Bastelesel

 This is one of the calendars that needs a little bit more time but good planning and maybe a little help will allow you to finish it until December 1st. You’ll need 24 papercups to hide the candies, some Christmas papers and pink, red and white cardstock. The templates for coat, hat, face and gloves are to be downloaded here. I’ve just started and marked the No. 1 on a small sack which is glued between the gloves. A star or a Christmas ball looks nice too. Border of the hat, point and gloves are decorated with some wadding. I’ll place the 24 gnomes together with some origami Christmas trees on a tray or on a windowsill in the living room. When the candy’s taken away our little fellow will walk to the kid’s room. Thus they will see in one room how many days are still left until Holiday and in their room how many days have already passed by.

For all who don’t have time: Stars with numbers in red and blue to download for free. The complete body and hat of the gnome is available as a free template at raumdinge.blogspot.ch, find link for a printable pdf beneath Valentina’s pictures.

Simple, quite natural and very easy to reproduce. The necessary test glasses are available at florists or crafting stores. Saw stars of about 5″ and drill a hole in the size of your test glass diameter a bit above the center of your star. Then remove the edges and color the star as you like. I took white color diluted with some drops of water and applied it with a sponge. The edges are shaded either in red or brown. I did it with the sponge too. Then sand the edges again to obtain the shabby look. Fill test glass with water and put through the hole of the star. Place star on the table so that two tips keep it grounded. Arrange some flowers in the glass and here you are with a lovely decoration.
If you belong to the generous people you can use these stars as table cards and give them away for Holiday.

This stylized Christmas Tree is a last year’s gift from a good friend. At that time it was too late for using it as a calendar but this year my little tree will work as such. It is made of different branches 1/2 – 3/4″ thick which are nailed to a triangle already resembling a Christmas Tree. The easiest way is doing it with an air nail gun but you can as well glue the branches or fix them with thin hemp rope. It looks really nice and highlights the 3-D effect if you nail small branches on both sides of the triangle.
Like for my first calendar proposal I’ll take bags, boxes or simply wrapped gifts. In between simply hang some Chistmas accessories and some fir-tree green just before giving it away.  Thus in the beginning the branches will be hidden under all the gifts. These gone on Christmas Eve you can add some Christmas balls and fresh fir-tree green to create a newly decorated tree.