DIY advent calendar with tins & handmade ornaments

1. For instructions on how to make the shelves for the seamless tins, click here.

2. Cut a two-inch dowel in ¼-inch slices with a miter saw. You’ll need 25 of them, but cut a few extra in case you make any cutting, sanding, or painting mistakes.

Note: I used a dowel I had on hand, which was about 2¼ inches in diameter. My printed designs are 2 inches wide. My ornaments, therefore, have a border around the outside. Yours will not have a border because the designs are the same diameter as your dowel. If you want a border, you will need to shrink down your designs before printing them.

3. Sand the dowel slices by adhering duct tape face up on your work bench. Use 220-grit sanding discs in your palm sander, and keep your sander as level as possible. Check frequently to see if your sanding is uneven. You want your disc to remain relatively the same width all the way around. Wipe off the dust before flipping the disc to the other side and adhering it to the duct tape. Adhere new duct tape when it loses its stickiness. Skip to step 7 if you want to leave them unpainted.

4. Paint a coat of primer on the outside edges of each wooden disc. Hold the disc between your thumb and forefinger. It’s OK if you don’t paint the middle. It will be covered with decoupage anyway. Let dry. Flip over and paint the back (including the center).

5. Sand lightly with a fine-grit sanding block to smooth out the rough spots that the primer may have created. Repeat step 3 to apply the second coat to all sides. Let dry.

6. Paint 2-3 coats of craft paint on all sides. Again, the middle of one side can be left unpainted because it will be covered up anyway. The picture is of the first coat, which shows a lot of streaks. Let dry. I painted them silver to coordinate with the silver seamless tins, but you can paint them any color you want.

7. I drew each ornament by hand, scanned the drawings, and edited them on my computer. But you don’t have to do that. You can buy and download these designs from Etsy (coming next year). They’ll be available in other colors too. (I know. I’ve always given away my designs for free, but these took me a long time to make, and I’ve had problems with other sites linking directly to my downloads — so people don’t even visit my site to get my free stuff!) After you download the designs, print them on cardstock with a laser printer. You can’t decoupage ink-jet prints. The ink bleeds.

8. Cut out each ornament with scissors. If you happen to have a 2-inch round punch, that will save you time, but I didn’t have one. The best way to cut the numbered tin wraps is with a craft knife, straight edge, and self-healing mat. Cut off the white ends with one cut before cutting each wrap.

9. To attach a numbered wrap to each tin, stick a small piece of permanent double-sided tape to the middle and both ends of the back of each strip. Wrap the strip around the can. The two ends will overlap in the back. Press down firmly on the spots where the tape is.

10. Lay a round ornament design face down on a paper towel. Apply glue to the entire back side of each printed ornament design. Adhere it to a painted wooden disc with the eye hook at the top. Repeat for all 25 ornaments. Let dry.

11. Paint a generous top coat of glue over the entire front of the ornament. Repeat for all 25 ornaments. Let dry.

12. Lightly clamp each ornament in a bench vise. Protect your paint job from teeth marks by lining the vise jaws with pieces of paper. Using a rotary tool and a 1/32-inch drill bit, pre-drill a hole for each eye hook.

13. Twist each eye hook in by hand so that the hole through the loop ends up front-to-back, not side-to-side.

14. Fill each tin with candy and one of the ornaments. I put the nativity ornament in the last tin, symbolizing the birth of Christ.

15. Open a tin and hang one ornament on your string-art Christmas tree (and eat the candy!) every day in December until Christmas day. Merry Christmas, everyone!