Advent Calendar – DIY

I don’t often do a DIY, but that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy. Trust me when I say that I pin plenty of them from Pinterest.

So, when my kids asked if they could each have a separate advent calendar for Christmas I looked around.  From Pottery Barn to Michaels and everything in between.  Nothing looked quite right, had the right sized boxes or was what I wanted to spend.   So, I thought to myself, what would Martha do?  Well, she would make her own.  Wouldn’t she?

I perused Pinterest and got a few ideas, but the actual design was my own. I started with these little favour (or favor depending on your country) boxes which I bought at Michaels:

When you put them together, they look like this:

They are not what I would call sturdy little boxes, but I figured I could make them work.  With a 50% off coupon, I think the cost was around $10.

I searched around on Pinterest and found some creative people that love to share printables.  I found these numbers in Christmas colours that were a perfect match for my boxes and printed them at home on my colour printer:

After cutting them out and using my new best friend:

 

the boxes looked like this:

I used the Mod Podge to paste the numbers on the front of the boxes and to give them a little more strength.

I then played around with the shape, the order of the numbers and realized that I wanted the calendar to be able to stand or balance on its own.  A little LOT more Mod Podge to stick them together and voila!

This is the final result:

This whole project cost about $15 for the white boxes and Mod Podge.  The kids think it is great and I’m hoping it will last me a couple of years.  If it doesn’t, the good thing is it can go into the mixed recycling bin.

I think Santa will be proud of me and Martha might like it, too.

linking up with: The Jenny Evolution, The Pin Junkie, Design Dining and Diapers, Curly Crafty Mom, Happy Housie, Provident Home Design