Pottery Barn advent calendar

Following graduation in December, I have dedicated quite a bit of time to my newfound passion for "do-it-yourself" projects. My favorite part is creating a designer-inspired look for a fraction of the retail price. My first project was a gift for one of my friends Jennifer. She is getting married in March and had an ornament shower right before Christmas. I wanted to do something special for her, something with a personal touch. I love advent calendars and had been drooling over the ones in the Pottery Barn winter catalog. The board alone, without any ornaments was $149. I knew that I could recreate the board with 25 ornaments for much, much less. I just so happened to have a large cork board and a few yards of the perfect material. The material that I used was a sand color linen fabric. I used a staple gun to secure it to the back of the board. Next, I found some blank white tags and smaller brown tags at Hobby Lobby. I used these to number the spots for the ornaments. I measured and taped off the board into 25 sections, placed the larger white tags evenly, added a brown tags to each white one, and secured them in place with silver straight pins. Then the hunt for the perfect ornaments began. I wanted to stick to a neutral theme using whites, browns, silvers, and golds. Some of the ornaments were fillers but others I intentionally picked out for Jennifer and Brad. I wanted to use things significant to marriage. I chose a gold "D" for their last name, the number 2 because it signifies a couple (I also have a thing for decorating with numbers), a wedding cake cookie cutter, a "diamond" ring, and a cross. I made some of the ornaments including the burlap ball and the jute covered ball. I could not have been happier with the final result. I wish I had taken pictures of the project in progress but at the time I didn't have any intentions of blogging about it. It really was pretty easy to make and I plan to make one for myself next Christmas.