What time is it, kids?
That's right! It's time for the Tour de Freaks Blog Tour! A time for freakishly good stampers to strut their stuff! If you've been following the tour, you've just landed here from Dawn Olchfeske's blog. But if you've started right here, fear not. You can simply follow the tour to the end and start back at the beginning and not miss a single stop!
I'm putting my post up a bit early tonight, so if you've started the tour and some of us haven't gotten their posts up yet, be patient! They should all be in place by Friday morning. And, as always, we change our links to the actual posts once everyone is up and running so you will be able to take the tour any time without getting lost. That's 'cause we are so freakishly nice!
This month's theme was Christmas Gifts. Immediately, I started feeling the pressure!
'Cause while it's fairly simple to come up with freaky good cards, I felt compelled to come up with some extra freakishly wonderful projects this time! And I think I managed it! Lookie:
Ingredients: Stamps - Christmas Punch; Paper - Christmas Cocoa DSP, Real Red, Whisper White, Soft Suede, Brushed Gold; Ink - Real Read; Markers - Real Red, Summer Sun, Glorious Green, Soft Suede; Other - large Snowflake punch, Boho Blossoms punch, Scallop Oval punch, Fancy Favor XL Bigz die, Movers and Shapers die, Snowfall Printed Acetate Sheets, gold cord, Mistletoe ribbon, dimensionals
What says "gift" better than chocolate, I ask you? Not much! I did something unique with this Fancy Favor box: I cut out the box first then ran it through the Big Shot again with the Movers & Shapers die and cut a window in the front. To do that, I folded up all of the flaps on the bottom and made sure the fold line of the die rested on one of the score lines of the favor box, positioned the Curly Label die carefully and ran it through the Big Shot. Part of one of the flaps also got die cut by the Curly Label, but there is still enough left to overlap and it actually looks attractive, if you are into looking at the bottoms of things like this. In other words, it's GOJUS!!! (YILM!) And stinkin' clever too! I put a piece of the Snowfall printed acetate sheet inside the box.
This little favor box will fit an entire small bag of Hershey kisses...but with the top being open, it won't hold them for long! Don't ask me how I know this! Just take my word for it! 
And now, for the pièce de resistance! You are gonna have your socks ROCKED RIGHT OFF by this! Yep. I'm confident! Lookie:
I know, I know...right now it looks like a huge card, but wait 'till you see what's inside! But first, the back:
Just 'cause I like to make ya wait!
Are you ready for the insde now? Are you?
Okay!
Tada!!! It's an Advent calender! Isn't it GOJUS and awesomely clever? (YILM!)
Here's what's under the flaps:
A different picture for every day! Can you guess what I made it out of? Can ya?
It's one of those quarter collection folders! I had bought a few because I had seen an idea somewhere about making special scrapbooks out of them and had stashed them in the place I stash all such things and immediately forget about them. So when I was tearing through my stamp room yesterday in a horrid panic as to what I was going to make for the tour looking for something to alter, I found one of these folders and the rest, as they say, is history.
I tore the chipboard parts with the openings for the coins off of the base of the folder and created my own folder out of cardstock. I covered the holes I didn't need with paper. Oh, and look what's under the last door:
These are actually the only stamped images on the whole project. When I decided to do this, I gathered a lot of stamp sets, thinking I'd have to choose the smallest images I could to fit in the 15/16" holes that are in the quarter folder. But then I realized that I could go into My Digital Studio and resize any Christmas images in there to fit in the holes! And so that's what I did. I printed a whole sheet of little images out and punched them to layer behind the chipbard piece with the holes.
Now, it's traditional to put a piece of candy inside of some advent calenders. The trouble is that these holes are small and shallow. Something like a chocolate coin would work, but most chocolate coins are too large to fit. I did finally track some down online that were 3/4", but they were Chanukkah gelt with Stars of David on one side and a menora on the other. AND I would have to buy 5 lbs. of them for almost $70. Ouch. So I will keep looking. In the meantime, after I got this done it occurred to me that if you stacked two of these chipboard pieces, one atop the other, you could at least create more depth for each opening and you could put something like an M&M in the opening. Though you can see that the flaps are slightly open on this one, when you first put the flaps on, before you bend them up, they lay quite flat and would probably keep a piece of candy from falling out. If I do track down my chocolate coins, I will probably put a bit of Dotto on one corner of each flap to hold them closed.
Here's the supply list:
Stamps - Season of Simple Grace; Paper - Merry Moments DSP, Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Real Red, Garden Green; Ink - Chocolate Chip, More Mustard; Other - My Digital Studio, On Board Batch of Blooms (chipboard frame), Old Olive striped 1 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, SU! Timeless Type Sizzlit dies, SU! Merry Details Sizzlit, SU! Finial Press Embossing Folder, 1" circle punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, 1/2" circle punch, gold cord, small star punch, SU! Join in the Cheer Decorative Strip die, Signo white gel pen, Scallop Circle die, Scallop Square punch, Snowflakes Set #2 Sizzlets, Scallop Circle punch, Scallop Edge punch, gold brads, Real Red 1/4" grosgrain ribbon
Now that those socks are across the room, your feet must be awfully cold! Take a little break, go fetch your socks, put them back on, and prepare to go to Wendy Weixler's blog next...but if I know Wendy, you might just as well leave those socks off 'cause she will rock them right back off again! Ta!
) I need to remember that my loyal readers up here still want to see GOJUS cards and projects! Do not fear! I will manage...somehow! 
