Advent Calendar with Reversible Boxes

I just love the Kaisercraft Advent Calendar and had been dying to make for my son for Christmas this year. I finally got it done on December 2! Only a day late...I'll guess have to eat the first two candies.... :)  I made the boxes for the calendar reversible, so after you finish each day you can turn the box around. I'm so happy with how this turned out. I hope it is something my son will treasure for years to come.

I assembled the calendar (my dremel tool was super handy to sand off all the extra tabs) and painted it with a basecoat of Adirondack Espresso acrylic paint. I then added a couple of coats of DecoArt Spun Gold acrylic paint - it wasn't quite the tone I wanted, so to get the "old gold" look I was going for, I treated the entire surface of the calendar with Distress Ink in Vintage Photo. I used the same paint treatment for the calendar numbers.

I used two Graphic 45 paper collections, Christmas Past and Christmas Emporium for all the paper on the calendar and just love these collections and they go so perfectly together! I wrapped each box with paper and added a ribbon "pull tab" at the bottom on the reverse side of the boxes.  I then covered the bottom of each box with coordinating paper. I inked all the edges of the boxes with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I cut the "stamps" and small images from the G45 papers and distressed/inked the edges before adhering them to the boxes. I also added some Recollections Dimensional Stickers and K & Company Adhesive Chipboard and Stickers to several of the boxes.

I cut the central image from the G45 Christmas Emporium paper. I added the cream/gold cording around the edge of the image to give it a more finished look. I wanted to add something "extra" to the centre of the calendar, but I didn't want to obscure the image on the paper -- so I added a few simple handmade gift-boxes to the corners. I created the "boxes" by cutting and gluing pieces of cardboard together. I then wrapped the boxes with some of the G45 papers and inked all the edges. I added some ribbon to finish off the mini-gifts.

Thanks for visiting my blog - I hope you have a wonderful holiday season! Only twenty-two days until Christmas!

~Sarah

Materials Used:
Advent Calendar by Kaisercraft; Patterned Paper by Graphic 45: Christmas Past (Victorian Greetings, The Night Before Christmas, Glad Tidings, Christmas Past Frames, Holiday Spirit, The Holly & the Ivy, and Letters to Santa) and Christmas Emporium (Christmas Emporium, Believe! and Special Delivery); Adirondack Acrylic Paint in Espresso; DecoArt Acrylic Paint in Spun Gold; Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo; Recollections Signature Dimensional Stickers; K & Company Yuletide Adhesive Chipboard and Snow Globe Stickers; Celebrate it Holiday Ribbon and Cord; Craftsmart Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks; Memory Tape Runner XL, Xyron Sticker Maker and Glue Dots.