Popsicle Stick Advent Calendar – A Family Project

The past couple of years I have created our own DIY Advent calendars. I wasn’t really happy with the ones that I had made. This year my husband has been making different projects from popsicle sticks. While he was in the middle of creating a barn for our daughter for Christmas,  I volunteered him to create a popsicle stick Advent calendar for this year. He stopped the barn and began making the calendar.

I gave my husband a design idea and this is how he created and assembled the calendar.

Popsicle Stick Advent Calendar

Materials

• 2000 craft sticks -popsicle stick size
• glue
• a few different colours of paint
• glitter or glitter glue
• scissors
• ruler
• stickers
• 23 wood cubes for handles
• 2 small clothespins

I can only give an estimate on a number of sticks used since my hubby didn’t jot down any numbers. He did, however, go through almost all of the 2 boxes of 1000 sticks. My hubby is new to crafting and doesn’t think about the instructions, he just builds.

Why not design your own and make it the way you want. Use these instructions as guidelines to your masterpiece. My husband is already creating a new one and has chalked this up to a learning experience. I think it turned out pretty good, even with the flaws. Oh, and this time he is jotting down how it is being assembled.

Popsicle Stick Advent Calendar

Directions

The frame is 26 x 16 x 4 inches, including the roof.

I had seen many different designs for advent calendars but I wanted something simple and fairly easy to do.  This house design has 7 floors, 23 drawers, 2 doors a roof and ornament display areas.

From the base, we created supports by doubling up sticks to hold the next floor and continued until completed.

Once the frame is complete paint with 3-4 coats of red paint. When the paint is dry, add some clear glitter glue to add some sparkle.

Drawers and Doors

The drawers are approximately 3.5 x 2.5.

When we were creating the drawer design for the house, measurements were slightly off so not all drawers were the same size. s of white and red glitter glue over top the white, once the paint was dry.

The Roof

When we first began designing the calendar, the roof was going to have a peak. During the building of the house, I decided to change it to more of a flat roof. Shingles were added by using the ends of the popsicle sticks that were previously cut off to form the frame. The top of the roof was given enough space to add more ornaments.

Painting and Decorating

This was my part of the project. The final touches before completion. It took some time since I changed the colour of the house from brown to red. I originally was going for a Gingerbread house look, but once painted, I didn’t like the outcome and went with red and white.

I glued the stickers on to the drawers, randomly added the numbers 1-25 and took some shredded plastic for snow and added all over the calendar.

Filling the Drawers

While the store bought Advent Calendars have a chocolate inside for every day we open, I didn’t want that.  I will be creating little note tags on the computer to add to each drawer with a daily activity. There may or may not be a chocolate, candy or toy, just a note. I will be adding tiny surprises to some of the drawers, every day will be different and fun.

On December 1, we will have the calendar on our daughter’s desk. When she awakes in the morning she will find her Elf on the Shelf, Trixie, sitting on the Popsicle Stick Advent Calendar we created, with a note.

For the notes, I looked on Pinterest and got some ideas from the ones in my search.

Do you add an Advent Calendar to your holiday traditions? Do you create your own or just buy what is available with your child’s favourite characters?