DIY Advent Calendar

Make your own easy DIY advent calendar. This is a quick project and pretty simple.

I was on top of things for Halloween, but I am SO BEHIND on Christmas decorating and items. It’s December 8 and I haven’t taken Christmas photos yet to make up cards. I’m guessing cards may not happen this year. We did get some decorations up, but not all of them. I’m so frustrated because I’ve been sick a couple of weeks now, made a trip to see family for Thanksgiving and another trip to family for a funeral. I can’t seem to catch up and I really just want to sleep. Ahhhh winter.

Fortunately, I found one task I could complete thanks to Pebbles and Piggytails; she made her own advent calendar using these Karen Foster countdown calendars so I decided to do my own spin on it. It was a quick project and I was able to sit in front of the fireplace sipping cider while I did most of the work so I managed to finish it despite feeling meh.

The blank calendar made it super easy and it was fun to decorate. I’m glad that I got this finished before Christmas was over, even if the first day we opened a drawer was the 7th!

Supplies
Supplies listed below may include affiliate links to the products.

Tutorial

To begin, I removed all of the drawers from the calendar. I laid the base out and spray painted it green. I spray painted both sides (letting each side dry before I flipped and did the other side of course).

While that was drying, I used the template to cut out scrapbook paper for the fronts of the drawers. Make sure to make them slightly smaller than the drawer. I had some areas that overlapped and they made the drawers harder to open.

Cut your scrapbook paper for your advent calendar.

Mod podge your scrapbook paper onto the fronts.

Using mod podge to update advent calendar.

Add the numbers (included in the calendar) to the front of the drawers).

Adding numbers and scrapbook paper to customize our DIY advent calendar.

Put all your drawers back inside the calendar and add your treats.

This year I filled it with chocolates, but in the future I’d like to do something different (varying the drawers) so each day is more of a surprise. I just didn’t have the energy for that this month. But hey- I can reuse this next year so no worries. I’ll get to it another time.

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