#1 Happy Hour Crafts {The 13 Crafts of Christmas}

Hey mamas!  My name is Adrianne and I blog over at Happy Hour Projects! 

I started my blog because, as a new mom – in addition to being a busy wife, employee, homeowner, dog owner (you get the idea) my need for craft-therapy was starting to outweigh the time I have left for myself. 

I instituted Happy Hour in my house, where I get to create and play and generally unwind, and I love sharing my projects with all of you!  Most of what I make can be done in an hour or less, or can easily be broken up into one-hour sessions.  

But I know what you mamas are here for today, and it isn’t my life story… it’s Rachel’s 13 Crafts of Christmas!  Isn’t Rachel amazing?  I love her blog, and I’m so happy to be kicking the series off with a little countdown of my own!  So let’s jump right in!

DIY Christmas Counter

Time: One hour to 90 minutes.  Really only 30 minutes of work, with some drying time in between.

Supplies:
Wood, or other smooth-surfaced blocks/plaques
2 cube-shaped blocks
Paint, stickers, and/or Mod Podge and paper

There are a lot of ways to achieve the same end result.  I will show you a step-by step on what I did, but if you are handy with a saw (or have someone in your house who is!) you can likely do an even better job with some wood scraps, or upcycle something sad.  Alas – I live in a condominium, so there is no place for a workbench here!

What I found were these plaques at Michael’s.  They happened to be on clearance, so I went ahead and got the 25-pack for $3.99, knowing that I will eventually use my leftovers in other projects. 🙂 I picked up a couple of wood cubes to go along with it. 

While I was there, I was on the hunt for something with a reindeer pattern (per my husband’s request, and I enjoy humoring him every time he takes an interest in my projects!) and I found some cute 10-pack stationery in the dollar section, and trimmed up two of the reindeer-themed sheets as my print for this project.

I played with the different shapes of plaques until I found a layout I liked. 

I measured the pieces I would be using against the paper, and trimmed up my pieces. 

If you’re making yours like mine… I ended up one piece short here.  Doh. Not to worry, there was still plenty of paper left – I didn’t even need to trim up a new sheet.

Then, it was time to paint the raw edges that I wouldn’t be covering with paper.  I also painted my cubes.

Now, depending on whether you will be nailing your pieces together or gluing them, you may want to do all your decorating after you have built your piece.  You will certainly want to cover up any nails with your paper/paint/etc.  But because I opted to glue mine (I craft when my daughter is sleeping, so hammering generally doesn’t go over well), I did my Mod Podge next.

I also took a moment to add some scrapbooking letters, since I’m terrible at freehand painting.  I gave it another coat of Mod Podge to secure them.  Make sure your lettering will show above/around your cubes!

The cubes are a little tricky, because to be able to do the numbers 1-25 (assuming you’ll be starting on December 1) both cubes have to have 1’s, 2’s, and 0’s (unless you prefer to go down to just one cube once you hit single digits).  You will need to label your cubes like this:

Cube 1: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Cube 2: 0, 1, 2, 6 (which will invert to be your 9), 7, 8

You can even begin counting down with as many as 32 days left with this configuration.  Again – I used stickers for my numbers, and then finished them off with a coat of Mod Podge.

Then, I finished up my construction and Mod-Podged the back:

Once your last round of drying is done, you can get ready to start counting down!!

I hope you enjoyed this craft, because I sure had a lot of fun putting it together.  I invite you to drop by Happy Hour Projects anytime to see me!  I host a link party that opens up Thursdays at 5:00 pm on the east coast – so now that you’ve seen my latest project, you’re welcome to come on over and show me yours tonight! 

I can’t wait to see what else Rachel has lined up for the next 12 days.  Thanks for being a wonderful hostess, Rachel!

Happy crafting – and an early Merry Christmas to all of the Lines Across My Face readers!

~  Adrianne