Countdown to Christmas 9: Advent Drawers with Lisa

Today my lovely friend Lisa has joined us for a little creative project - an alternative advent calendar. This is a lovely idea and one I've no doubt I'll use in the future! So I'm just gonna hand on over to Lisa and let her introduce herself!

Hi! I'm a part time Science teacher and Mum of nearly two (Esther is coming up 2 and a half and my baby boy is due soon after the new year!) I know Claire from Church and have enjoyed craft and sewing evenings with her!

So here's the project...

Christmas Craft: Advent Drawers

Time to make: 1.5 hours (I made it during my daughter's lunchtime nap!) 
You need:

25 mini matchboxes

Glue

A cereal box

Paint or glue/paper for decoupage

Sweets/goodies/stickers for filling the drawers

Step 1:

Stick your 25 matchboxes in 5 rows and 5 columns. I used a fairly strong liquid glue - a bit like Uhu.

Step 2:  Cut out cardboard sections for the top, bottom and sides from your cereal box. Then paint or decoupage them...

Step 3:
Pull out the drawers and paint/decoupage/decorate them. I used a mixture of Christmas paper and colourful paper.

Step 4:
Stick on beads as drawer handles. Ideally, I wanted to use brass fasteners (split pins) but I couldn't get hold of any in time, so I used beads and double sided sticky tape instead.

Step 5:
Number the drawers randomly from 1-25 and fill each drawer with a goodie or two plus a piece of the Christmas story! I put a sticker and sweet in each one, plus a wooden christmas character that I picked up from my local craft shop, that my daughter can colour in each day. 

Step 6: 
Finished!

Reflections:
The drawers are quite small and delicate (plus there's not much room for goodies). Larger matchboxes would have been more suitable, though more expensive to buy. The door handles I used were beads and they come off quite easily. Ideally I wanted to use brass fasteners, but couldn't get hold of any in time.

Thanks so much Lisa - I think I better get collecting large matchboxes for advent next year! We do go through candles by the tonne in this house, so hopefully 12 months might give me a good head start! What a cute idea!

Back tomorrow with some more Creative Christmas ideas! Only 12 days to go!