Blessings Countdown Calendar with Lil' Inker Designs

Welcome to release day 3 of the Lil' Inker Designs release!  If you are following along in the hop, you should have come from Lil' Inker Designs blog, it is the first stop on the hop today!

Today I am featuring the Instant Camera Christmas trio of products and I am so excited to share my projects with you today!  I wanted to create a special countdown to Christmas type of project that I could use with my family this holiday season.  What I ended up with is a Blessings Countdown Calendar!   These dies were perfect for making this, and there are a couple of surprise twists to this calendar as well!  (This is a long post, so please bear with me! I hope it'll be worth it for you to make it clear to the end!)

 

First off, I die cut 25 of the instant photos using various types of pattern paper which I mixed and matched.  Then, I applied the numbers (you could use dies or stickers, etc) for each day in December leading up to Christmas.  After decorating each instant die, I clipped them onto a cord that I had stapled onto the back of the wood frame (from Hobby Lobby).   The clips I used are hair clips that I found in the jewelry section. They worked perfectly!

I used various LID dies to decorate the instant photos, including the new mini bow die (day #8)!   I also used the Of the Heart die (day #3) previously released.

 For this section I used the Of the Heart die (#12), the Jingle Joy bell die (#17), the Holly Jolly holly dies (#21) & the new mini bow die (#24).

Ready for twist #1?

 

Here it is...this is what the back of each day looks like (I just turned the calendar around so you could see all of the pictures).  I've attached a favorite photo from the year onto the back of each card.  Each day that the kids take a number off of the calendar, we will talk about the blessing on the back and reminisce about the special times we had throughout our year.  I tried to pick a variety of activities and special photos to highlight and also things that would get the kids thinking about how those times were blessings and gifts from God during the year.

 

 Some of the photos I chose were...being a ball boy for a high school football game, time with extended family, getting to take tumbling lessons, playing football, fun on vacation, etc...

Ready for twist #2?

I didn't want these little instant photos to go to waste.  It did take some work to put this all together and it is quite special to me.  I want to be able to have a way to look back on this in the years to come.  Leaving it in the frame isn't really an option so...

 

I got out my much neglected Project Life scrapbook and found that the Instant Photo dies fit perfectly in the smallest pockets.  Now, please don't judge my page too much.  This is just a sample, I didn't have time to pretty this part up yet, so I will redo this soon.  But, this gives you a good idea of what the front of the page would look like.  And the back...

 

...the back looks like this.  You can still see the fun countdown that was created.  And on this page, you could write fun facts about the year, or things you love about your kids.  You could create different categories and list your families "favorites".  There are so many possibilities for what you could do back here and then your hard work is not used and enjoyed only once, but for years to come!

I have one more way to use this idea.

 

Laura designed the dies so that they can be ornaments and hung with twine/ribbon.  I made a few examples similar to the calendar above, only this time I put the photos on the front of the frames and attached the Gift Bow Topper die to it so it can easily hang from the Christmas tree.

 

Here is one of the pictures.  You might recognize this from the calendar above.  I LOVE this picture.  It is a picture of my son's shoes (from May 2012, the date is stamped on the bottom right-hand corner with the Instant Camera: Christmas stamp set) and my daughter's shoes INSIDE his!  I loved how it showed their size difference!  I also stamped a "1" in the left hand corner to continue on with the countdown theme.

 

One more example.  Date on the right-hand side and the countdown number stamped on the left-hand side. 

 

Here are the new products that I used for these projects:

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this project! Thank you for staying with me through the end of the post!  If you decide to make a blessings calendar, I'd LOVE to know about it (and see pictures too if you take them!). 

 

Be sure to leave a comment!  Just by leaving  your comment, you'll be eligible to win one of two $10 store credits! The more blogs in the hop you comment on, the better your chances are of winning!

To continue on in the hop, please go say hi to Alyssa! She will be feauturing some other new Lil' Inker products today!  Don't forget, these products are available now, so hop on over to the Lil' Inker Designs store to check them all out!

Thanks for stopping by! Come back tomorrow for another release post...pssst...I can't wait to share this one with you!