Wooden Halloween calendar decorated with Tim Holtz dies

One morning when Eszter was trying to wake up she told me that she had fed up with school. "I am so tired and the Autumn Holiday is so far away" - she told me. Tricksy, she also told me that there was nothing to motivate her... Oh, catastrophe! 

And even though we don't celebrate Halloween (I mean not that way like in the US) I decided to make a Halloween calendar for her to give her motivation to wake up every morning :)

So after Eszter's outburst I rushed to the local craft store to have a look what they had. From the 4 types of Advent calendar I chose the house shaped one because I just had the idea to make a black haunted house with orange windows. 

Now, let me introduce my haunted house calendar that I made with one week hard work :)

Since I made this for my girl I didn't want to make it too scary. 


Well, this was the basic I have bought in a craft store.

The structure was painted black.

Following a randomised design I painted some drawers orange. My idea was that the lights are on in some windows (orange drawers) and off in others (black drawers).

Then I started to sand every edges! Really every! All the 24 drawers and the structure! I hated it in the end :-)

But it was not the end because I rubbed DecoArt patina onto the sanded edges.

And finally I could decorate it with Tim Holtz dies - the numbers, the cobwebs, the skull and the cat.


For the cat, I glued 6 chipboard shapes to give some dimension.

The cat and bat are silvery to look like ghosts.

With this calendar I would like to enter to the Monday Challenge of the Simon Says Stamp blog - the AUTUMN IS IN THE AIR.


What I used:

Sizzix Sizzlits Alphabet Die, Spooktacular by Tim Holtz (658714)

Sizzix Sizzlits Die, Cobwebs by Tim Holtz (658713)

Sizzix Movers&Shapers Die, Mini Skull&Bat by Tim Holtz (657458)

Sizzix Bigz Die, Raven&Scaredy Cat by Tim Holtz (656928)

acrylic paints

acrylic medium