The making of: the cosy advent calendar!

Have you always wanted to know how I made my advent calendar, or what a design process looks like? Today I take you on a journey. The journey of over 8 months to making my cosy advent calendar. Ready? Go!

It is a long and complicated process, but fortunately I took a lot of photos while I was at it. So by way of a photo report with numbers, I'll take you through the whole journey.

1. Learning to think 3D

I had made a tiny sketch in my sketchbook, but I had never made anything in 3D before. So I just started with plain printer paper, scissors and tape. Roughly cut out some shapes. It looked like it could be something, so on to the drawing board!

2. Drawing

Very clumsy. In hindsight, I should have measured/calculated exactly first. Little did I know. In this step, I drew everything out. Slowly, the whole project took more shape in my head, though I still couldn't see how I should get it done. My husband Edwin is a genius with numbers and maths, so he assured me time and again that making the construction would work. The next stress point was that I had no idea what the production would cost and therefore whether it could be realised!

3. Time for colour!

To get a better idea for myself which way I wanted to go, I painted everything. That too was a totally new challenge in terms of 3D thinking with colour/light and colour palette. But however much I enjoyed the whole project, painting remains my passion, so this was secretly just the most fun part!

4. Mock up and request quotes

With the sketch, I cobbled together another mock up, which already somewhat resembles the final result. On the one hand, I needed this later for the calculations, but at this early point in the process mainly for requesting quotes. Requesting quotations, clarifying which direction I wanted to go in and, of course, initially finding companies that do this (and learning the associated specialist terms) took over a month. All this time I was in suspense whether the project would be viable or not. In the end, I found a super nice company AND got the redeeming offer: it could be done! It would be a mega investment (for me as a just starting small business owner), but I believed it would be worth it.

5. Arithmetic, arithmetic and more arithmetic

I was SO happy to have help with this! I don't know about your maths, but my maths failed irreparably. Honestly: I could never have done this myself. In particular, the construction of the house and the calculations involved were really super complicated and I could hardly handle the stress and tension (whether it would all fit and whether we wouldn't make mistakes). What weeks those were! But with many thanks to Edwin, things went smoothly (for me, that is). We made another mock-up of paper after the first round of calculations to see if everything fitted roughly. Then the tests started at the manufacturer's premises.

6. Handing over

So far we could do everything ourselves, now I had to hand it over and let the product, die-cutter, printers and technical people there do their work. This also meant I was stuck with my investment, super exciting to spend thousands of euros, IEW! A lot of testing had to be done, how big the holes should be with what type of cardboard to get the right strength is just 1 of the problems we had to solve. This was my first time collaborating professionally on developing a product and I really enjoyed it in the end!

7. Victory

Something I had labelled 'impossible' just a year earlier had become a reality. By breaking it down into tiny, manageable steps, asking for help and just having the guts to start, I could hold my advent calendar in my hands after more than 8 months of work!

Meanwhile, the calendar has just been on sale for a month, I have not yet recouped the cost, but I hope to make it this month (hint: want to join in?).

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Love,

Esther