Here is my advent calendar. I made it from 3 sheets of a4 mount board, 3 sheets of 12x 12, brads, paperclips, number stickers, ribbons and rub ons. I saw this originally in a magazine as a 12 days of christmas screen but i adapted it into a 3 screened version.
here is how i did it.
1. Lay the 3 sheets of mountboard down flat and draw a border around each one. I went for 1.5 cm on the sides and top and 3 cm on the bottom. This wall form the guide for the top, side and bottom edges of the doors.
2. Now is the time to draw the doors. sketch out the doors in pencil. I gave the first and third pannel 8 doors and the second panel 9 doors.
3. The doors should be around 5 x 7cm each with a larger one filling the space, but you can chop and change at this point. I left around 1.5 cm gap between each door to allow for the hinges.
4. Now is the time to cut all the doors out. I found using a craft knife, mat and metal ruler worked best for me.
5. Once all doors are cut out, decorate the fronts. I used plain cardstock on the fronts. Use a wet glue to cover the front of the frames. Add the cardstock. Turn over and cut out the windows from the cardstock.
6. Sand down the edges of the windows to give a distressed look. i also inked with brown ink as well. If i was going to do this again, i might miss this stage out and just paint the screens in my chosen colours.
7. set aside and leave to dry.
8. Now to tackle the doors. Sand down the edges of each door by a few millimeters. This allows the doors to go back into the windows loosely.
9. Cover the doors with patterned paper and again sand and ink the edges. I had about 8 different designs which i tried to mix up per screen.
10. For the openings per door i made mountboard circles. i again covered in the pattered paper and inked.
11. To some of the circles i super glued large brass paper clips and to some of them i attached coordinated ribbons.
12. To attache the doors to the windows i made paper hinges. I cut 2 cm strips of brass coloured card. I then scored each one down the middle with a embossing tool. I cut them into 2.5 cm pieces.
13. Using my eyelet setter, i punched 4 holes into each piece.
14. I used a dab of herma glue on each hinge to attache temperarily onto the door and frame so i could mark my position for the pilet holes for the brads.
15. I again used my eyelet maker and the smallest diameter to make my holes on the door and frame.
16. Now is the time to put it all together. Use small brads to attache the hinges. I went for brass coloured ones.
17. I used the same process to make 6 larger hinges to attache the 3 screens together using larger brass brads.
18. The calendar screen is almost complete now. Attach the mountboard circles randomly around the 3 screens and attach numbers also in a random manner.
19. Add rub ons and ribbons along the bottom edge to decorate.
20. I have decided i would like photographs of the boys behind each door in my advent calendar. This year i want to have the boys in silly hats and poses holding up numbers. I will herma these pictures in place behind each window.
21. As i want to be able to change the pictures in future years to make this a memory keepsake i think the backing covers of each screen will be on same kind of velcro so it can be opened and shut without damaging the back.
This was relatively easy to make but very time consuming punching all the holes.
I hope you like it. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think.
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