I love advent calenders for Christmas since I was a kid and I really like the idea of having one that I can just reuse year after year. However, after I saw one at a store that was selling for over $50 I couldn't help but think "I can make one for a third of the cost." And I did.
Here's how I did it.
Things You'll Need:
A craft cone
24 small cardboard boxes
A glue glue
Green acrylic paint (or whatever colour you choose to paint your tree_
Black acrylic pain
A foam brush
Decorations to decorate it.
First paint the cone and the small boxes in the colour you want your calender to be with the foam brush. This will take a while, but ti will be worth it and wait for them to dry.
Once you're certain the cone and boxes are dry, pile them up on a the cone to give yourself a general idea where you want them to be. Just make sure when you actually glue them on you have space between each box, otherwise the lids won't fit.
Next, take the glue gun and glue the boxes onto the cone. You can see here how I made sure there was space between the boxes both on the sides and top and bottom. Next comes painting the numbers.
Take the lids and paint the numbers 1-24 with the black acrylic paint. You can use a stencil for the numbers if you want, but I just did mine by hand.
Now comes the fun part of decorating it. For me, I simply use stuff I had around the house. I took red ribbon, add on some bells to it and wrapped it around the tree and secured it with the glue gun. For the star, I cut out a star shape and cut that out of felt. Then I sewed it together and glue gun that to the top of the cone.
And ta da! You know have a lovely advent calender that you made all by yourself. I plan to fill mine up with chocolate. If anyone else makes these, I would love to see pictures of them.
