The Secret Ingredients to a Purposeful Life

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Tiny doors w a small surprise. Painted Santa Advent Calendar.

This year I wanted to make a new Calendar to house goodies for the 24 days of December. Now Each child has one.

What you will need:

Purchased or woodworker homemade wood calander with small doors (see picture of the one I purchased at Michaels).
Brushes
Acrylic Paints
A tray (I recycle produce trays)
Magazines or newspapers to protect your working surface
White Gesso (for Acrylic paints):
Instructions:

1. Take your wooden frame and paint with Gesso to prep surface for painting. Let this coat dry. (Acrylic dries fast).
It should look like this, a bit opaque white.
2. Once the Gesso dries, begin painting your image with the colors of acrylic paint that you desire.
This is the Santa I painted before I shaded the figure. However, you may not want to add shade and leave yours like this.

Shading added:
Ho, HO, hO... ;-D
3. Inside each little door, put some goodies for the kids to find each day:
Behind each door is a small surprise:
4. This year, I purchased three small trees (One for each child):
In their Advent Calander they will find not only candy and small toys, but tiny ornaments for their tree as well. ;-)I wanted to do something new and different and came up with this idea. ;0)

Above is the new Calendar with it's doors. Now each child has their own, so I do not have to cram three of each goodie into one calendar. Below are some calendars from last year:
And:

And now our new one:
I just love the holidays. This time of year is so special. I am becoming more aware of how quickly the kids are growing up, so I am wanting to grab the fun before Kid-time ends, as they one by one leave the nest bound for college. ;-)

Happy Holidays, and a Merry Christmas!