Christmas Spirits Advent Calendar

Our son loves Advent Calendars and last year he bought himself one of those beer ones from COSTCO. So this year we decided to up his game a bit and make him one full of Christmas Spirit. Even if he doesn't tip one every day before X-mas, he can hold a fun party for his friends.

Step 1: Choose Your Spirits and Get a Couple of Tubes.

My wife got two 48" cardboard tubes, 2" in diameter from one of the fabric shops. The manager was happy to let her have them and said he had more if two wasn't enough. I selected 24 miniatures from our local liquor store and then we marked the tubes at 4.5" intervals.

Step 2: Cut the Tubes.

I then cut the tubes to make 24 pieces. I used a bandsaw, which is a bit sloppy, but some sanding gave each tube a smooth end. Lining up the tubes shows how they make a tree. There is another Instructable that used larger tubes with the same motif for a beer advent.

Step 3: Time to Glue.

Line the bottom row of tubes against a large flat object. I just used a box. The bottom row has six tubes. I then used a hot melt gun to fuse the tubes. After you have the main tree shape, you can add the last three tubes as a base. The ingot looking thing is 'Gold Bar American Whiskey'. We used it for day 24 (Christmas Eve) and wrapped it in gold foil (see later steps).

Step 4: Final Assembly and Paint.

I sprayed the whole thing with glossy dark green paint then put a bolt up through the middle of the top tube and glued it in place to hold the papier-mâché star, which my wife painted gold. You can put any topper you want.

We used a pair of 6" and 8" flower pot dishes glued together for the base and painted red.

Step 5: Organize the Bottles and Date Labels.

I did a spread sheet with the contents of the bottles and organized them by kind. The sheet also indicated which color (red or white) tissue paper and date tag. My wife wrapped each bottle and put a date tag on it.

Step 6: Final Assembly.

So here are the wrapped miniatures in alternating red and white with small date tags before final trimming of the strings. There are other ways to do this, whatever looks good to you. Note the gold wrapped day 24 at the top.

Step 7:

Comments

[Swansong]

That's an adorable way to make an advent calendar! :)

[Exocetid]

Thanks, I really enjoyed making this and it is quite reusable. The size of the tubes will work for candies, baked goods, small toys, tree ornaments, etc. Someday he can fill it up with chocolates for the <future> grandkids ;-)

We chose the five pointed star because we're in Texas, but the design allows for all sorts of creativity in a topper. Also, while I was assembling it, I put all the bottles in unwrapped and noticed that the different colors of the bottles with light coming through made a very nice looking tree. Next year I think we will leave the bottles unwrapped and put a small date sticker on the bottom of each so as to preserve that effect. Experimenting is fun!

Lastly, this is a good example of foundational design where you come up with something and then notice someone else did as well. Using a larger tube, you can do the same thing with beer, as done here by rrups. Twenty-four tubes align perfectly into a tree shape! After that, let the creative juices flow.