How to make a wreath Advent Calendar

Not only Christmas, but the whole of December seems to be a time of rushing, gifts, joy and family time. The decorations start to spring up everywhere and you just cant wait for the day! And since there are all sorts of countdowns to special occasions, well why not create your own countdown to Christmas by making an Advent Calendar. It is a great gift, arts and crafts project as well as a festive decoration full of all sorts of treats, depending on how you wish to design yours. You can also tweak this idea to make an advent calendar for events other than Christmas, just make sure you decorate it according to the season, holiday or the celebration, everything else stays the same!

What you will need to create your own wreath  Christmas Advent Calendar:

- A few sheets of Holiday/ Christmas themed scrap booking paper. These sheets can be all the same or you can get different ones and make the colors work together.

- Gift wrap! Make it shiny, colorful and festive.

- Crafts glue.

- Paints, acrylic, water colors or even markers will do, the choice is up to you.

- Twenty five small boxes. You can use the small paper mache boxes from crafts stores like Joann's, Michael's, Hobby Lobby or any other that is close to you. They usually are quite cheap, however if you have match boxes lying around that will do great as well, and you can always mix and match.

- A Styrofoam wreath ring. Make sure it is big enough to fit all your boxes onto it.

- Wide ribbon, you can get the kind used for bows on gift-wrap or you can use the gift-wrap paper cut into strips to wrap around the Styrofoam wreath ring.

- A pair of scissors.

- Twenty five pieces of sweets, be it candies or chocolates it is up to you.

- Any other decorative accessories you might want to use such as glitter, various stickers, etc.

How to create your own Christmas Advent Calendar:

- First of all you will need to decorate your small boxes. You can either paint them or gift wrap them. If you use gift wrap (or scrap booking sheets) make sure you wrap the box and the lid separately so the lid can be taken off the box.

- Put one number on each lid until you have a lid for each of the twenty five days. The decorating part is really free style, so let your imagination roam and have fun.

- You might want to decorate the inside of your boxes (the bottom at least) also, as each day passes the lids are going to be taken off to remove a number so the inside of the box will be showing. Just keep that in mind.

- Once all of your boxes are done its time to work on the wreath ring. You want to wrap it up into ribbon or gift wrap so none of the foam is visible. Make sure that the ribbon is secured firmly in place as you will be gluing the boxes onto it!

- Now, you will glue the boxes in a circle onto the ring, you can put the numbers neatly in order or mix them up. The mix up works really good if you had different size and shape boxes. Use crafts glue to glue the back of the boxes down onto the wreath ring. Follow the instructions on the glue you use as far as the amount and drying times go.

- When your boxes are all down and your wreath is completed it is time to fill each box with a sweet. This actually doesn't have to be a candy. Depending on what you are going for it can be anything from chocolate, small message or a tiny gift.

- Put the lids on all of the boxes once they have filled up and your advent calendar is ready to go! Give it as a gift or hang it up as decor.

Santa Hat Christmas ornaments

Of all the fun Christmas craft projects you can do for your home I find the small handmade ornaments to be my favorite. The little goodies are so unique and completely yours, they don’t look like the standard round shiny ornaments you can find at the store. These are tiny Santa’s, comical snowmen, my pet dog, the favorite Christmas cookie, my own one of a kind snowflake, etc. They are a great activity for an individual or a family of ten. And even better, you can store them away and collect more and more each year, even pass some on to your children one day.

While handmade Christmas ornaments are very versatile in the shapes, sizes and materials used for this occasion I have decided to create a small clay Santa hat ornament, if you are curious to find out how just read on!

What you will need to make your own clay Santa Hat Ornament:

- Red Polymer Clay. You can get a block of it for two bucks at Joann’s, Michael’s or any other crafts store. You will need less than one fourth of the block.

- White Polymer Clay. Same applies as for red.

- A few toothpicks.

- A few sheets of printer paper. You can use other stuff to protect your work surface just make sure none of the color will transfer onto your clay.

- Some festive string, not too thick.- A knife or a crafts razor.

- Some sort of a stubby screw driver or a different object of a similar shape. You will need this to put the hat on while fluffing the white of it.

How to make your own clay Santa Hat Ornament:

- First set up your work surface, protect it with paper or whatever else you might have decided to use and get your supplies ready.

- Break off a piece of the red Polymer clay, the amount depends on your desired ornament size so be vary of that when deciding how much you will use. Start shaping it into a sloppy cone.

- Once you have the approximate cone shape start working the top end out to shape it like the Santa’s hat (photo 1).

- Every once in a while you might need to stop working on your ornament and let the clay set a bit. This depends on a ton of factors like humidity and temperature, but the point is you don’t want the clay to become too soft and flimsy or it will be very fragile and a pain in the butt to work with!

- Take a small piece of white Polymer clay and start working it into a ball, this will be the fluffy tip of the hat. Flatten the ball and wrap it around the red tip of the hat.

- Repeat a few times until you get a bulb like shape on the end, once you have the shape apply one more layer of white (photo 2).

- Again, be wary of the clay becoming too soft. If it is OK to work with take a bigger piece of white Polymer clay and roll it out into a snake like shape.

- Apply it in circle around the base of the hat (photo 3) press down slightly so that it sticks to red but don’t smush it.

- Now that you have the basic shape of the Santa hat going on grab that screw driver and the toothpick.

- Use the screw driver handle as a head and place the hat on top of it. Now, and do this carefully not to knock it off, scratch up the white around the base with a toothpick (photo 4).

- When you are done it should look something like this: (photo 5).

- Now repeat the process on the ball of white, make sure you are extra careful because the tip is thin and you don’t want it all breaking off, (photo 6).

- Once again let the ornament set a bit. You might find this annoying but trust me it will help you as far as flimsiness and stability of it go.

- Take a toothpick and poke a hole at the top of the ornament, the top being where the hat folds. You will make the hole by slowly pushing the toothpick through the clay while spinning it. Have your finger on the other side where it should come out (photo 7), once you feel it poke your finger gently take it out and repeat the same from the other side. What this does is it ensures that you have a nice clean hole (photo 8).

- The pre-baked product will look something like this: (photo 9). You can smooth it out if it looks rough like mines.