A big thank you to all of my family, friends and blogosphere buddies who reached out to make my birthday magical this week. From Tinker Bell cupcakes  by day to an artsy-crafty painting party by night, it was a truly wonderful birthday and I wouldn’t change a thing! I’m being completely truthful when I say it’s the best birthday I’ve had in years.

I finally got a chance to open some gifts last night, and I have two exciting sewing books to add to my collection! I talked about one book, Fabric-by-Fabric One Yard Wonders, in a blog post a few weeks back. The second book is called Countdown Calendars and just came out last July.

Countdown Calendars: 24 stitched projects to celebrate any date!

I first discovered the project shown on the cover  – a birthday countdown calendar – about two years ago when I was thinking about buying a sewing machine. It was a finished project listed for sale on Etsy, not a pattern, so I saved a photo for inspiration.

It’s such a fun concept – just add a fabric candle to the birthday cake on the wall hanging each day leading up to your birthday! Advent calendars were always a big deal in my house around Christmastime, and I know I would have loved this birthday calendar if we’d had one in our family.

I can already imagine an infinite number of color combinations in my head and can’t wait to give this a try. It would make a great gift for all of my friends who are exploding my social media newsfeeds with photos of their new babies! Plus – the book has lots of other fun countdown calendar ideas too, including a Christmas advent calendar.

Happy counting! Not gonna lie – all of this talk about countdowns and I can’t get the Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun Parade music from Disney’s Hollywood Studios out of my head… Five, four, three, two, FUN! 🙂