Make your own charm advent calendar. Count down to Christmas by adding an adorable Christmas charm each day to a wood Christmas tree.

Christmas Charm Advent Tree

This month Prima Bead sent me a HUGE box from their Tis the Season line. Thank you!! The assignment for the blogger team was to create a couple holiday-inspired projects. They asked us to do at least one jewelry item, but then get creative and use the supplies to make any kind of craft we wanted.

The first thing I thought of when I saw all the charms was an advent calendar. I'm a huge fan of advent calendars. I now have no less than 6 advent calendars. We don't use each one every year, but we get four of them out so each of the kids can do one.

You will need:
approx 12 X 12 piece of wood
25 charms
25 small nails
25 jump rings
paint

 jigsaw

To start with I drew a Christmas tree on paper. The best way for me to do this is to fold the paper in half, and then draw one side of the tree. It took me a lot of erasing and redrawing until I got it how I liked it. Then with the paper still folded, cut it out. When you open up your paper, both sides will be the same.  The tree is approx. 11 1/2 inches tall and 12 inches wide at the bottom.

Lay out your charms where you would like them on the tree. With a pencil, mark a small dot above each charm. This will come in handy later when we add the nails.

 Now it's time to cut out your tree. I used a scrap of 1x12 pine leftover from the bookshelf I made my daughter. Trace the tree onto the wood and cut it out. I used a jigsaw. Then sand off all the rough edges.

Next paint your tree. I thought about mod podging scrapbook paper, or fabric, but I thought it would make it harder to see the charms. The above picture is after one coat. You will want to do at least two. I did three coats.

I found some pearlizing medium in my paint basket. I've never used it before, but I'm loving how it turned out. You just mix together equal parts of the pearlizer and paint color you want. It just adds a little sparkly shimmer.

Now it's time to add your nails. Take your paper template and place it on top of your tree. Take a nail and press it into the wood on each dot you made previously on your paper. When you remove the paper, you should have small indentations for each spot where you should hammer your nails.
Try to get your nails in straight or slightly angled up. I didn't do super well with this.

Add a jump ring to each charm and place them on your tree. I want to get a little gift box to store the charms in. It can sit under the tree and add another homey touch.

Aren't these just the cutest little charms?

There are so many to choose from.

And such fun details on each charm!

I'm going to use a small iron easel for my tree, but you could also add a sawtooth hanger on the back and hang it on the wall.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I can't wait to display it!

What do you think? Do you like it?



You may also like this advent calendar.

I am a Prima Bead Blog Team Member. I am also an affiliate of Prima Bead. I receive product from Prima Bead. In return, I create jewelry pieces from that product, and share about them through my blog and other social media outlets. All opinions expressed in this post are mine.