KAISERCRAFT Advent Calendar by Deanna M

I am sure by now many of you have received a copy of one of the KAISERCRAFT Workshop Magazines that Kim at Cutters Creek has been including in some orders as she ships them out. I happened to get the one for September and new immediately I wanted to make the Advent Calendar that was in the magazine. Did you also know that Cutters Creek, carries some of the KAISERCRAFT products and that she can special order most of the items that are included in the Workshop Magazines.

Now that you know how to get the products let me show you what I made.

The kit came with all of the pieces necessary to assemble the wooden box and the chipboard drawers and numbers. All I needed to supply was paint, paper, and embellishments.

To get started I painted all the wooden pieces of the calendar with some green acrylic paint I had on hand. The green was a little too bright for me so after it completely dried I sprayed all the wooden pieces with some Jingle Bells Glimmer Mist which gave me the look I wanted. (It is hard to see in the photos.) I then sprayed it with a sealer to protect the wooden sections. I painted all the pieces before cutting them apart. I used my Tim Holtz Scissors to cut the little sections apart and they worked wonderfully.

I had some help from my son in assembling the wooden part of the box. While he worked on putting that together I went to work on the little drawers. I used Scor-Tape to hold my drawers together and to help hold my paper when I covered the drawers. I used paper from the Graphic 45 Christmas Emporium  8" X 8" paper pad to cover my boxes.  I cut my paper in two sections. I cut a piece 1 5/8" X 6" and covered the back and sides of the box and wrapped it around the front to cover the two outer edges of the front. I then cut another piece 1 5/8" X 1 5/8" to cover the front.  This gave me enough pieces of 5 boxes from each piece of 8" X 8" sheet of card stock.  I had the hardest time with the little U shape on the front of the drawers. I tried measuring it and thought for sure a 1" round punch would work perfectly to punch the holes, nope, just a little too big. I think a 3/4" circle punch might work though. I ended up tracing the cutout on to the back of each piece of paper and hand cut them. Of course some of them ended up slightly off center but that is okay.

Using the Scor-Tape I adhered the paper to the boxes and placed them in the wooden slots. I then decided to run all the numbers through my Xyron upside down so I had the adhesive on the fronts and glitter them with some red and green glitter I had in my stash. I adhered them to the drawer fronts with some Scotch Quick Dry adhesive.

For the center of the calendar I found this piece of We Wish You  A Merry Christmas paper in my stash. Sorry there was no name on in it and I don't remember where I got it. But I thought it went great with the calendar so cut a piece 8 3/4" X 8 3/4" and adhered it to the center of my calendar.

Of course while I was working on the project my new Cricut Imagine Santa Village cartridge arrived and I had to use it. I love the buildings in the cartridge and chose what I took for Santa's house. I cut the house at 5" using the layers feature on the Imagine and used the clear 3D foam pads to adhere all the layers together which gave the house some great dimension. To further jazz up the house I applied some Ultra Fine White Flower Soft to the snow on the ground and chimney of the house. Along the roof line I just sprinkled some clear glitter to add some sparkle. What is Christmas Countdown calendar without Santa himself making an appearance. I cut the Sleigh at 2 1/2" using the layers feature and also assembled it with the clear 3D pads. I again used my Ultra Fine White Flower Soft and Flower Soft Adhesive, and applied it to the trim on Santa's coat and hat as well as his beard.

Finally using the flip feature on my Imagine I cut the reindeer in layers and adhered it with the clear foam pads as well. I then cut a short piece of the Doodlebugs Twine from the Christmas Assortment, in a red/green/white pattern and adhered it to the the reindeer just under his harness and also just under Santa's hand so it looked like Santa was holding the reins to his sleigh as he took off for his one night of adventure.

Items available at Cutters Creek:

Jingle Bells Glimmer Mist
Christmas Emporium Paper Pad
Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive
Tim Holtz Scissors
ASI Kool Tak Clear Foam Pads
Flower Soft and Flower Soft Adhesive
Doodlebug Design Twine
Xyron

Also please remember that Cutters Creek can special order most KAISERCRAFT products and many of the Imagine Cartridges.