Advent Calender Tutorial

I love advent calenders but have never been able to find the right one for the right price. Then one day I was checking out My Insanity and she posted this gorgeous advent calender idea. It was love at first sight. I tweaked a few things and this is what I came up with . . .





I've recently had a love affair with clean lines and modern decor so I opted for all square boxes painted three shades of green and two shades of red. I also brushed them with matte finish Mod Podge, while watching Private Practice and Grey's Anatomy (my guilty pleasures) on the internet, for protection and durability.




Then I made a grid pattern on the back of a 16X20 inch stretched canvas with a ruler and pencil. The intersecting lines would be where I punched the holes to attach the boxes. Which brings us the the next step . . .




Punching the holes. I used my paper punch that I use for scrap booking to punch a small hole in the middle of the bottom of each box and in the canvas at the intersecting grid lines.




You can see that the hole is tiny. I didn't want the boxes to wiggle much after being attached.




To attach them to the canvas I lined up the two holes and inserted an ordinary brass brad.



Then I used a permanent marker to add the numbers and stuffed each box with 3 little candies for my three little boys to open and devour each day until Christmas. Ta Daa! If you look real close( but you'd never do that right?) you'll see my spacing isn't totally perfect but it's close enough for me. *wink*

So friends, do any of you use an Advent Calender? Have you found your favorite one or are you still searching?

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