DIY Advent Calendar

I'm really tickled with how our Advent Calendar turned out this year.  I got my inspiration from (surprise, surprise) pinterest and then tried to use what I had around the house to put it together.  The black frame was a $2 yard sale find over the summer, I already had the wired ribbon in our Christmas decorations and I had almost all of the Christmas scrapbook paper needed to put this together.  I love DIY projects that can be made with stuff I already have!

I did purchase the little paper mache boxes - they were $2.99 for six in a pack.  I also purchased the glittery numbers in the scrapbook section of A.C. Moore - they are chipboard stickers and were the most expensive investment in this project.  So to put this together, I did the following:

1. I painted all of the paper mache boxes with a neutral beige (I have quite the collection of acrylics, so no cost on the paint.)
2. After picking out 24 Christmas-colored scrapbook papers to use, Angel and I traced and cut out the papers to fit the tops of the paper mache boxes.  (I only bought a few new papers from Oriental Trading - I guess something good is coming out of my scrapbooking days.)
3. I then mod-podged the papers onto the tops of the boxes - one coat on the bottom and one on the top.
4. I picked 2 more scrapbook papers that were the same, without any crazy design, to use as the background of the calendar.  I just put that under the glass and then put the frame back together.
5. After that, I positioned all of the little boxes on top of the glass the way I wanted them, and then hot glued then into place.  I ADORE hot glue, there's nothing like the smell of melted glue!
6. Then, I stuck all of the glittery numbers onto the tops of the paper mache boxes.
7. After that, I hot-glued and stapled a ribbon to the back of the frame for hanging.  I tied a bow with a separate piece of ribbon and hot-glued that onto the top of the ribbon for decoration.

Voila!  Ready for hanging!  Now the boxes just need to be filled.  The only variation I considered was using some kind of magnetic background and adding magnets to the backs of the boxes.  But I ultimately didn't do that because of the added expense and because this was easier :-)

I have another post coming up soon to explain how we are going to use this Advent Calendar and what we're doing for all of Advent.  It's totally new for us and I am so stinking excited about it.  Can't wait to share and I'd love to have some of you join me!