A Graphic 45 Cone Advent Calendar

I purchased a petal cone Sizzix die from Stampin Up this summer and it inspired me to make this advent calendar.  It was photographed in the winter 2011 issue of Canadian Scrapbooker but you can't see all of it, so I've reassembled it for my kids and photographed it.  Not an easy thing to photograph, but here's some bits.    I used the Graphic 45 Christmas Past paper collection - it is actually so beautiful that I almost hated to cut it up, but the paper does look nice in a cone shape too!   I decorated each paper cone with odds and ends - lace and trim and ribbon and such, and did the numbers with Technique Tuesday number stamps and Stampin Up ink and punches.  This advent calendar goes together pretty fast.  I played around a little with the trims - they were too 'white' for the paper, I needed an aged look, so I dipped them all in some cold brewed tea (then wrung them out and air-dried) for a perfect vintage browny shade.

I hung the cones on a dead tree branch - this one in the picture is not as branched as my original model, but daylight is short, the wind is howling and I just grabbed what was handy.  You could also hang the cones other ways - maybe from a rope garland and attached with clothes pins?

 My kids just love it, and the cones are big enough to hide a Kinder Egg or an individually wrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  I have also put a loonie or a few quarters in some of the cones and anything else I could think of that was smallish and fun.