BBTB2 Challenge - Christmas in July

Here we are with our Christmas in July BBTB2 Challenge.  We are being hosted by the Fab Jayne, please take a look at her site and all the wonderful designers.  Then pull out that Christmas paper and embellies and play, please remember to follow our challenge rules posted at the top of the BBTB2 site.

I adore Advent Calendars and as I was playing with boxes in June, the idea for a boxed Advent Calendar popped into my head.  This is a heavy pic post, so I hope you stick with me, cause I am lovin this project.  Because the inside has so much going on, I wanted to keep the outside of the box strikingly simple to retain an element of surprise.  The box itself was created using a Bazzill textured card stock and was done using my Score It Board,  the star on the box was created using Cricut cart "Joys of the Season", it was then colored with Copic Markers.  I used a standard elastic gold band to give just a little hint of festive.  Over all size of the box is 5 1/2" X 4 1/2".

So when you open the box there is an accordian fold with tabs that attach it to the top and bottom and then that is covered with patterned paper.  So you have 3 faces, the top of the box has an envelope permanently attached with a bird cage and little golden bird peeking out.  I love the impression of the little bird in the cage and then setting one free each day. Inside the envelope there is a glassine envelope with 24 more golden birds.  The bird cage and birds are Memory Box dies,  I applied gold/bronz colored duck tape to card stock to cut out the birds, I planned on embossing the birds but then did not like how it looked.  Merry Christmas was cut with Cricut cart "Calligraphy Collection" and the background paper is from Basicgrey "Dasher".

This pic shows the glassine envelope out of its holder envelope with the little birds out of the envelope.

And here is the calendar reveled.  I stayed with the BasicGrey background paper.  Each day is a QK seed pocket, I hand wrote the numbers with India Black ink and a calligraphy pen.  The berry flouish is from "Silhouette" as are the little Christmas light bulbs.  A bird is placed in each pocket representing the day, when the pockets are all filled it is Christmas Eve.  Coloring was done with Copic markers.

This is a picture of the Advent Calendar Box open from the side.

So that about does it, hope all of you have a wonderful, creative week, I can hardly wait to see all those glorious ideas and projects.  Hugs