Advent Calendar

Yes, I know it's Dec. 4th and if you intended to make an advent calendar, then you probably should have it already completed.  Well, I have a confession.  I made this advent calendar last year and did not finish it until around Dec. 16th!!  The kids had a great time that day opening 15 little presents at once!  So if you haven't made a calendar yet, cut yourself some slack and start one to use for next year.  Its fun to craft during the holidays, but don't stress if you don't get something completed this year. 

This is my project featured in our Holiday Project E-book.  The rest of the creative team will also be sharing their projects this month, but if you can't wait, head on over to our home page and download the complete project e-book right now.  Great gift ideas included in several of the projects! 

 

I used a Kaisercraft Treasure box that also comes with the chipboard letters.  The outside is wood and I stained it dark brown using diluted paints, super easy.  Assembling each box was challenging, but once I figured out how to do one box, the rest happened quickly. 

Using a really strong crafters tape, I put tape on each edge of two flaps, then folded the boxes together.

I knew I would cover the sides, but I didn't want the chipboard on top to be the grey color, so I used some in and a q-tip to quickly cover each edge.  I could use the stamp pad for the flat sides, but had to use the q-tip to get into the small half circle. 

I know how difficult it can be to cover 4 sides of a box and have all the folds be clean with a single sheet of paper.  Since only the front of the box is visible when all put together, I decided to cover the box with two sheets of coordinating paper.  I still covered all sides (so it looked good when you pulled the box out), but this was so much easier to piece together.  I measured the front edge and used this as my guide for the score folds. 

Each peice of paper was 6" wide.  I maked by Martha Score Board where the scores would go (with the paper edge lined up at the 1" mark). and created the folds. 

The front (visible) paper would overlap the back side paper, so I put some decorative edges with my fiskars punch on this piece. 

Before attaching the front paper, I had to make a mark for the half circle on the front of the box.  Luckily this was an exact 1" diameter circle and I was able to use my circle punch to make the exact 1/2 circle. 

 

Now you can attach the front paper and line up the half circle area exactly. 

Here is a box that has both the front and back covers complete.  If the top edges don't match up exactly, use your exacto knife to trim a little bit off the edge. 

Now comes the fun part!  I covered the chipboard numbers with red paint, then added red glitter paint on the second coat.  I stamped a bunch of images (mostly from the Antiquated Collection) and used my copics to add a few coordinating colors.

I like that the images have a vintage feel, and make the box festive, but they are not all specifically Christmas stamps. 

That's it for my advent box.  For a complete list of supplies, download the e-book and enjoy all the great projects provided by the Creative Team. 

 

Comments

[cherry]

This is soooo beautiful!

[Geri]

Love the mix of patterns here! Sweet project!