Today’s DIY came about when I was helping my son clean up his room before he left for college. For some reason he still had the box his desk came in leaning against a wall. {I can’t imagine where he gets that from!} There were some long, corner shaped pieces of cardboard in the box & I thought they might be useful, so I kept them. {Okay, maybe I do know where he gets it from!} I spotted them in the corner today & one thing lead to another {crafting wise}. The next thing I know I had an advent calendar shaped like a tree! Now I’m going to tell you how I did it & what I would do differently the next time. On to the crafting!
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Cardboard Pieces
These cardboard L-shapes were in the box to protect the edges of the desk during shipping.
When I saw them I immediately thought the looked like a tree top.
I had this idea to make a tree with different levels, just as a decorative sign at first. My cutting mat was perfect for marking and measuring 1″ & 2″ pieces.
I tried several different things for cutting these because they were fairly thick & dense cardboard. My tin snips won the battle!
After I cut out what I thought was enough, I set about rearranging them in a tree shape of sorts…
That’s not really working for me…maybe more symmetrical…
I like that better & turning a few up at the bottom will give it a more tree like appearance. That’s when it occurred to me that this would make a great advent calendar for Christmas! I would definitely need more pieces & something to mount it to. Good thing I like to keep things – just in case! ; )
Making an Advent Calendar
I dug around in my little stash of wood bits & bobs & found a piece that was the perfect size.
It came from an old cheap shelf that didn’t want to stay together anymore, so I obliged & took it apart! This is a laminate covered particle board, but I wanted to practice painting on that kind of surface anyway. It will help me figure out how to paint my thrifted desk!
I sanded the surface with a fine grit sandpaper & gave it a coat of chalk paint in red. The {faux} wood grain shows through, but I like the look!
Originally I was going to leave the cardboard pieces plain, but that’s just not my style! I grabbed some Christmas-y paper from my scrapbook stash, permanent adhesive, & some gold metallic lustre.
I marked out the paper strip size by tracing around one side of the “L” & then rocking it over to trace the other side. Everything is held in place with the permanent adhesive & the front edge is gilded in gold.
At this point I decided I didn’t like seeing the white undersides of the peaks, so I decided to paint them dark green. This lead to a few messes & I really should have done this first!
Since this will be an advent calendar, it needs some numbers. I didn’t have enough of one kind, so I decided to combine two different ones. I also had to use some of the spaces leftover from the punch-outs to have enough numbers.
Time to glue things down using my favorite adhesive – e6000. I also added some gold metallic lustre to the edges of the board, as well as brown wax.
Once I glued down a row of peaks, I glued down the numbers under the peaks. This kept me from reaching inside the little boxes to do this!
This process took a little time & when I got to the end I had an empty box! That didn’t seem right & when I looked back at my numbers I realized why. I left out the 18th! Boo! Luckily the glue wasn’t dry & I was able to rearrange things.
All Finished
Well, here’s the finished advent calendar…
It turned out okay, but there’s definitely room for improvement…
The boxes are dark & it’s hard to see some of the numbers. It would be better if I’d used 1 1/2″ instead of 2″ for the longer pieces.
I do like the way it looks from the side – like a little village!
I would also paint the interior before adding the paper – less mess! There are 3 more “L” shapes left & I have enough materials to make 3 more of these. Maybe I’ll sell them, what do y’all think? : D
Hope y’all are having a wonderful Wednesday!
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