December Paper Pumpkin Kit

It's a winter wonderland outside.  Finally!  At long last we are getting our first real snow of the season and I love it!

I have been wanting to make my December Paper Pumpkin kit for many weeks, but I have been too busy stamping other stuff! :)  I also didn't jump right on it because I knew I wanted to change the designs on some of the calendar pages so they would have more of a holiday theme and it takes me a LONG time to come up with anything on my own! :)  Well, I finally got to it today, and yes it did take a long time, but I'm happy with the results.  These are my alternative calendar pages.

For the January page I used an old retired stamp set called Snowflakes.  I stamped the images in white ink on crumb cake cardstock and tore some white paper to make it look like snow on the bottom.  I used my glue pen along the ripped part of the snow and added dazzling diamonds glitter.  My white ink on the snowflakes wasn't dry yet, so they ended up getting covered in glitter too!  The rectangle under the calendar is Pool Party.  The baker's twine came in the kit.  The wooden snowflake was in the 2015 Holiday catalog.

Not my design, created by Seongsook Duncan.

The February page uses the Love Blossoms DSP from the 2016 Occasions Catalog.  The larger heart was punched out from that paper stack using the sweetheart punch.  For the small hearts, I used the itty bitty heart punch and the new Blushing Bride glimmer paper.

The July page might be my favorite alternative!  The blue and white striped paper was one of the free Sale-A-Bration items last year.  I used the Stars Framelits Dies to cut out stars from Real Red and Night of Navy cardstock.  I used the Itty Bitty Star Punch to punch out stars from Silver glimmer Paper. The red sequins and star sequins were left-overs from the Shaker card kit in the 2015 Holiday catalog.

Lots of retired stuff on the October page--sorry!  The spiderweb doilies and Happy Haunting designer paper were from the 2015 Holiday Catalog.  The jack-o-lantern stamp is from a retired set called Carved & Candlelit.  The Rich Razzleberry cotton ribbon is available! :)

For the November page, I used crumb cake cardstock and embossed it with the Woodlands Textured Embossing folder (not available now, but returning in the 2016 annual catalog).  The Autumn Wishes stamp and background leaves came from the Among the Branches set which was in the 2015 Holiday catalog along with the gold twine.  The two leaves at the top are from the September paper pumpkin kit.  I used Cajun Craze and Crushed Curry ink.

The December page also features items from the 2015 Holiday catalog--Home for Christmas designer paper, Home for Christmas buttons, and gold twine.  The greetings come from the Holly Jolly Greetings Bundle. 

I followed the designs given in the kit for the other calendar pages. Ha, ha, thank goodness!  Although it was fun to make alternative, it was much easier and faster to go with the kit recommendations!

This was a really fun and satisfying project. It was the first time I haven't just followed the instructions on the kits exactly! :)  I'm going to put this calendar on my piano and look at the lovely stamping while I teach and dream about more stamping.  

If you haven't signed up for Paper Pumpkin yet, you should go do it now! :)