Advent Crate

Thanks to Crates and Pallet for sponsoring today’s post; all opinions are honestly my own.

Does your family have special ways to count down the days until Christmas? Here in the Artsy House, we love celebrating the Advent season {December 1-24} and spending extra-special time together getting ready for our favorite holiday! Even before Little Crafter was born, hubby and I would spend time coming up with a fun activity to do each day. Some of our activities are simple, like driving around to look at Christmas lights, wrapping gifts, or even just kissing under the mistletoe. Others are more involved, like baking cookies, making a gingerbread house, and creating a gumdrop wreath.

This year, I thought it would be fun to have a little gift for LC to unwrap each day to introduce the daily activity…for example, a book we can read together, a kit for the gingerbread house, or a new cookie cutter and a jar of sprinkles for cookie baking day. I wanted to make sure that the gifts were set apart, though, and not confused with any of the other gifts I might wrap and place under the tree. I thought a great way to do that would be to create a special Advent Crate just for those 24 little items. Here’s how I made it, and you can too!

Materials:
Crates and Pallet Large Wood Crate
Gold and Silver Paint Markers
White Chalky Finish Paint
Paintbrush

Step 1: Paint your crate.
I gave the entire crate two coats of white chalky finish paint, letting it dry completely in between. For once, I decided not to do any distressing because I liked the clean look of the solid white paint and thought it would look better with the metallic accents. Make sure the crate is totally dry before moving on to the lettering step.

Step 2: Add your message!
As many of you know, I’ve been learning and practicing the art of hand lettering lately {ok, I admit, I’m obsessed…}.
So, I free-handed my design using a silver Elmer’s Painters marker and then accented it with two gold stars. It’s really much easier than it looks; check out my Basic Hand Lettering tutorial to learn how! Or, you can always use stencils, vinyl, or stickers to get a similar effect instead.

That’s all there is to creating the crate itself! If you’d like to seal your design with a coat of wax, you certainly can. Since I’m planning on using ours indoors and it shouldn’t get much abuse, I didn’t think it was necessary. All that’s left to do is fill it with your Advent Activity gifts! Since I’m on a total metallics kick this season, I went for silver wrapping paper. I also made my crate look extra festive by adding some live greenery {artificial works too!} and colorful ornaments.

What do you think? Before you go, Crates and Pallet wants you to have a chance to make your own project, so they’re giving away a $50 gift card to Home Depot, where you can find their products like the Large Crate I used. To enter, just use the Rafflecopter widget below; good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

P.S. My crate happens to be in a special contest over at RYOBI Nation, so if you’re so inclined to vote for it, hop on over and click the “vote now” button!