 Hey everybody it's Sam here and I'm going to be showing you how to make this wonderful advent calendar so I know it's a little bit late in the month I would usually have done these probably the end of October beginning of November but this year's been a little bit different for me so things in terms of my Christmas projects they're a little bit behind but I needed to make this this one is actually going to my mum and dad and I know they're going to absolutely love it and by the time the video goes out they would have already been given it so I will just turn on there's a light on the back there we go so it all lights up and you've got this wonderful scene and then you have all your boxes now you will notice that 25 is missing because I am waiting for the stickers to arrive unfortunately I didn't realise that the sticker pad only went up to 24 so I've got another sticker pad coming and I'm going to take a two and a five and just make up that one at the bottom but all the drawers just pull out and you can fill it with lots of treats yes they are the same size so they fit a tonics teacake but you don't have to fill them all and I am going to jumble up the numbers as well so they're not just all in order like that but you can see the battery pack on there just the little one and I put that together pretty much how I done the shadow box that I showed recently and if you like the advance this is the one that I've got this is my one and I made this one last year and again if I just turn on the batteries on the back there you just see the lights these are quite big so trying to get it all in shot you can see them now just turn those ones back off for the minute and these ones all pull out and again they're the same size then they will fit a tonics teacake so this is using foam board I would do another one using grey board and that's what this one is using so you can take elements of this one and maybe do that design and so on just maybe mix it up do whatever you want but let's get straight into it okay so first of all you need to cut all of your grey board which I've already done I'll link this exact one that I've got in the description box I get mine from amazon so the base back piece is the whole height of that a3 grey board okay I haven't cut that at all but I have come in slightly and that's because when I line up those five boxes together this is the width it gives me with a tiny little bit of wiggle room for them to just move around so if you don't want to cut this and you want yours to have a little bit more room then just leave it to the width of this grey board okay use a t-square ruler will help you to be able to you know line everything up so this measures 11 and one eighth that's what I've brought mine into okay so 11 and one eighth by the height of this I mean a3 is usually let's just roughly this one out here 12 and then I think it's about 16 yes it's 16 and a half just over 16 and a half okay so it's a nice tall piece so I've got one piece there then I've got two of these pieces which are that same height so again I'm not taking anything off the height of these pieces and then the width of these is two and three eighths and these are going to be your side pieces here so it's so big I can't get it all in my screen like so and then I've got all of these now I have doubled them all up so I've got the width of foam board okay and it just gives a lot of strength to all of these pieces so you're going to want to cut two four six eight ten twelve fourteen pieces that are two and a quarter by that same 11 and one eighths okay now I cut all of my greyboard on this viscous trimmer it's a great trimmer but all I have now are blunt blades and the blunt blades are perfect for using to cut greyboards so don't ever throw them away I used to put a black marker on the blunt ones so I didn't get them mixed up but because this is solely used for when I ever use my greyboard that's you know and these are all blunt now so it doesn't matter but if you still use your trimmers and you have your nice blades but once they start to go don't throw them away just put a little black marker on them and they're great for cutting thicker boards so I always just kind of go along it like so a few times on the top and then I flip it over you know so then you'd be on the same cut do again the same on that side and they will slowly join and it will just cut away but like I said you do want fourteen pieces because you're going to stick two together and I've stuck this all together with my collow glue and I just put some pegs on it while it was setting but all of these now are solid and these are going to become my shelves so I've got one for the top and the very bottom of this piece so that's what we're going to need to put all this together top the bottom and then our sides and the back all of these are the shelves to go inside okay so go and get all of that ready what I would do is what I would say is do this all in stages so I'd get all the box done maybe do that in one afternoon put it to one side and then the next day do all the boxes and then you can do all the decoration we're actually going to wrap this with wrapping paper because I just thought it's easiest and it's what I had that is the height of this greyboard okay so first of all I'm going to stick these sides together now I'm going to be doing this as if it's a large mini album so if any of you have made my mini albums when we lay down our sides to make our hinges we're going to be doing the same but I'm going to be using copy paper now don't worry that the copy paper what I might do is I might just do it this way so you can see everything in so we'll work on one side down here for the moment now I'm going to use the copy paper but I'm not worried that it is not long enough because we're just going to double it up so I'm just going to fold this in half just roughly fold it in half there and we're going to work from the underside so let's just pop I'm going to have to do it this way actually because it's difficult for me to work the other way I'm going to use the nail glue and I'm just going to pop it just down here you know I'm not worried what this looks like we're going to be covering it all up with wrapping paper but I just want to get this it's quite a big hinge I'm just really being quite rough with this but I'm going to line it up with the very top there like so don't worry if it comes through it's all going to drive it and then I'm going to put some more glue on this piece like so and then I'm going to grab one of my side ones and I'm going to lay it down next to it but I'm going to give it a gap that's the width of the greyboard so if you were to bring that up can you see and it's going to be sticking next to it you're not going to bring this up on top it wants to go next to that piece there so I'm just going to see how that works I might bring that in a little bit further so when it comes up yeah it's going to sit perfectly next to that make sure you don't stick it on top of this piece because I've worked out the measurements for the shelves and the box if you stick this on top your shelves won't fit because now the shelves are the exact same width that 11 and 1 eighth so the shelf would go in there this would come up next to it you see nice how nice that joins okay so do make sure that goes next to it but you'll see there I've got that gap which is what we want for the moment and then I'm going to grab we just flip this over what you can do now is just rip this piece and I'm just going to stick that one over there so because you are also using copy paper on this bit be careful with that drawing because obviously it is going to be kind of weak in a sense but really all I want this to do is kind of hold it in shape the wrapping paper is going to give it the strength but now you see I've got the start of the box coming together so you want to repeat that now on this side okay so that's now done so you can see when I bring up the sides we've got really nice corners there on our box okay next we want to do the same with the top and the bottom they're all the same size I don't know if you get them up so mixed up now with these ones they are going to go on top okay because this is the full height if you were to put them there and bring up this side can you see it doesn't meet whereas if you bring it up here on top and then it will join perfectly with the top of it because of the measurement that I've given you so with this one here you still want to do the hinge the same way but you are going to just basically bring it up into that shape so I'm going to grab this one here which is pretty much the whole width I'm not too worried that it goes over because I can just cut this again as you can see I'm being quite relaxed with it all so I don't want you to you know I want this to be enjoyable I know a lot of people got really frustrated with the phone board so I'm not going to be using it anymore to be fair it is quite a difficult material to use so we'll stick with grayboard okay so that's that one stuck down now because this is so thick what I'm going to do is actually put my glue on this edge and then I'm also going to put it all on here again I can trim off the excess in a minute but I'm going to now sit that on top of the grayboard making sure it is completely flush with the top because this is going to be you know the the finish of your box you want to make sure it's straight and then to help you now kind of get it in place bring up that that paper just so it comes around and just kind of wiggle it around until you've kind of pulled it taut I'm just bringing in my bone folder there because that can keep the top nice and straight but now I can start to see that's all starting to stick so it's now holding itself now what you could do because actually I've got this overhang is I'm going to bring this one up and I can actually just wrap that bit of paper around there so that I give me a nice finish on the top and also kind of cover that corner there as well so if you do want to wrap that around but like I said we are going to be covering it all with wrapping paper anyway wouldn't bring that one up yet until you've stuck this one down though okay so I'm going to grab another strip of the copy paper okay so that's the side pieces in place so then I'm going to bring up this side here and you can start kind of moving it a bit but I'm going to add glue so this is the first time I'm making this so I am kind of going along with it but now I'm going to run my glue along the side yeah I'm in shot there along the sides here so the sides of those pieces that are nice and thick and then bring up this one and it will line up perfectly just might have to hold it out in place for a minute just kind of hold that there so you've got those right angles just bringing around that copy paper just to the corner there because that will help keep that all in place and again a bit of glue on the side there just so I can wrap and because it's copy paper it's really easy to fold and then the bit on the bottom you can just fold up like you were wrapping a gift you can see I've got these bits now sticking down so like I said just wrap it like you were wrapping a presence I'm just putting a little bit of glue there just fold that up because it's all going to get hidden away but it does give you some well I guess it kind of makes the corners a bit neater in terms of having that white there rather than the greyboard so don't worry about the change of colour there that will all eventually disappear not that you're going to see it and again just trying to keep everything in sharp a little bit of glue there and just bring that one up okay so I'm going to do exactly the same now on this side in fact if you light down like this then it will just add pressure to what you've just done and help that dry in place okay so that's the trail done now it's nice and strong don't worry about this just trim it off if you want to but we'll we'll saw that out in a minute next you want to do your boxes because I think it's good to have the boxes in place so you can use them as a guide to make sure that you're getting shelves evenly spaced so you're going to want 25 now I know with my other advent some people change the configuration inside so they had like a larger box for the number 25 I don't bother usually I actually most calendars I think when we were younger we never even opened one on the actual 25th because that was Christmas day but I have done 25 because it's a nice even number because I'm working in rows of five so um or there is an odd number you don't want to mean anyway so you want 25 pieces of nine by three and three quarters and I've done the sizes of these so that they will fit a tonics teacake and that I think it is not only just because it's obviously something I really like and it's a great thing to put as a gift in things like this but it's also a good size anyway it's just over two inches square and that's a nice size to be able to fill it with nice treats and little gifts as well so along that nine inch side you want to score at two and one eighth four and a quarter six and three eighths and eight and a half and then with now that half inch tab along the top along that three and three quarter side you want to score at one and five eighths now this top half that one and five eighth section here that's actually the height that's the I'll show you because I've made them all here so this is that one and five eighths so there's that score line this then becomes the base okay so it's got four layers so it's nice and strong if you're putting anything with a little bit of weight but if you don't want to make them this way then you can make the same size boxes in a slightly different way using the other advent tutorial which I'll link up here but with this one you can get two out of sheet of A4 and you'll need 25 and then you want to fold and burnish all of the score lines okay now when I done these I found it very quick if you do cut all the pieces first all 25 then score them all together then cut them all and then assemble them all if you do one box from start to finish one by one it will take you ages so do recommend doing it in bulk okay so with that half inch tab on the right hand side you want to cut up all of these two by one eighth of an inch squared sections so you're just cutting up to that first score line do make sure that that half inch tab is on your right hand side because that way you know you're cutting the right part so it's quite easy to get these kind of upside down okay now at the end here you'll have this little piece just cut on an angle to remove it and then cut up there and then you've made that into a little tab now the second one in from the left will end up being the front of the box and this is the one that all of these will fold in your tab will then be at the back inside like so and this one will then conceal everything and you'll have that nice continued kind of view of cardstock rather than a join so all of them if you pop the second one up on the left away from you all of these you're going to cut wedges off and it will just give you a nice finish on the box when it's all put together okay so again do that on all 25s you've got a nice pile of all of these pieces all cut and then all you want to do is pop some glue on your tab like so and fold that over and then that half over and again I done all of them one at a time so then I put that to one side done the next one and then I had a pile of these all together and it just made it lots you know so much quicker so that's the join so that's now going to be away from me on the back left side which means that square piece that you've not cut into a bit the front fold that away from you this one at the back I like to fold down first to be honest it doesn't matter which order you stick these ones down but I always do the back one then one of the sides then another side and I'm using the quick grab glue for this just to speed up the process and then finish it with that one and you'll see you get a nice cover on the base there and then just go inside and stick that all down okay so now you'll have 25 of those and you will see when you start to lay them in here all with the nice finish facing you you will get five very comfortably along the bottom and there's a little bit of wiggle room okay just a little bit then you will now have all of these that you would have prepared you'll see that will sit in just perfectly and you want to bring it down not so it's squashed but just so that you know it's got a bit of movement we're going to be covering the front of these boxes so don't worry they're going to be easy to pull out and then what I would recommend doing is going through all of your boxes I'm sticking each row down and just checking that all of your greyboard and everything fits within this space because there's nothing worse than you going to stick this all down and finding out that something doesn't work along the way okay so I'm just going to do that just so you can see how this should look okay and then that last one will go in once they're kind of in place can you see how nice this looks and with all of this section now is for you to do your decoration and create your scene so I'm going to be putting all those Christmas trees in there now if you don't want that you may just want this section here then bring down your sides cut the side pieces this back piece don't need to keep the top and the bottom the same size but just reduce this down to the height of this whatever it ends up being or you might want to only have half of that you know you might want to just like I said have none of it and just do your scene on the roof or on the top of it you know but I do want to make it still look like a nice kind of ornament as well as being an advent but that's what we're going to be achieving so next we need to get all of these shelves in place now it's up to you you could put the shelves in before covering it with anything I'm actually going to now wrap all of this with the candy cane wrapping paper which is this one here can't remember I got this one from I brought it last Christmas I'm thinking it may well have been waitrose because I remember going in there because they had a lot of sail pieces and I'm pretty sure I picked this up on my way back from my nans so that's where I'm thinking it's from but I'm sure you can pick up something similar and you can use anything you want for this but I'm thinking I'm going to wrap it all so I have this all in the back the candy cane color now you're not really going to see a lot of the back of it obviously the boxes are in there and they're all going to be hidden but I've got enough of that wrapping paper so I'm going to if you're just wanting to keep this plain then I would do so I'm probably going to cover the top half with one of my own papers because I want to create a nice little winter scene so I will end up going over the candy cane paper there but just kind of think about those things and you know what you want to use and the order you want to do this because I think it's going to be easy to cover all of that back rather than cover each little section of shelf once you've added them in so hopefully that makes sense it should do when I start doing all of this and I'll talk about it again but I'm just very roughly just trimming that away there like I said I'm not worried how any of this looks okay so what I think I'm going to do first of all is inside this one here I have rid paper so I can actually line this up because I want to be able to get it in there so I'm going to bring it right up to the top of the wrapping paper I still don't have to worry about cutting that line and I'm not giving you any measurements for this because there's no need to I'm just you know you can just see how I'm doing this you know how to wrap yours I'm just going to bring that around and then I'm just going to mark along the bottom here so I can see where I need to trim this off I'm just going to do a line all along the bottom there okay so I've done that now on the back of this I'm actually standing up now for this I'm going to add my glue all over here I'm going to cover the back of this and I've cut it so that it's just the right height it comes right up to the top just there so flip it over and just push down there and I'm going to bring this around again I'm not too worried that it's tearing a little bit on the corners because you can cover all of that but just kind of bring it around again because you're using paper it's really easy to kind of fold into all of your corners and stuff so you can be quite rough with it I'm not being careful at all like so and I'm going to add my glue so let's just take that back off and again I need to fill my bottle up I'm just going to go in here this is all each time adding loads of strength to this project quite heavy with it because it spreads out then when you put that over if you do each side so now I'm going to pull that nice and tall if you go on the side I know you can't really see this but I'm pulling this bit towards me and pushing the box away so that that way I get a really nice corner here that's what I want so don't rush any of this spend some time and really push down making sure that glue is spread out and then I've just put all my glue inside there and I'm going to really fat what I might even do oh it's okay I've got glue there but just run a bit of glue along the top of that gray board piece so obviously there is a little bit of a thickness to it so it will stick and just wrap that around so don't worry if it tears a little bit there on the corner because it's kind of covering it still once you wrap that one around with that glue hardening and stuff it's you know you're not going to notice it so now I'm just going to bring it up on its side just use my bone folder and push that glue into that corner make sure you know obviously I don't know what kind of paper you're using because some papers or wrapping papers can be quite thin this is quite a thick wrapping paper and because it's got that glitter running through it so I can be quite heavy-handed but just be careful whatever it is that you might be using and just push it in the corner there so you get a real nice finish okay so now you can see how the side's coming on there so I'm just going to repeat that on the other side okay so that is now all covered there so now I'm going to do the same with the top and the bottom just cover you know just like I have the sides I'm not going to do all of this in here actually I've had to change your mind because I'm going to apply the attach the shelves afterwards and you'll see how I do that in a minute and then I'm just going to cut separate sections to fill behind them and I'm going to have a different background for my little scene that's going to be up here anyway so that will all make sense but get the top and the bottom covered in the same way that you've just done your side pieces there okay so I have covered the top on the bottom everything now has been well I stopped and had some lunch and this is you know again strengthened really well now I have also gone ahead and covered all of these shelves and all I've done just with the same paper is I've started to cover one side with this piece overhanging I've probably got about an inch three quarters of an inch overhang there and I've just wrapped it around wrapped it around the next side and again with a little bit of an overhang you're going to use that to help attach it to the back so what you want to do first of all so you know you're going to get them the right distance is well I've worked out you want them to be about one one and three quarters of an inch high so if I just pop and just go in the corner if you've got any build up of paper just make sure it's really kind of you know squashed in the corner there so your boxes get right in the corner I'm just going to lay down just going to do I'm just going to do four because I want to be able to pull them out so bring this one in don't worry about this bit for the minute you'll see it fit in there just perfect you want it to be snug but once I've got the hot glue on that bit I can just push that together but you want to bring it down now if you have it you could have it so it is touching if you're confident that all your boxes are the same height then you know bring it down and it will be because you're going to put handles on these you you're going to be able to pull them in and out but you're looking there at one and five eights but if you'd like a little bit of wiggle room then do one and three quarters and what I would suggest you do so your height can be whatever you want you might not want to do a display area you might want to use this as a piece of stationary you know you once you see it all you could use these as little shelves and stuff next what I'm going to do is I'm going to pop the callow glue just on these little wings okay now if you want to do it on the inside you can but I'm going to put hot glue there okay so scrap the hot glue I had to go and it's going to be too difficult and I want this to kind of be more of a DIY easier version so I'm going to use my callow and I'm just going to have to hold it in place so it doesn't take too long but I'm going to run it all along the sides of the greyboard first and then on those tabs and this will be just as strong it just takes like I said that a little bit longer you can use your quick grab blues as well if you want but I am just going to persevere so it's a bit messy there but you're not going to see any of that but now I'm going to slide this in and then what you can do is grab your box and just check that that's going to fit put one at each end see I can bring this side down a little bit but you don't want it so tight that they're really really stuck but I want them to be able to move you know I think that's going to be okay and then you can just also check yeah it's one and three quarters bang on so I'd go with the one and three quarters and then I can just spread that bit out and then get it bang on and then just hold that push down with your fingers on the top there and push down on the sides and it shouldn't take too long just a few minutes okay so that one is now in place next I'm going to do the same pop a box there grab the next one put your glue all over put it in place and do that until you've got all of your shells in so there you go they are all in and I am so pleased with them they come out really nicely you can see there everyone just you know as you put in each shelf just make sure you pull out you know you put the boxes in and you can check that you can pull them out because the last thing you want is them not not working but they all fit really really nicely and it stands up and I'm very very pleased with it so so far so good but all you want to do now is measure the inside back bit here you can see actually my two pieces almost meet so you could get your wrapping paper kind of your tabs could be long enough that they cover the section there but I'm just going to cut strips now that are the the width of this and the height of that so one two three four five do five of those I'll probably do that last I'm not too worried about doing that yet and I'm going to get something to cover the back of this and I'm going to start decorating and building my scene so I'm going to cut a bit of paper whatever I choose will be just over 11 just a smidge over 11 by I say six and five eight that's if you've done your shelves just like I have in that same distance so just check the inside measurement with your ruler from the top here to there and so on and then fill that and decorate it how you want I'm going to put a hole in through the top corner there to feed my rice lights through and I'll show you when I have my numbers and the little handles and everything but now I'm just going to enjoy doing all the decoration because that's the fun part for me okay so I have done quite a bit but I'm going to talk you through everything so I've decorated the inside I'm probably going to add something here and a few presents here but I'll stick them down whether it be in the tutorial or you'll see it in the photos but I've added all the lights I went over all the wire with some white Nuvo drops which is exactly what I did when I made the little light box card shadow box card not too long ago and then I just stuck the faux snow everywhere I love this scene this is from a paper bag that I had from a Christmas present that was given to me last year I just cut it out and I think it just really looks lovely there and then I've started to decorate the boxes now I had a bit of a moment because on these particular stickers that I've used so it's the Christmas chunky stickers and these are for the advent but they got to 24 and I've done 25 boxes so I panicked and I thought okay so I've just ordered another set and I'm going to take the five and the two and then stick it down that way so they were only very cheap I got these from I think I believe I got these at the craft show and I paid a pound for them so they're handy to have and they're great for birthdays you know if you want their number or something but I'm going to show you just how I decorated this last one here so the mats and layers so the glitter card here it's actually a double no it's actually a adhesive self adhesive glitter but I don't trust it for long term so I've added some glue onto it as well but it is one and seven eighths of an inch by one and three eighths of an inch and then the white piece is one and five eighths of an inch by one and one eighth of an inch so I've stuck that down and then I've just folded in half a little bit of ribbon and had it so it sticks out the top so just stuck it down there and then I've popped some foam adhesive on the back of this piece I'm popping some glue on there again because I want this to obviously last a very long time and then I'm just going to stick that over there so the dimension allows that ribbon to sit nicely behind it and then again these are sticky but I'm just going to use some glue on the back there as well and just stick those down and you've got all those stars there to use on something as well but the chunky ones I'll show you those because those are really nice I actually used them for I think it was a new year card so I've taken 2019 from them here so yeah I've done 2019 so I've had them for a while but you've also got those ones and again they're by the same brand simply creative so I'll share the links to these ones they were going to be too big for these boxes but if you've got other ideas they're beautiful big sticky numbers so now that's done I can just pop that in the bottom and then that one's ready for me to stick my sticker it's so frustrating but you can see now they work it just allows you I mean it's better when it's obviously standing upright but you can now just pull those out really easily with the treats inside so I've got this lovely big bow and that's the same ribbon from the advent I made last year and that's going to go in the middle there just kind of makes it look like a present I love it but I'm going to pop some glue on the back of this I'm gonna have to hold this up so this is it finished now I actually remembered I salvaged these from my Christmas village that I made last year it didn't travel well so rather than just throwing it all I took it apart and kept a lot of bits but I've got the little pile of logs there with the snow on which was really cute so I've just stuck them all in along with the little tote store there as well but I am now going to say it's finished apart from the 25 to go there but I know my mum and dad are going to absolutely love this I can't wait to now fill it with the treats that they're going to enjoy each day through December so thank you for watching I'll link as much as I can as always in the description box below please share anything you make following my tutorials over on our fantastic Facebook group mixed up crafters I'll also link that below and I'll be back very soon with another fun festive tutorial thanks for watching bye