One thing that signals the start of Christmas for me is an advent calendar. Ever since I was little, my mum has bought me a chocolate calendar, even as an adult. The one year she didn’t buy one for my brothers or me because we were ‘too old’ (I was 25!) and she was bombarded with texts from us all asking where our calendars were. A couple of days later, a Peppa Pig one turned up. She’s never made that mistake again. Even now, at the age of 31, I still get one from her.
When we were asked on behalf of Action Storage, retailers of lockers for business, to take part in their DIY wooden advent calendar challenge, I knew we couldn’t say no. I knew we would have fun decorating it, filling it and opening it!
The wooden calendar is available to buy from Hobbycraft and I think at £8 it’s brilliant value – it can be used year after year. We were sent a £20 voucher to go to Hobbycraft and buy all the pretty things needed to decorate it.
Our Christmas decorations are all very traditional – red, green and gold – and I wanted to keep to that theme with the calendar. I bought some paint in these colours, including some glittery paint, some stick on poinsettias, some sparkly stars and gold sparkly buttons. It was glitter heaven. I wanted some wooden numbers to stick on the doors, but the store had completely sold out, so I bought some number stamps. I also got a mini hot glue gun and some glue sticks.
As soon as I started I realised I had bought the wrong paint – it needed acrylic. With our nearest store being a 60-mile round trip, I decided to just carry on anyway. It isn’t the best finish ever, but from a distance, it looks ok. I can always say the kids painted it, right?!
Once it had a couple of coats of paint, I started to try and stamp the numbers on. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite go to plan either (are you seeing a theme here?!), so I covered them up as best as I could with the embellishments. In the end, I used a sharpie to write the numbers on! I finished it off by glueing some gold ricrac from the craft cupboard to the base of the calendar.
It’s far from perfect. Up close, you can see where the paint has splodged and where things are a bit wonky. But, from a distance, it looks alright. Most importantly, I had a lot of fun decorating it, and the kids love it!
*We were provided with the product and a voucher for the purpose of this post. All thoughts and opinions are our own.
Lovr the beauty of this
Great to use year after year
You did a great job
This is just awesome! Will have to show my kids for next year! What a great job!
I think it looks fab and such a great idea, I bet the children love it and will enjoy opening the doors for advent x
We have a reusable one. It’s worth spending a little more and filling it up with a bag of Celebrations or similar bought from Home Bargains – It saves money in the long run. You did a great job on this!
Thanks for sharing with us, this awesome family activity diy wooden advent calendar! Kids will enjoy it for real!
What a great idea! This would be fun for the family to do together!
How fun! Great creative activity for the season!
I’ve got a set of mini stockings to hang up as my calendar (and my mum gives me chocolate to fill it up too)!
Wow! I have never seen anything like this before. This is truly unique and cool. I wish my daughter would use something like this.
I can’t wait to try this!
You did it well. Kids will surely appreciate it. You’ll get compliments..m
I love this – it looks absolutely amazing and the idea of being able to put your own bits into it is great as well.
Wow, amazing!
I love this type of things! Great post, great blog as well!! 🙂
how very special I love all the mini doors perfect to hide treasures
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That came out so adorable! I love how you took something plain and turned it into a fun festive piece.
What a wonderful idea! I like how hard this is. Most of our advent calendars don’t make it through to Christmas. This one I know would.
This is so cute! Great work!
You did an awesome job! It looks great!
I love this idea! Gonna see if my niece wants to make it with me
This looks like such a fun craft! I love the idea of making your own advent calendar and being able to fill it with whatever you like
Wow I can’t believe you did this by yourself it looks amazing! I love this wooden advent calendar!
I love this! We so need to make it. I love the colors.
This is amazing. The design is so beautiful and I like the fact that you can use it for years to come.
I’ve never tried making a DIY advent calendar before! That’s a lot of fun and you can customize it any way you like! Love the idea!
I love these things. They are so much fun for the kids. I will definitely make one of these!
That is really good value for money. It’s lovely that it is so personal and the kids can treasure it for years to come.
Omg you are so creative I can’t believe you did this by yourself. It looks amazing. x
This is great 🙂 I have brought some things to make my daughter a personalised one this year. You have just reminded me I bet get it done 🙂
So many awesome ideas for Advent Calendars but this one’s one of the best! You can basically design it however you want!
What a fun DIY calendar!! My kids love to count down to Christmas, so much fun to see them excited for the holiday!
This is such an awesome idea!!! We just bought our advent calendar but this would’ve been way cooler and fun to do!!! Saving this idea! Ty for sharing!!
I absolutely love the idea of making our own advent calendar for next year!!! Ty for sharing!
This is an awesome DIY! I love a classic advent calendar!
Wow what a fab advent calendar! You are so talented, we made some but nothing as good as this!!
I love advent calendar and this looks like a great DIY idea! I love how you make it so nice.
I saw this is on hobbycraft and thought it was lovely. We already have a wooden one otherwise I’d have got this. I actually bought the sleigh they have there which you can decorate x
The wooden calendar looks simply amazing and I love how you have transformed it to gold with some wonderful Christmas decorations to go with the Holiday season. Creativity at its best to get the best!
This is amazing I am loving this craft, definitely can be used year in year out
Wow, what an amazing calendar, I haven’t see anything like this before. It’s so amazing!
This looks so good. Haha I still get an advent calendar for my mum too and I’m 27. You’re never too old. I really want a wooden one for my daughter, I think she’d have so much fun decorating her own! x
Oh my gosh, this is just too cute. I’m glad it’s not too late to make one of these, the grand kids will love counting down until Christmas.