Handmade Matchbox Advent Calendars

You've heard the expression- "Your eyes are too big for your belly."? That's how I'm feeling right now. :) You see, I took it upon myself to make these advent calendars for my sisters. I am still in the process of making one for my family. Originally, it seemed like a good idea- when I was going to make them with pre-made matchboxes. I had planned on using the pre-made matchboxes and I even went to Albertson's and bought two packages of them. It wasn't until much later that night when I opened the packages that I realized there weren't enough boxes in the packages. I had a total of 20 and I needed 24. Here's where my bright idea comes to play...I have the SU! matchbox die and thought I'd make 4 more. Riiiiigggghhhttt. It didn't occur to me until after I got the template finished that these matchboxes were going to be twice as big as a "real" matchbox. So, I nixed that idea- and decided to make all the matchboxes using the SU! die...it worked very well- though putting together 72 match boxes is time consuming and exhausting!
The white advent calendar is for my youngest sister and her 2 year old. For my sweet Kalea I wanted something bright, cheerful and fun- something that a toddler would enjoy. I attached ribbon with bows ( sewing them onto the drawers) on half the doors- and eyelets laces with green ribbon, and wt. ribbon with red dashes. Paper came from my LSS but, I can't remember the name of the line. And I can't find the scraps- and extra sheets right now...
I love the size of these drawers- you can fit 2 nice sized pieces of candy inside each drawer. I used some Dove Chocolate and in the drawer that is for Christmas Eve I put 2 pieces of Ghirardelli chocolate squares. Yummy.
This next advent calendar is for my sister Rachel and her girls. Both girls are teenagers, so I wanted something that looked more grown up. I used 2 brads in each drawer and laced some brown ribbon through them. I added chipboard snowflakes ( from SU!) painted and stickled. Paper is also from SU!


I am hoping that I can finish our advent calendar tomorrow . We also need to get our tree up- I guess I'll be putting it together tomorrow- just one more thing on my endless to do list...

Thanks for stopping by. Have yourselves A Very Merry Christmas!