Let’s countdown Christmas in style and Diy a darling gingerbread advent calendar! Each little drawer opens to reveal a treat or Christmas activity idea!
Ready or not, Christmas is just around the corner. And what better way to count down the days with the cutest advent calendar! Hobby Lobby had this fun wood house with 25 drawers that turns AND LIGHTS UP!
I’m in a few Hobby Lobby decor Facebook pages and I have seen these turning advent calendars showing up all the time! There are so many cute ideas out there!
Supplies to create a Gingerbread Advent Calendar
I grabbed all the supplies to make this darling calendar from Hobby Lobby because I love one-stop shopping but you can find great items you use at the dollar tree and amazon!
- Advent Calendar from Hobby Lobby (out of stock online but your store might has some in stock! SKU is 5982814 )
- Brown spray Paint (I used brown boots by Krylon but it was a tad to dark)
- Glitter Spray paint
- Puffy paint in matte white
- Sharpie paint pen in white
- Decorart Snow-Tex
- Numbered stickers in white
- Gingerbread stickers and ornaments (anything I could find that was small)
- Peppermint and candy canes (stickers, beads, and ornaments)
- Mod podge
- scissors
- White hot glue gun sticks
- Hot glue gun
The mini Christmas tree section at Hobby Lobby is a treasure trove of stuff for this size of advent calendar! They had a nice variety! I also wandered to where the Christmas craft supplies are and just grabbed anything I thought I would use!
How to make a Gingerbread advent calendar
Let me walk you through step by step how I put my gingerbread calendar together! But like I just mentioned, there are so many variations and items you can add to make this project truly your own! So put your own creative spin on it!
Step 1: Painting the calender
There are lots of little areas to paint with this calendar, so I knew that spray paint would be the fastest way to get it all covered! BUT the advent calendar comes with trees attached. I did not want my trees brown. I took some pliers and gently pulled out each tree!
Most came out pretty easy. I then tucked away any wires the best I could and then started spray painting to cover up the houses.
This advent calendar has drawers that pull out. So I ended up spray painting everything like this, then took out each drawer and spray painted the drawers.
After it dried, I took the glitter spray paint from Krylon and gave it a light dusting to look like nice sugar gingerbread houses.
This advent comes with lights running through it. The lights are on the inside of each house. The Spray paint didn’t really affect the lights at all. BUT I would add another string up the middle at this step to get a really good glow.
Step 2 Gingerbread house details
I have seen so many ways on how to decorate these and I wanted to try them all and see what one works the best! So let’s break it down!
1: Puffy Paint.
I think the puffy paint looks the most like icing/frosting. It dries puffy and I love the look of the 3-d. But, trying to draw on any detail with the nozzle was pretty hard. AND, I kept accidently touching parts that weren’t dry and smudging them as I worked on other parts of the gingerbread house.
2. White paint.
This is the cheapest option and I really loved the look. With a small paint brush, I was able to draw on any gingerbread details that I wanted. The houses are really close together, especially on the bottom tier, so this technique was the easier to get the backs of roofs and houses.
3. Sharpie paint pen.
This was the easiest option in my book. I could double all day long with this pen. And it dries quickly so I didn’t have to worry about smudging. The pen was a little hard to get back into the nooks and crannies though.
4. Hot glue gun with white glue sticks
I used this technique to make a gingerbread house garland so I knew I had to try it. This was not great for any kind of detail on the houses. But this was the perfect way to glue all the trees and embellishments onto the calendar. I wanted the whole thing to look like icing and frosting and this was exact thing to do it! Dries quick and looks so good!
5. Snow Tex
I have seen people using this all the time. It’s not really for any kind of detail, but to add a snowy look to my houses. It did look like snow, but it was crumbly and hard to use. You have to tap it onto the roofs with a brush. I did think this looked like powdered sugar on the gingerbread houses, so I patted some around the base and the houses. If I had to omit one- It would be this one!
Decorating
Now that I went over each technique, my favorite ways to decorate was drawing as much detail with my sharpie paint pen. Then fill in any tight sections with the paint brush and paint. THEN I would add “snow” on the roof tops with the puffy paint.
Step 3 Numbering the advent calendar
Hobby Lobby had white numbered stickers. I placed some on so I could see how much room they would take on each drawer. I tried to make sure when I was adding details to the fronts, I left room for the stickers. You could also just take your pen or puffy paint and write each number!
Step 4 ACCESORIZING
At this point, I loved the look of the gingerbread houses! I did not know if I wanted to add anything else to them. I thought about just adding the trees back on and calling it done- But I did have all the fun items from Hobby Lobby so I jumped in!
Using my hot glue gun and WHITE glue sticks, I hot glued on the trees. Some I pushed to the back of the houses so I could add gingerbread men and woman in front of them. I added peppermints and candy canes. Put wreaths over the doors and hot glued on any little fun details.
I originally bought gumdrops and candies in a variety of colors, but I ended up sticking with a red and green and brown gingerbread colors scheme.
After everything was glued on, I took my puff paint and hot glue gun and just gave a bunch of icing drips off the advent stands and the roofs. Adding some on top of drawers and even on some of the trees. I kept turning and adding drips until it looked like a snow storm had passed through.
I’m giddy with how it turned out!
What to put in an Advent Calendar
Once you have your darling advent calendar completely- You might be wondering what to put inside each of these cute little doors! Here are a few ideas
- It’s the perfect size for a little piece of candy!
- Fun Christmas activities (I have a free printable)
- Christmas Movies (Free printable! Just cut them up and add in what ones you want to watch.
- Christmas stories to read. One for each day!
- Christmas songs.
- Gifts: Toys, Chapstick, socks, bath bombs, gum etc!
- Christmas music QR code
These doors aren’t big, so if you want to do actual items that don’t fit, you could slip in a piece of paper with a hint of where you can find the present/gift!
Save for later
Too busy to get crafting today? No problem! Pin this post to remind yourself about this project later! Sharing my projects helps me reach more people, allowing me to continue sharing free content!
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