The Completed Advent Calendar: Very Photo Heavy

11/12/11
After I had already posted the tutorial for making the ornaments out of the empty mint tins, I had a sudden brain storm and completely changed what I was doing. I removed the hanging loops from the top of the ornaments, added numbers to the fronts of the tins, and strips of magnetic tape (two strips for each tin) to the back. They are now going to be part of a magnetic, steampunk, advent calendar that can be used to decorate the refrigerator.

11/29/11
The Steampunk Advent Calendar is Complete, at least on the outside. Since this was made out of mint tins, I started out making 3-dimensional scenes inside the boxes, but I decided that getting the outside of each box done before Dec. 1, was more important than spending large amounts of time on each individual box. I may continue working on the insides at some future time.




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2. outside:




2. inside:



3. outside:
This one is for DH and Blaze, who are always talking about their "manly tea parties"



3. inside:



4. outside



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13. outside:



13. inside:



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22. outside



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These were all made following the directions I posted for making ornaments out of mint tins http://overthecrescentmoon.blogspot.com/2011/11/turning-mint-tins-into-3-d-ornaments.html, except that instead of adding a loop for hanging to the top of each tin, I added 2 strips of magnetic tape to the back of each tin. I also sprayed them all with a thin coat of clear polyurethane.

Candle Lit Christmas Tree

Last night I made the last ornament for Blaze's little tinsel tree. It was a steampunk teddy bear with a felt top hat and goggles.

The 99 cent bear from Michael's Crafts:


Ready to hang on the tree:


Tonight, we lit the lights and candles on the tree for the first time this year.







We only let it burn for a short time and then Blaze had fun seeing how many candles he could blow out at a time.

A Possible Holiday Card

I made this design as the cover for the final box of the advent calendar I've been working on. I think it would also make a good design for a Christmas card.

Tree Topper Top Hat

Using the instruction from the mini top hat tutorial http://overthecrescentmoon.blogspot.com/2011/08/mini-top-hat-tutorial.html, I made a tree topper for the little tinsel tree in Blaze's room.

I started off by drilling a hole into the bottom of the hat, so that a light could be inserted and it could sit on the top of the tree.



Next, I cut a circle out of the crown of the hat and glued a clear plastic circle in place, filling the hole. In this case, the plastic came from the box that holds this year's Christmas cards. Designs can be drawn on the plastic ahead of time with a Sharpie, but since this was a trial run, to see if this idea would work, I just glued gears in place on top of the plastic.

I was actually working from an already sewn hat that was laying around the house, but it would probably be much easier to do the crown of the hat if the plastic was glued in place before the crown was sewn down.



I decided to keep the hat decorations simple, but that is just a matter of taste.





When the light inside the hat is lit, it casts a circle of gear shapes on the ceiling.

I think I want to try this with a cheap regular-size top hat from the party store and stained-glass paint for the designs.

Gear Wreath Ornament

I found these packs of gears in the jewelry making department at Michael's Crafts.



It turns out that the larger size gears in the set, lend themselves very well to being strung on a ribbon.



A longer string of these, would make a good replacement for traditional tinsel.

I made a wreath shaped ornament out of this string, though. I made a base with a hanging loop out of floral wire (wrapping the wire around a large pillar candle to get the size circle I wanted). I then threaded the gears onto wired ribbon. I Super Glued the string of gears onto the wire circle and tied the ribbon into a bow.

Pre-Thanksgiving Traditions

Today was the day of the annual hand-turkey.

We've been using fabric paint on Blaze's left hand to make a hand print turkey on our Thanksgiving table cloth every year since 2003. His hand has grown a bit since that first year.



Blaze chose the colors himself.






It was also the day that we dug out all the Thanksgiving food magazines we've accumulated over the years and laid around on the bed looking at them and deciding what we want to eat this year. This is a tradition that pre-dates the hand-turkey.

Picnic in the Park

We had so much fun at the First Annual All Florida Victorian Picnic in Lakeland today. Blaze says it was one of his best days EVER.

We met so many friendly people from steampunk groups in Orlando and Tampa, along with some very talented women who have a costumers guild.











It was a beautiful park! So, with the charming people, in lovely costumes, there were many photo opportunities.

















There were also games to play.





This is a potato race. The object is to get all your team's potatoes into the picnic basket first, but the potatoes must be carried on a spoon. Sorry about all the background noise. It was pretty breezy.



Croquet:

















And, of course, there was time to just relax.



It was a long drive, but I'm very glad we went.