Monday, September 14, 2009

Halloween Advent Calendar

I'm so excited about this! Starting in July I began sketching out ideas for a Halloween advent calendar. My sister and I had so much fun making Christmas calendars last year that I knew we'd love making Halloween ones as well. It's been a wonderful experience to see it come to life and be even more beautiful than I had anticipated!


I designed the calendar and sent Kristie the sketches while she digitized each drawing and put them to life by picking the color pallet. We spent a lot of late nights "skyping" and working together on this. She ordered the fabric and embroidered the numbers and the "trick or treat" banner while I cut out the houses for the street at the top of the calendar. We split up the work of the pockets and split up the calendars for sewing! There's been a lot of sending back and forth between here and Seattle where she is. I always think we make such a great team. We are both anal about different details and have our own areas of expertise and creativity. We're sisters so we can hit a rough patch and then call each other dorks and move on. I'm so lucky!

Below are the pictures of our calendar. They are 30 inches wide and 38 inches long (including tabs). They are made from high quality wool felt for color vibrancy and durability. Each pocket is 3 inches wide and 4 inches long.

It has been my hope of how I can help our family. I haven't written about it, but 6 months ago the company Seth work for went under. We have been okay living on our savings and are so lucky to live by such generous people. Seth has interviewed everywhere under the sun from China to Canada, but nothing permanent has come. He has had a few freelance projects that have been great blessings as well- but with our little Pip not weened I couldn't take off for full time work to help out. My goal in creating these was to find a way that I could be home and help pay expenses. I created an etsy shop (it's called THE LOST BUTTON- how cute is that?) :) and I am selling them there. Each calendar has taken us about 30+ hours. It would break my heart if someone copied this design I have come up with. I want to remind all that I own the rights to this. I hope you enjoy the pictures. I wish you could see the detail in person like the embroidering and beads sewn on the different pockets. They are one of the most beautiful things I have ever made and I'm so excited they are done! If you'd like to order one come on by or go to my etsy shop here...

http://thelostbutton.etsy.com


Here's my cute girls counting down the days to Halloween by discovering candy, treats, and presents along the way. :)
I've also made a little trick-or-treating ghosty attached to a string (so he wont get lost) that can be used to count down the days till Halloween if you don't have a sweet tooth.