• Home
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Hire Me!
  • Gallery
  • Policies
  • Nav Social Menu

    • Facebook
    • Pinterest

Jessica Welling Interiors

  • Holidays
  • Decor
  • Kids
  • Organization
  • Crafts
  • DIY Projects
  • Outdoor Living
You are here: Home / Holidays / Make Your Own Advent Calendar!

December 18, 2018 · 18 Comments

Make Your Own Advent Calendar!

This post may contain affiliate links.Read more...

Crafts· Holidays

Easy Painted Advent Calendar: unfinished wood Christmas-tree-shaped advent calendar with paint and brushes, and finished painted advent calendar with child reaching into one of the drawers
DIY Painted Advent Calendar: wood Christmas-tree-shaped advent calendar painted red and white with child's hands opening drawer

Make your own easy wood painted reusable advent calendar to countdown to Christmas! 

Easy Christmas Advent Calendar: wood christmas-tree-shaped advent calendar with red and white painted drawers

I’ve been wanting a re-usable advent calendar for a few years now, and this is the year! I’m moving toward a mid-centuryish aesthetic with my decor, and I want to start taking my Christmas decor that direction too.

So today I’m going to show you how to decorate your own wood advent calendar to go with your Christmas decor. And you can fill the drawers with whatever you like. I’m using this free Jesus Storybook Bible Advent Calendar for my girls this year.

Make your own reusable advent calendar! It's great for kids and adults alike. Fill the boxes with little toys, candy, notes, or whatever you like!

Unfortunately no chocolate in ours- for a few years in a row Zoe the Wonder Dog had a Christmas Eve tradition of going to the emergency vet to have her stomach pumped. Peter would bring home chocolate for my Christmas sock- the good stuff. And Zoe would get into it while we were at Christmas Eve service.

One year she ate a whole Costco bag of truffles! Thankfully she’s always been fine, but now the chocolate is hidden up high in the kitchen.

What you need:

  • unfinished wood advent calendar (the one I originally used isn’t available but this looks very similar and could be customized any way you like!)
  • acrylic paint
  • small paintbrushes
  • paper plate or paint palette
  • garbage bag or something to protect your tabletop
  • wood stain
  • sharpie or paint pen
supplies to make a diy painted advent calendar

How to paint an advent calendar

Make your own reusable advent calendar! It's great for kids and adults alike. Fill the boxes with little toys, candy, notes, or whatever you like!

1. Paint the drawer fronts.

I painted the fronts- and then ended up going back and painting the whole outside of each box. As you can see, mine are white and red. They’ll need at least 2 coats of paint. It dries quick.

drawers from reusable advent calendar, being painted red and white

2. Paint or stain the knobs.

I stained my knobs to match the calendar frame. They could be gold, whatever you like.

3. Paint or stain your frame.

I did a single coat of walnut-colored stain on mine. There’s some uneven color inside a few of the boxes because of the glue, but it won’t really show once the drawers are in place.

wood advent calendar being stained and painted for Christmas

4. Write numbers.

This step takes a little practice. I just used a sharpie and did a faux calligraphy font. You could use a paint pen, or even stickers if you want a different color. I’m loving this Hand Lettering workbook. I messed up my pattern and had to paint over a few of my numbers. I found that no amount of white paint would cover the sharpie, but white-out did the trick in one coat! Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve used that stuff!

mini drawers from wood advent calendar being painted white
mini drawers from wood advent calendar being painted with white-out

5. Replace the drawers.

After everything has a few hours to dry, you can put the drawers back into the frame. 

reusable wood advent calendar with half of the drawers in place

6. Fill the calendar.

Make your own reusable advent calendar! It's great for kids and adults alike. Fill the boxes with little toys, candy, notes, or whatever you like!

That’s it! Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Easy DIY Advent Calendar: close-up of wood advent calendar with red and white painted mini drawers with numbers

more easy Christmas ideas…

The Best Arts & Crafts Gifts for Kids!

Christmas Gift Wrapping Ideas: Pretty & Simple

Easy Kintsugi DIY Christmas Ornaments

Easy DIY Bath Salt

Potato Stamp Tea Towels: Easy DIY Gifts

Gifts for Men: DIY Tools Gift Guide

Previous Post: « 15 Cozy Winter Throw Pillows Under $25
Next Post: Winter Decorating Ideas: Transition from Christmas to Winter »

Reader Interactions

+

Comments

  1. Swagata Sen says

    January 23, 2019 at 2:20 pm

    Woww!! so simple yet such a beautiful piece . Loved your creativity. Keep posting.

    Reply
    • Jess says

      January 23, 2019 at 2:47 pm

      Thank you!

      Reply
  2. JOHN MULINDI says

    January 24, 2019 at 8:49 am

    I would try this out! thanks for sharing these creative ideas.

    Reply
  3. Britney says

    January 28, 2019 at 8:30 pm

    I love this idea! I definitely need to give this a try for next year. Love that you can re-use it.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Hi, I’m Jess!

I'm so glad you're here! I'm a blogger, interior designer, wife, and mama to two sweet little girls. I love to create casual, modern, colorful, family-friendly spaces! Read More…

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Copyright

It’s great when you share! Just please remember that all images and text on this site are the property of Jessica Welling Interiors. You’re welcome to use a few of my photos, but please do not alter them and be sure they link back to my site. Thanks!

Footer

About the Designer

I specialize in designing casual everyday spaces for real families. I can help you do it yourself, or I can design it for you. Read More…

This error message is only visible to WordPress admins
Error: No posts found.

Copyright © 2021 · captivating theme by Restored 316