Kelly's Christmas Crafts Project 1: Advent Calendar

I am so excited to share with you the first project in my little Christmas craft series this month. With Bonfire Night behind us, we can all come out of the Christmas closet and start planning how we're going to make this year's festivities the best ever - and with many of us being mums for the first time, it really is going to be magical.

As we are a family of three for the first time, we're going to start some new traditions this Christmas and at the centre of this is our advent calendar. We decided we wanted an advent calendar we can use every year and our idea is to not only have a chocolate treat waiting inside but also a seasonal task. From watching Elf to baking gingerbread, singing carols and reading 'Twas The Night Before Christmas.

I found this beautiful wooden advent house template in Hobbycraft (although if you look around on eBay and Amazon you can find some alternatives) and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it...

Materials
Wooden house
Acryllic paints - red, two shades of green, silver (I like traditional colours but you could choose any colour scheme you like)
Sheet of white felt
Wooden number embellishments

Time
3 hours painting (three coats plus drying time)
1/2 hour painting door handles
1/2 hour fixing the snow
1/2 hour adding finishing touches

Method

1. Choose the main colour for your house and paint all over.

2. Choose what colours you'd like for the drawers and paint these. I chose two shades of green to add contrast and decided to just paint the fronts as these will be the only visible parts.

3. Once the first coat of paint is dry, paint the house and the drawers again.

4. Check if a third coat of paint is needed.

5. Take your sheet of felt and measure against the two sides of the roof of the house. Don't forget the chimney as well! Cut out the felt to fit, allowing enough to fold over the sides to create an overhang of 'snow'. Cut the edges in a waved line then fix with superglue to the top of the house, folding over the edges and pressing firmly until fixed in place. For the side with the chimney, I measured how far down it was and cut a line in the centre of the felt accordingly. I then gently eased the felt over the top of the chimney, before pressing down onto the glue on the roof.

6. Paint the handles of all the drawers in silver paint. Make sure it's fully mixed so the colour is nice and strong. Two coats should be enough.

7. Slot your finished drawers back into the slots in the house - I alternated the two colours.

8. Decide whether you want the numbers to go in sequential order or jumbled up. Place your wooden numbers on the fronts of the doors and make sure you're happy before gluing with superglue. The numbers I've used come with three different designs underneath so I had to make sure that I didn't put two sequential numbers next to each other AND there were no stars, trees or hearts directly in line with another.

9. Write your Christmas tasks on small pieces of paper, fold and pop into the drawers in a random order.

10. Fill each drawer with a sweet for each member of the family and voila, you're advent calendar is ready!

So, what do you think? Will you have a go at making your own advent calendar? What festive tasks would you put in the drawers?

Next week's Christmas craft project is a tutorial on how to make your own snow globe.

Week 1: advent calendar
Week 2: snow globe
Week 3: Christmas card holder
Week 4: wreath