Christmas Creations - DIY Advent Calendar Tutorial

I finished it! And it is not even December 1!! Woo-hoo! As promised, here is the Advent Calendar that I made this year. As I mentioned earlier, I have always by-passed the ready-made cheap ones you can pick up everywhere. They just weren't for me. So, I usually didn't think about them come the Christmas season. However, this year, the idea came to me to make my own, after hearing about others making their own. DUH!! A perfect solution! So, here is my version of the Advent Calendar.

My inspiration came to me when I stumbled upon these little tin containers. You can find these in the wedding favor aisle of department stores or even bead containers in craft stores.

Next, I had to label each of these with the numbers counting down the days until Christmas. Now, obviously it had been a very long time since I had even looked at an Advent Calendar because I thought, mistakenly, that you needed 25 spaces. After all, December 25th is Christmas. I was very wrong. You only need 24 as I am sure was obvious to you, just not to me!

I decided to use scrapbooking paper that I already had on hand. I went with the red, black and white to coordinate with the rest of the decor. I cut a large black circle, a smaller red scallop and finally a small white circle that had the number printed on it by the computer in various fonts.

I glued the black circle to the front of the tin's lid using a regular school gluestick and then glued the red scallop on top of that. Finally, I used foam tape to apply the number, adding a little dimension.

Once that was done, I got my husband to cut me a piece of MDF (again, from stuff that we had around) that was just the size I needed. I decided to make a rectangle and make the calendar look like a present. I did toy around with the shape of a tree but thought it was a little trickier to figure out the size of the wood. Just tricky enough to make me choose the rectangle.

Once the wood was cut, I primed and painted it using Krylon paint. I had used this for the armchair redo and loved the 360 degree rotating nozzle. I decided to use it again.

After the paint dried, I hot-glued each of the little tins on the wood, leaving an appropriate sized edge of wood all around. I set the rows closer to the bottom to make sure there was enough room for the bow on the top.

I filled the tins with 4 pieces of chocolate each, 1 for each child, not including baby, or mom and dad, for that matter. Maybe next year I will make one for the two of us and fill it with dark chocolate for me and white chocolate for Jay!

Add a bow and VOILA!! My very own Advent Calendar! Isn't it just great? And reusable, too!

Finally, if I have time after I tackle more laundry today and school tomorrow, I want to add Scripture references to each tin. I want us to trace the whole story of Christ's birth as prophesied in the Old Testament and realized in the New Testament. After all, that is the real meaning of Christmas, isn't it? Let the countdown begin!