the ribbon on the left — substituting for the circle in our sketch. The sentiment from the Advent Calendar stamp set is stamped in Strawberry Slush on white cardstock and cut with the banner from the Mixed Labels die set and adhered over our flower element and just under the ribbon. A few Strawberry Slush & Pretty in Pink gems finish things off with pops of twinkle across the card front.

I hope you’ll pop in tomorrow to see what our next 2 boxes will reveal. I know I can’t wait!

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