Materials
- Foam Core
- ½ in. Balsa wood
- ¼ Balsa wood
- Corrugated cardboard
- Craft Paper (for concrete)
- Pencil
- Hot Glue
- X-acto Knife
- Spray Paint
- Craft Paint
- Krylon Glitter Blast (Spray Glitter)
- Glitter/Mod podge
- Foam Sealant (Daptex Plus worked well for us)
Optional Decoration Materials
- Mini Christmas Trees
- Mini Garlands
- Miniature Bows
- Mini Ornament Decorations/Beads
- Mini Christmas Lights
- Glitter Pipe Cleaners
- Popsicle Sticks/Mini Picket Fence
- Straws
- Assortment of Craft Wood Shapes
Instructions:
*The fun is creating your own perfect houses for your advent calendar, but here are the steps that we took for ours!
1. Create two rectangular shapes with a pointed triangular top to the height that you desire. (This is for the front and the back.)
2. Create two more rectangles for the sides of your house. It works best if the height of this reaches to the base of the triangular portion of the last two.
3. Draw with the pencil where you would like your windows and doors to go onto the front piece of the house.
4. Use the x-acto blade to cut three sides of these shapes all the way through.
5. Turn this front foam core piece over and lightly score the last side of your shape. (Do not cut all the way through!) This creates the hinge of your door/window.
6. Using scrap pieces of foam core, glue together a 5 sided box shape to glue onto the back of your window/doors. This gives the ornament a place to sit inside of the advent calendar. Repeat this for every door and window.
7. Assemble all four sides of your house using hot glue.
8. Spray paint the house to your desired color. You can sprinkle on glitter while it’s drying for extra Christmas fun!
9. Spray paint balsa wood to desired color and cut to the length of your house. This will be the trim around the edge. Cut more pieces to fit different sides of the trim.
10. Cut window frames out of the balsa wood, but be careful not to overlap too much on the window so that you can’t open it.
11. Take two pieces of the corrugated cardboard and paint them to your desired color.
12. Flip these over upside down and lay tape down across the seam.
13. Flip the corrugated cardboard back over and lay it on the roof of your house. Hot glue into place.
14. Cut out a piece of foam core that is larger than the base of your house. This will be where it “sits.”
15. We cut a piece of craft paper to create a sidewalk in front of the house.
16. Use Foam Sealant in a can to create a realistic snow look around the house
17. Sprinkle your homes with glitter for more Christmas fun
Decoration Ideas:
-Create a chimney out of extra foam core.
-Decorate mini Christmas Trees with beads or tiny ornaments and place around the front of the house.
-Use pipe cleaner, mini garland, and mini wreaths to add Christmas decorations to your home.
-Craft stores sell really adorable mini figurines like bikes and wagons to add to your house!
-Create a picket fence out of cut up popsicles sticks painted white.