Christmas Countdown Blocks Tutorial

I realize it is probably a little late for any Christmas Countdown projects and I meant to share this one earlier, but if not this year, then this could be a good one to save for next year.

I found this cute idea for a Christmas Countdown over at Whitney and Ashley's fabulous Shanty2Chic blog.



She ordered all the pieces she needed that are sent out in a kit ready to assemble and for real cheap, too. Which would be a great idea, if it wasn't for the fact that I live all the way over in Europe, so I improvised and it turned out to be a very simple and extremely cheap project! So, here are the steps...

First you need three blocks of wood....2 would be squares and the 3rd a rectangle that the 2 squares can sit on. I went to our local lumber yard to see if I could find some scraps of wood for cheap and instead found some long posts that were leftovers and going to be trashed and they let me have them for free!! So, with Jeff's help, we sawed 3 smaller blocks from the long posts and ended up with what you see below. After cutting them to size I sanded them and then very lightly spray-painted along the edges of the wood with a black matte color.



After this I chose some rich red paint to cover the blocks with. I did not put it on very thick, because I wanted some of the black color I had spray-painted underneath to come through and give it a bit of an old, worn look.



The red paint ended up being a little too shiny for my liking, so after it dried, I sanded it down a little more and it made the color a little more dull, plus brought out a little more of that black under the red paint.



The next steps I did not get pictures of, but you can see them here. I basically cut out 12 pieces of scrapbook paper into squares and one rectangle. Then, using the Princeton Let font in Word, in 300 pt. font, printed the following numbers...0,0,1,1,2,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. I glued the scrapbook squares to the blocks and then cut the letters out so that none of the black borders on the letters were showing and glued them over the scrapbook paper. I used a glue stick and it worked great.



I can't remember what font I used for the "days till Christmas" and I will probably look for some nicer Vinyl letters for next year, but this will do for now.



The last thing I did was mix 2 parts glue and 1 part water to make a thin paste that I brushed over the whole thing to completely seal it and give it a more finished look.



So, there you have it. I think it's adorable and it was so simple to make. My son loves to switch the blocks everyday to see how many days are left till Christmas and it's a fun reminder that Christmas is almost here!!!