Jo - Kasiercraft Tree Advent Calender

Hi everyone, welcome to my first full technique blog. I will be doing one part this week, and another in a weeks time.  For this project that I have designed for Artfull Crafts, I have been given the new release Kaisercraft Christmas Tree Advent Calendar Small  and the Turtle-Dove paper collection also from Kasiercraft.

For this project you will need several different sheets of paper, I tend to use reasonably plain or small designed paper, this means you can add more embellishments, also you don't have to worry about half patterns or half pictures on your little boxes.

So lets go: 
Firstly layout all the pieces of the calender, as pictured below. 

There is also a picture of this on the back of the packaging of the calender.  This gives you an idea of what you will be going to do.  Start putting the tree together, don't glue.      

This is so you can see where all the pieces are going.  If you trace around the shelves on the outside, you can see which parts need to be covered in paper, and the rest can be painted, as they are behind the boxes. When you are painting any Kaisercraft project, make sure you either put it together first before painting or make sure you do not paint the tabs.  This is because as you paint, the tabs swell and then they do not fit into the slots very well.  If they do swell you will need to sand them to get them to fit.  This particular design actually has good sized holes, so it quite easy to fit the pieces together. I used Kasiercraft Off white paint. 


Next we are going to put the drawers together:

This is the outsides of the box, this is the side that is covered with paper.  I cover all of this, except the bottom.

This is the inside of the box, I paint this inside piece, but I usually paint it after the box has been put together. I'm not sure why, but I have made 10 plus of these and I always do this. I also spray with glimmer mist inside the box to try and cover any brush strokes.  If you wanted to put paper inside, you could do it now.

 To make the boxes, glue up the sides of the box as shown and then hold together for a few seconds. Or if you have someone sitting beside you doing nothing, get them to hold them for you. Thanks Mum! (Green Tombow glue is best for this as it has a thin nozzle and dries quickly).

Then it is time to start decorating.  Paint inside the box, or cover in paper.  Then starting on the outside if you measure the front of the box, you will find it is a square, but watch out because the sides are rectangles.  
Cut pieces for all of the sides (I used the I used the Maid's paper which has a range of squares, that will fit the front panels perfectly).  You can do all the same colour, or a mixture of colours.  When you are doing the front pieces, after you have cut the piece out, lay the box on top of the back of the paper (make sure it is up the right way), and draw the half circle at the top.  Cut this out by hand, or punch out if you have the right sized circle punch.  Glue all the papers on. Blue Tombow is best for paper to chipboard/wooden project. It has a nice thick applicator at one end and is the right consistency to glue the surfaces fully).

Then sand the edges of the box (sandpaper) to make sure that the paper is flush with the cardboard, sand downwards, this stops the paper from ripping off.  I then use a distress ink or a chalk ink, and go around all of the edges in a co-ordinating colours.  I used a jumbo java chalk ink. This saves cutting up a heap of papers.   

Now it's time to decorate the back of the tree. I then cut a tree pattern from the Partridge paper, if you cut the paper in half, trace one side of the tree and then the other, (remember the boxes cover the middle), it will not go all the way across.  This will also need a join close to the top which I have covered with embellishments.  Glue these pieces on and use an emery file if you need to tidy up the edges. Then glue all the shelves together (you can use Green Tombow or PVA for this step) and put them in place. You will have something like this:

 I then inked all around the outside of the tree, you can see the brown ink.  I also inked the shelves, to keep the cream tone down. 

What happens next?  I'll show you next week.