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Sanae Ishida

A crafty little atelier in a grey city

2022 Advent Calendar

November 30, 2022

Happy end of November! Did you have a gratitude-filled holiday weekend? Mine was good and hearty and on the quiet side.

It’s my personal tradition to work on K’s advent calendar around this time of year, and I’m almost done. Because I know that K has zero interest in my blog, it’s safe to share some images here. 

As per usual, I wanted to use what I have on hand. Remember my Swedish tracing paper flower advent calendar? This one is a similar concept, though far less complicated. I am in possession of multiple rolls of Pellon 830 interfacing, which is very similar to STP, and it came in handy for these fluttery “ornaments.” I thought about getting some glow-in-the-dark paint, but ended up experimenting with two different gold watercolors instead. One is more bronze-y than the other.

I didn’t bother with templates or anything. I like the organic quality of the wings and each butterfly is different. With a little double-sided tape magic, it was a breeze to assemble these. Oh, the antenna’s are fake flower stamens left over from past craft projects.

The idea is that K can hang each butterfly on the Christmas tree each day (we’ll be getting our tree some time today). Simple. Fuss-free with a tiny touch of bling. I like it!

Another nice aspect was that I only needed 18 days’ worth since there are some travel plans in the works and there’s no need for a count-down the last week before Christmas.

 

Alright, I’m going to go finish the advent calendar!! My aim is to position them on a wall with the loops hidden — like a flurry of winter flutterbies! Originally I wanted to wrap each butterfly in crepe paper. It would have been cool for K to unfurl each “cocoon” like a surprise ball, but my prototypes looked…not charming and evocative of turds, let’s just say. I’m glad I decided to simplify, though I was digging the whole metamorphosis conceptualization.

If you’re curious, here are all the calendars from the last 10 years:

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

I’ve been painting/designing some free printables for you, but I’m not quite done so I’ll be back in early December with the digital goodies. Take good care, my friends!

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When my daughter was a baby, oh, nearly two decade When my daughter was a baby, oh, nearly two decades ago, I read roughly a zillion board books to her. My favorites were Lucy Cousins’ Maisy series, Taro Gomi’s and anything with food. It’s with not a little awe and delight that I am creating my own baby board books these days. I adore my sumo books (I especially love seeing them in libraries), and I’m giddy with anticipation for GOOD NIGHT, NINJAS. Eight more weeks till publication! Preorder link is in bio 😊📘🥷I keep dreaming that these sumo and ninja baby books will become well-thumbed and beloved storytime staples…if you’ve been in the trenches of reading to babes and toddlers, do you have a favorite board book?
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