Complete! Advent Calendar Success

As I suspected, once I finally got the wood base assembled for this Kaisercraft advent calendar, it turned out beautifully!  And I hope the wood construction means that it will last for years.

I left my base plain as it came since it matched my papers, but you could easily paint it. The drawers are large enough to hold a small treat for each of my (three) kids, and I plan to put slips of paper inside some with an activity for that day (great for weekends!).

Because the joinery shows when assembled, I covered the top and sides.  I chose an allover small print because it's larger than 12" and needs to be pieced.  I used a zip strip from one of my papers along the center of the top, but it would look fine plain also.

I chose to cover the front and sides of each box with a variety of the papers & cardstocks in the Pear & Partidge paper pack.  I distressed all of the edges using the distressing tool that looks a bit like an emery board.  I also inked and gold embossed all of the edges & corners of the base boxes for bling.

I decorated the box fronts with an assortment of embellishments and the November stamp of the month set, Capture The Date.  I like that is has several sizes/styles of numbers so I could use different ones depending on how much room I had. (Sorry, the red velvet rub-ons I used are no longer available, except as part of Hostess Collection 4, while supplies last.)

This box is the easiest possible! I just used one of the Dimensional Elements In Color and stamped a "3" on it. Super quick!

This one uses a couple of rub-ons for the leaves; all of the other items are from the Antiqued Gold Mini-Medley Accents Collection.

This is another from the Pear & Partridge Glittery Rub-Ons.  I added a little extra glitter with some Pink Glitz glitter gel on the berries. These are super easy to put on using the Rub-On Tool.

This is another of the Dimensional Elements In Color.  I punched a hole in the top of the ornament and added some twine for a hanger.  I adhered the twine to the inside of the box using some Liquid Glass.

Finally, this set of three uses one larger rub-on. They can easily be cut apart and applied across multiple items.  Or, the rub-ons can also be layered on top of each other for dimension, like a bird overlapping part of a snowflake.

I hope you enjoyed this fun project! I would love to hear your comments on it. If you're inspired to make one of your own, here is a list of products I used:

• Kaisercraft Mini Treasure Chest
• Capture the Date, November 2012 stamp of the month
• Pear & Partridge paper pack*
• Pear & Partridge Complements Glittery Rub-Ons*
• Festive Velvet Rub-Ons (not available individually)*
• Dimensional Elements In Color - Holiday *
• Mini-Medley Accent Collection, Antique Gold
• Baker's Twine Harvest Assortment*
• Liquid Glass
• Sanding Kit
• Gold Embossing Powder
• Versamark Ink Pad (or use pigment ink)
• Rub-On Tool
• Exclusive Inks stamp pad in Cranberry, Olive, & Cocoa
• Sparkles in Clear Assortment and Red, Pink, & Purple Assortment
• Glitz glitter gel in Pink, Green, & Almond

* All starred items are available as part of Hostess Collection 4