Artfully Musing: Advent Calendar

Showing posts with label Advent Calendar. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Christmas Tree Advent Calendar Tutorial, New Collage Sheet & Giveaway

Just in time for this Christmas season is a fun, festive Christmas Tree Advent Calendar project. Last year I showed you how to make an Advent Calendar out of matchboxes, and this year it’s out of chipboard boxes. The boxes are a 2”x 2” cube, which gives you lots of space to fill them with goodies. The overall size of the calendar is 19” tall (with ribbon) and 9” wide.

NEW COLLAGE SHEET & DIGITAL IMAGE SET

In addition to the tutorial below, I have created a companion collage sheet and digital image set.

The digital image set (41 images) includes all of the images in the collage sheet as well as the ornaments without the numbers; making them useful for other Christmas themed projects.

TUTORIAL

THE BASE

For the base, I used a paper Mache box. This comes from the same set of boxes you saw me use in the Halloween Carnival projects. The boxes come in sets of 3. I used the large one, which is 5 ½” x 3”.

Paint or ink the edges of the box. I used a gold stamp pad to ink the edges. You will be using only the bottom of the box and not the lid.

Cover the box with decorative paper. I used the Silver & Gold 6x6 Paper Pad. I also re-inked the edges after attaching the paper

Embellish the sides of the box. I used images from the Advent Calendar Collage sheet to decorate the box. To make the Christmas ornaments look more dimensional, I added Glossy Accents. I used metallic stickers to bring in a touch of gold. Around the base of the box, I added Mini Pine & Berry Garland that I braided with Tiny Red Tree Garland. I used E6000 glue to attach the garland to the box. The pine garland is wired, so it was easy to braid with the red bead garland.

THE BOXES

To create a tree shape you will be assembling circles of boxes. The boxes are 2 inches square. Each circle will have one fewer box then the circle before it. The tree is made up of 5 circles with 7,6,5,4, & 3 boxes; adding up to 25 boxes corresponding to 25 days. An additional box on the top makes the tree look symmetrical and accommodates attaching garland.

Assemble 26 boxes. 25 for each day and one for the top of the tree.

Decorating the Boxes

Ink or paint the outside edges of the boxes. I inked the edges with a gold stamp pad as it coordinated with the papers I used. I also inked the main tab on the lid with the gold stamp pad.

Paper all 6 sides of the boxes. I cut pieces of paper that were 1 15/16” x 1 15/16” so that you would see just a little of the gold inking on the edges. Before attaching the paper, I laid out my boxes to make sure the patterns in the paper would be randomly distributed throughout the tree. If the paper has a pattern with a direction, keep that in mind as you glue the paper to the boxes. I inked the edges of the paper before gluing it to the boxes.

Optional – Paper the insides of the boxes. I decided not to paper the inside as I felt that the color of the box worked well with the papers.

Decided which way you want your boxes to open. They can be all the same or different. I choose to have them open from left to right (since I’m right-handed).

Once you have your boxes papered, glue the Christmas Ornament Days to the lid of each box (if you are using my images). Just as with the papers, I decided to randomly distribute the days on the tree. Of course, you could choose to put them in order. Also, be mindful of the direction you want your box to open so that the ornament day image doesn’t end up going in the wrong direction. I laid my boxes out in order with the lids facing the correct direction and decided on the order of the days before attaching the images.

Attach the pulls.

I used Acrylic Christmas Themed Beads that coordinated with the paper. There are five different shapes (2 different trees, an angel, a bell, and a snowflake).

I jazzed up the snowflake bead by adding a brass snowflake.

I attached the beads using a headpin and eye pin. To determine the placement of the beads, I took into consideration the length of the bead and where the inside tabs were located. The reason for considering the inside tab is that when you loop the eye pin to keep it from pulling through the lid, it creates bulk in the back of the lid if this bulk is where the tab the lid won’t completely close.

I created a template with a hole so that I could consistently mark the bead placement for each box.

Assembling the Tree

Cut 25 pieces of paper 1” x 1 ½” long (I used paper from the paper pad). I would recommend using cardstock as it is a bit sturdier and has color on both sides. Score and fold the pieces of paper long ways down the middle. These pieces of paper will be used to connect the boxes together.

Use the paper piece to glue together 7 boxes. Attach half of the paper to the back edge of one box and the other half to the back edge of another box. Continue until all 7 boxes are connected into a circle.

Continue connecting boxes into 5 rings with each ring having one fewer box. You should end up with rings of 7,6,5,4, & 3 boxes; adding up to 25 boxes corresponding to 25 days. Use an additional box on the top to help make the tree more symmetrical and to accommodate hanging the garland.

Glue the 7 box circle to the top of the base. Center the circle on the base. Even though the boxes are connected with the paper, they are still flexible enough to adjust until they are centered on the base.

Once you have the boxes centered on the base, I recommend adding some weight to keep them in place while the glue dries. I used a piece of chipboard and a paperweight.

Next, glue the 6 box circle on top of the 7 box circle. Again apply weight to keep the circle in place once you have it where you want it. Since each circle has one less box than the last circle, you will need to adjust each circle so that it is in the center of the previous circle. The boxes will not line up but sit slightly shifted to one side or the other of the circle of boxes below.

Continue adding each circle of boxes to the next.

Decorating the Tree

The last and 26^th box goes on the very top. I covered it with paper and glued the lid shut. I glued a small wooden skewer into the top of the box. The skewer gave me a way to anchor the garland.

The garland is actually two different garlands; Mini Pine & Berry Garland and Gold Star Tinsel Garland. Both garlands are wired, so it was easy to braid them together and bend them as they cascade down the tree.

I made a loop with the garland at one end and glued it onto the wooden skewer using E6000 glue. Once I had the garland in place, I topped the tree with a Green Crinkle Paper Ribbon. The ribbon hides the wooden skewer.

I draped the garland down the sides of the tree, bending and gluing it at various points on the boxes using E6000 glue. I draped it down the tree rather than wrapping it around as it would have blocked the box lids.

I also added Lacquered Holly & Barry clusters to various boxes. This particular assembly of the boxes gives you lots of ledges on each level of boxes to add embellishments.

Have fun making a Christmas Tree Advent Calendar!!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Matchbox Advent Calendar Chest Tutorial

Just in time for Christmas is a fun Matchbox Chest Advent Calendar project that can be enjoyed by your entire family. I learned about advent calendars when I lived in Germany as a child (my dad was in the military and was stationed there). My mother would purchase a calendar each Christmas and my sister and I would take turns opening a door each day and eating the chocolate it contained. I thought my matchbox chest project would make a great advent calendar project. If you are not familiar with advent calendars they are calendars that count down the days until Christmas; starting on December 1^st and ending on December 25^th. Most have doors that when opened; reveal a piece of chocolate or a Christmas themed image.

In this calendar each day is represented by a matchbox drawer. There are 25 matchboxes in total (5 across and 5 high). With having a drawer as opposed to a door you can have larger surprises. The overall dimensions of the cabinet are:

Entire Piece: 11” High x 7 ½” Wide x 2 3/8” Deep

Drawers with Foam Core Border: 4 ½ “ High x 7 ¼” Wide x 2 ¼” Deep

Height of Feet: 1 ¼” Tall

Stuff on the Top of the Cabinet: 5” Tall

The charms are the drawer pulls. To see the number or date of the drawer you just lift the charm. The numbers are not in order as I think that is more fun.

In this post I’m going to cover the differences between the matchbox chest I demonstrate in the video tutorial and this Matchbox Advent Calendar Chest. For general information on how to make a matchbox chest you can watch my video tutorial.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE BASIC MATCHBOX CHEST TUTORIAL

At the bottom of this post is a complete list of products I used for this project that are carried by Alpha Stamps.

MATCHBOXES I USED

For this project I used a different matchbox than the one I used for the matchbox chest tutorial. I needed a larger font to accommodate the day of the month and the Christmas charm that acts as a pull. You can see in the picture below the difference in the matchboxes. The one on the right is the one I used for the advent calendar and the one on the left is the one I used for the matchbox chest.

The one I used for the calendar is 2 ¼” long x ¾” tall by 1 ¼” wide. Alpha Stamps is carrying them and they come in a box of 8. You’ll need 4 boxes to make this cabinet. The container that the individual matchboxes come in, are also a large matchbox. Stay tuned for another project using the larger matchbox container.

Using this matchbox had two other advantages; I could insert larger objects in the box, and all of the surfaces where white which worked well with the Christmas theme and required no inking or papering (except the front of the drawer) which made the project faster.

I did this for a couple of reasons. First, it gave me a nice deep frame around the front of the chest to accommodate the paper and embellishments. You can see in the picture below where I have glued the Antique Silver Leaf Flourishes to the front of the cabinet. These were originally silver, I added some gold and then Diamond Stickles in the grooves for sparkle.

Second, it gave me a surface that I could easily poke with a pin to insert dimensional embellishments. One of the tricks I use to get paper images to stand up by themselves is to insert a pin in between the image and the backing of cardstock and or decorative paper. In the picture below I used this technique to attach the images to the top of the cabinet. The Star Tinsel is wired so you can strip off the coating and stick the wire into the foam core as well.

ADDING A STRAIGHT PIN TO THE IMAGES

Snip the head off of a small straight pin.
Glue your image to a piece of light cardstock. You want to use light cardstock because by the time you have all three layers together it gets hard to cutout the image. The light cardstock makes the image stiffer but not too hard to cut out. Cutout the image.
Glue the pin to the cardstock at the point where you want to attach the image to the foam core. I used Glossy Accents.
Glue the cardstock to decorative paper. This is so that it will look pretty from the back side. Another option is to print the image in reverse and back the original image with a reverse of that image that way it looks the same from both sides.

Now you are ready to add the image to the chest. To attach the image to the top of the chest I pre-poked a hole with a needle then inserted the image with the pin into the hole. Voila! The image is standing by itself, it looks good from both sides and you can’t see the pin.

ADDING FEET TO THE CABINET

You all know how I love adding feet to my projects. For the chest I used two beads glued together. I thought the beads looked like Christmas ornaments. These beads have large holes so I inserted a wooden skewer (painted with Silver Alcohol Ink) to give them more stability. I added a little Glossy Accents to the dowel before sliding it through the beads.

I sniped off both ends of the dowel so that it was flush with the beads. I painted parts of the beads with Gold Alcohol Ink. Before attaching the beads to the bottom of the cabinet I glued them to a silver washer. This was to give me more surface area to glue the beads to the bottom of the cabinet. Just gluing the tip of the bead to the cabinet did not provide enough surface area to make the feet stable.

THE DRAWERS

The front of the drawers is the only thing decorated on the matchboxes. The white of the boxes matched my color scheme. I used the number stickers from the Turtle Dove line for the numbers on the front of the drawers.

The charms act as the drawer pulls. Lifting the charm reveals the number or date. All of the charms were originally a gold color. I jazzed them up by adding silver, red, black and green paint and Stickles for sparkle.
Paper lines that would work well for this project are: Joyeux Noel 6x6 Paper Pad and Festive 6x6 Paper Pad – These are the papers I used for my Christmas Mini Albums & Bookshelf Tutorial. Click here to see the tutorial if you missed it. Two others are: City Sidewalks 8x8 Paper Pack and Santa Journey 8x8 Paper Pad.

IDEAS FOR YOUR DRAWERS

You can fill your drawers with whatever you like such as candy or small presents. I also thought it would be fun to have other types of treats or prizes such as getting special privileges like being the one to pass out the presents (this was a big one in our house) or being allowed to open a present early. Below are some of the ones I could think of. Feel free to download the images and use them as prizes in your calendar. I also included a blank one in case you want to create your own. They are sized to fit the matchbox drawers or you can roll them up and tie them with a ribbon (prolonging the suspense).

Pulling from a grab bag would be a great way to deal with items that are too big to fit in the drawers.

THE CABINET TOP

There is a lot of space at the top of the cabinet to add whatever you desire. I certainly had fun filling it up will all kinds of stuff. As I discussed previously, having a foam core top made is so easy to attach elements like the images and the Star Tinsel.

The tree comes already flocked in white. I cut up Mardi gras beads and glued them on the tree with Glossy Accents.

The lantern (oh the lantern)….I LOVE this lantern and you are going to see it again and again in more of my projects. The pole is a wooden dowel. I cut a notch in the top of the dowel and glued the ornament hook in the notch (using E6000 glue). The lantern was original all gold. I used Silver Alcohol ink to paint the scrolls and then added green crystals. With the top of the cabinet being foam core it was easy to punch a hole in the top and insert and glue the dowel in place.

I decided to add the packages (which are blocks of wood covered in the Turtle Dove paper) to give me a way of suspending the clock. The paper die cut (from the Turtle Dove line) is backed with light cardstock and decorative paper (to make it stiff). The packages are glued to the top of the cabinet, the die cut image is glued to the packages and the clock and other embellishments are glued to the die cut image. My thought process started with me wanting a clock and then I worked backwards to figure out how to hang it. The swirls in the die cut image made me think of a decorative pole so I just needed a way to anchor it to the top of the cabinet and that’s where the packages came in. The whole assemblage was too heavy for my straight pin trick.

THE SIDES AND BACK OF THE CABINET

I used the decorative paper die cuts to cover the sides of the cabinet. Because the sides are foam core you could use the same trick to poke stuff in the sides as in the top.

BACK OF THE CABINET

I added snow to the top of the cabinet by drizzling Glossy Accents on the top and then sprinkling the glue with white flocking. What I didn’t realize is that some of the glue dripped down the back of the cabinet. Eeek!!! My solution was to add more glue to the back and sprinkle it with Diamond Dust to create ice cycles. Problem solved!

I hope you have fun creating a cabinet for your family and enjoying it for years to come.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A PDF VERSION OF THIS TUTORIAL

ALPHA STAMPS SUPPLIES USED IN THIS PROJECT

Matchbox Full of Matchboxes – You’ll need 4

Antique Silver Lantern Bead – Feet

Antique Silver Leaf Flourishes – On the front of the cabinet

Papers, Borders & Stickers

Visions of Christmas Die-Cut Cardstock Borders – Trim around the front of the cabinet

Turtle Dove Numbers Sticker Sheet – Numbers on the front of drawers

Christmas Emporium: Joyous Noel Scrapbook Paper – Wording at the bottom of cabinet

Dazzles GoldHolly Stickers – Clock from back view and pole

Paper lines that would work well for this project are: Joyeux Noel 6x6 Paper Pad and Festive 6x6 Paper Pad – These are the papers I used for my Christmas Mini Albums & Bookshelf Tutorial. Click here to see the tutorial if you missed it. Two others are: City Sidewalks 8x8 Paper Pack and Santa Journey 8x8 Paper Pad.