random.on purpose.: Twelve Days of Christmas?

Did you know that the Twelve Days of Christmas are NOT the twelve days before Christmas? The twelve days are from Christmas Day to Twelfth Night (yes, the same one used as the setting for Shakespeare's play), which is January 5th, followed on the 6th by the Feast of the Epiphany. You can read all that you'd ever need to know about this HERE.

Why am I telling you this? Because - like many other bloggers - I intend to do something here on the blog on each of those twelve days, but - unlike most of them - I'm doing so on the actual Twelve Days of Christmas. Just wanted to give you something to look forward to post-holiday...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (where did that phrase come from and why? I also wonder about "man alive!", but I digress...what's a tangent? ), I have a few countdown-to-Christmas things planned, as well! For example, here's the second of the old/new tutorials I did for Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps that are forever lost in the ether unless I post them here. Again, some details could be sketchy, so you may want to read through the whole tutorial before you begin in case there's something unclear or that I left out:

TUTORIAL: Naughty/Nice Chart

Materials needed:

Owl diecut, punch, or stamp (and whatever you need to color or paper-piece it)
Alphabet stamps or stickers
Inks of choice
Ribbon or strip of decorative paper
Colored cardstock
White or ivory cardstock
Ruler
Pencil
Fine-tip black pen (or other colors, as desired)
Two old-school pencils with erasers (unused)
Craft knife

To begin, create your owl. I stamped and paper-pieced the owl from Owl Occasions from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. You also need to play around with the alphabet stamps to determine spacing for the header. Do this on scrap paper, with the paper in landscape orientation so it's wider than it is long. I used My Sentiments Exactly Retro Alphabet and Stampin'Up! Little Letters. I wish I could give you dimensions, but they're long gone... After you've determined how much space you need to leave for your owl and header, cut the ivory cardstock to width, but leave it longer than needed for now. You can stamp the lettering, but don't attach the owl yet.

Using the ruler and leaving enough space below the header for a decorative strip, mark endpoints for the horizontal rows - one for the dates and one for each name that will be going on the chart. Now mark the vertical columns, one for each of the 24 days, by making a tick mark with the pencil every 1/4', beginning at the right side, and working your way back to the left. When you determine where these columns will end on the right, mark the top line for the dates, as well:

Using the black fine-tip pen, draw all the lines you just marked. I did a double wavy line (hides a lot of sins). I've found that the best way to do this is to rotate your paper so that you are pulling the pen towards you, as opposed to drawing across the paper. You don't have to worry too much about perfection or about trying to make the lines wavy, that will be a natural outcome of what you're doing.

Using your alphabet stamps, stamp each name on its own row. Write the numbers for the dates with a pen. Trim the bottom of the cardstock below the last name, then cut the colored cardstock the appropriate size to mat it. Also cut a strip of decorative paper or a ribbon and adhere it below the header and above the grid. I used a strip of Cosmo Cricket Honey Pie matted with the same green I used for the chart. Attach the owl over this strip.

Now we need something to mark the naughty/nice part, right? Here's where the old-school pencils come in. Draw and carve a star on the eraser of one, and just carve off tiny bits of the other one:

Flatten the top of the "chunked out" one a bit by rubbing it on paper like you're erasing something, but make sure you have the pencil straight up and down. The idea is to end up with handmade stamps that will do this - stars for nice, and lumps of coal for naughty!