Silhouette Advent Calendar
I was so excited when I found out I could decorate a Silhouette Advent Calendar for a design team project! All of the Silhouette America design team’s advent calendars were posted on the Silhouette Blog. It was hard to narrow down what I wanted to do with it, but in the end 3D boxes won. (Surprise, surprise.)
Do you know what I love more than cute boxes? Cute clear boxes! I decided to revisit the acetate sheets I’ve used before–they are just binding presentation covers and cut really well with my CAMEO (speed 3, thickness 33, blade 3).
A box on the Silhouette online store that works really well for both plastic and paper and fits the advent calendar nicely is the 3d scalloped flap favor box by Lori Whitlock. These are especially nice for the clear boxes because they only take one strip of glue and the rest is all tucking. I resized it to 7.5″ wide for a perfect fit here, which means you can cut two boxes per letter-size page.
My kids were pretty excited to see the luscious chocolates sitting in these boxes. Oh, the anticipation! They’ll alternate five days of chocolates, then five days of activities hidden in the solid-colored boxes. My kids agreed that was a fun way to go…keep them guessing. For the activities, I printed out a strip with the day’s activity, rolled it up, and tossed it inside with some dry popcorn kernels to give the box a little weight.
The numbers are from a few different fonts (see a list at the end of the post), cut from Silhouette silver printable foil. I love this stuff! I chose silver to go with the wires and clasps in the frame. Nothing like a little shine for Christmas decorations! I cut out all the numbers/words from a single sheet, then cut it apart and weeded it like vinyl. It’s a little different because it’s so much stiffer than vinyl, but it still worked great. I used a little transfer tape to apply it to my boxes.
One other fun thing the family has to look forward to by seeing into the clear boxes: The very last box has a $5 bill inside for each member of the family. In my house that’s still a lot of money for the kids to look forward to! They’ve been checking my progress as I’ve made the countdown and my 5th grader was the first to notice the money.
I had a lot of fun making this advent calendar. These boxes will also fold flat for storage if I want to keep them for next year, but I’ll be using this advent calendar for other seasons throughout the year. (Have you checked it out on Pinterest?)
I hope you have a very merry holiday season!
Silhouette Shape: 3d scalloped flap favor box (resized to 7.5″ wide)
Fonts: Rockwell, LD Woodland, LHF Cosmic Cursive, LD Little Piggy, Richard Murray
An amazing calendar … great Inspiration
TFS CU hellerlittle
Wow! Wow! Wow!!!! Kelly, I love your Advent Calendar, girl! I can see why your kids was watching the progress of that calendar. You never cease to amaze! hugs, Patty
I love your little clear boxes…the chocolate wouldn't last long in my house if you could see it! That's funny that we almost used the same idea for our calendars…I settled on birdhouses after deciding that making 25 little Christmas village-type houses all decked out with decorations was probably a bit too time-consuming…haha.
Ha Ha! I had the same thought on that one, too. Gingerbread houses were also high on my list, but again, very time consuming. 🙂
For some reason my comment isn't wanting to publish…hopefully this time it works! How do you fold the clear sheets along the dotted lines without them snapping and breaking? Some of mine do that when I try to fold them….
I only had one box break a little along the fold lines; the rest bent perfectly along the perforations. I'm not sure what the difference is, but possibly some sheets are more brittle than others. The sheets I use are made by General Binding Corporation (GBC).
Oh my goodness!!! This is adorable and so fun!! I'm thinking this will be a great project (all year 2014) to make for my three families of grandkids for next Christmas season. TFS 🙂
It's actually quite fast to put together, especially when all the boxes are the same design. Your grand kids would sure love it!
I love your choice of boxes for your calendar! The silver foil turns them into something really extra special, and I love the way you alternate the colors and the clear. You're a tough act to follow!
Awww… Thanks, Barbara!
I didn't notice it earlier on the Silhouette blog, but I love the little money rolls in the last package. That would have my kids drooling all month long! Your calendar is gorgeous! The little clear bags rock my world!