Oh my goodness, can it really be only 100 days until we go to Create?! Create is the Anna Griffin crafting weekend in Atlanta, in case you are wondering. I have been counting down the weeks, and now the days until my sista and I get to go. To top it off, it's my birthday weekend! Ohmagawd! I can't even! I'm super excited. This will be our first year to attend, but the 3rd year for this event. We get to take classes and mingle with other Griffinites (as they call themselves). However, my sista and I call ourselves The ANNAbelles. I mean, we are southern belles afterall. Cute, right? 
In great anticipation of our festive trip, I made us each a countdown calendar. I designed the calendar stand myself in Cricut Design Space, using one continuous sheet of cardstock. The blocks are a standard Cricut cut. I also used Anna Griffin font for the numbers, days/weeks text, and "CREATE". Another font was used for "Countdown to". Of course Anna Griffin patterned paper was used to decorate it, even the oh-so-slim strips on all the edges. To really make it stand out, I used an Anna die cut, cut two different ways from black cardstock, adhered to the back beneath the patterned paper. It makes me think of some fabulous wrought iron in a quaint historic town somewhere. 
There are actually 4 number blocks to make sure I had enough of the numbers I needed. A clever little trick I incorporated was to make the Days/Weeks strip reversible, so one side reads Days and the other side reads Weeks. And you'll never guess what I used as the holder for that strip. Look close, it's the corner I cut from an acetate pack of stickers, literally the packaging itself! So two sides are already sealed, the bottom and the right side. The other two open sides allow me to change the text Days/Weeks as needed. I adhered the acetate holder to the bottom front of the calendar base with glue dots. I started counting down at 20-some weeks, but I knew I'd switch to days once I hit 100 days (Today, August 1st!!). I could still count down weeks if I wanted to, but I was ready for the days countdown! I added some flowers, pearls, and bling and bam, I was done! My sista and I proudly display our countdown calendars on our desks at work, hers is the green/yellow/pink one and mine is the teal/green/pink one.
Miles of Smiles,
