DIY Wood Clock Christmas Advent Calendar

 I'm sort of getting into the Christmas mood. It's still almost 70 degrees out, so it's so hard to wish the good weather away! Which, I'm totally not. I'm embracing it :) I never got into advent calendars until I had children, and now I just love them! It gives them a great way to visualize how close Christmas is! Last year, I made something that I didn't love, so I knew I wanted to do something different this year. And I just love how this turned out! And it's super cheap and simple :)

What you'll need:

• 1x6 8' board
• Clock hand (mine is about 9" and is from Hobby Lobby, came with an extra long one too that I didn't use)
• 1x2 or 1x3 for back, 2 pieces cut at 14 inches
• Wood glue and nail gun or screws
• Sander
• Stain and paint (I used DecoArt White color stain and Minwax Dark Walnut, can use a satin white paint too)
• Number and snowflake cut outs or stencils
• Mod podge for cut outs
• Felt
• Hot glue
• Paper pieces for day activities 
• D-ring hook

 First step for me was to measure the size of my hand. It was a little over 9". I doubled that to get the minimum circumference of my circle. I added a couple of inches on each side for room for the numbers and got 22".

 So, next I cut my 1x6's to 22". Four of them equaled my desired 22" wide, so that was perfect! This then measured a square at 22" on each side.

 I then took a pen and attached it to some ribbon/string. I found the center of the piece and tacked the ribbon in the middle then circled the pen around the entire thing to create a circle. This totally reminded my of elementary school!

 Next was securing the pieces together. I just used my 14" 1x2s, glued them down and then secured them with a nail gun. You can also use screws if you want.

 Next I took my jigsaw and cut around the circle.

 I then sanded the edges and used this technique here to paint it, except I didn't water down the paint first and left a lot of the stain on to dry instead of rubbing it off.

 After the paint and stain was dry, about a day, a then cut out a snowflake and used white paint to stencil it onto the center of the circle.

 I also cut out some numbers since I knew I couldn't hand draw these nicely ☺I used mod podge to secure them on. I placed 13 in the middle at the bottom and went up on both sides from there to get equal numbers and spacing. I ended the 25 and 1 on the ends of the outside boards in order to leave room for the Christmas in the middle.

 I cut out Christmas using Sacramento font and mod podged it also. I wish I had eyed this better, it's a little off.

 To finish the piece up, I found a black screw that fit into the center of my clock hand and then screwed it into the very center of the piece. A little tight, but loose enough to let the hand move.

 As for the fun little things to do each day, I glued some felt onto the back of each number leaving the outer side open. Not the prettiest thing, but it does what I wanted it to do.

 Then I cut some paper and wrote small little things to do on them and placed them inside the felt. Some of the felt pieces were too short so I just kept both ends open so the paper would fit without sticking out.

 Now every day you move the hand, you pick the piece of paper! I'll be putting the pieces of paper back so I don't lose them for next year :)

And to hang the piece, I just used a d-ring hook into the center top of the back! 

 I just love how this turned out! It's the perfect amount of rustic farmhouse decor and totally seasonal and useful!

 I was nervous about the color of this and thought it would be too light for the white to jump off. I even tried black lettering, which looked great, but not quite how I envisioned it. I'm glad I stuck with the white; a little more magical with the snowflake and all.

 And aren't these the cutest little trees?? I got them online at Target and just love them!

 I wasn't going to keep this above this mantel since it will be hard for little hands to help change the day, but I'm sort of loving it here :) We'll see if it sticks or finds a new home!