family project: advent calendar

Here is the inspiration for the family crafting project: a cute Advent/Christmas calendar from Pottery Barn. With a grand price tag of $299.00. Yes, it is cute, but the price tag is not. So when I was little metal buckets in local Target’s dollar bins, I thought that we would try to do one ourselves; but with some slight modifications.

So we got the buckets – white with white satin ribbons. First I though I would paint them, which is what a friend of mine will be doing, but then again she is much handier than I am and more patient also. Instead of painting the numbers I opted for another shortcut – numbered stickers. After testing two buckets, I have now decided that main colours will be red and white, and red is manifested in the ribbons in every other bucket and in the stickers (ribbons and stickers are easy enough for kids to do). So it’s going to be every other bucket type of pattern with the ribbons and cinnamon sticks.

I am still debating whether to use branches or hand the buckets on thread, so we will experiment once we get there, hopefully before the start of December! Tomorrow I shall buy some tissue and little treasures to put into the buckets for kids…

Pottery Barn $299.00 calendar

The Pottery Barn inspiration

buckets, buckets...
Ready, set, go for test bucket number one

testing the idea

The pattern will have two different “designs”

making our advent calendar

Grand total price – around $30 plus the little daily surprises in the buckets

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