vintage photo, vintage handwritten ledger page, imitation gold leaf, black gesso, modeling paste, matte gel medium, paper, board, glue, twine

Click to enlarge, as always.

Welcome to the Paperiaarre advent calendar! A special Christmassy start for my traditionally un-Christmassy advent calendar - still, I promise this is the last you'll see of a Christmas tree here. I personally am not much of a Christmas person, and my "alternative" advent calendars have always felt like a project to help ease non-Christmas people over the season of red, white and glitter. So, in the spirit of something for everyone; this here is for those not into what most others seem to be.

I'm super excited about this new, larger, format of my calendar (a little more about the history of my calendar tradition here), and I had heaps of fun making these mixed media collage boxes - a predetermined size is a good limitation to have, especially now that the size isn't as tiny as a matchbox, so it doesn't rule out as many options as it did before. This year's boxes measure 10,9x13,9x1,3cm / 4.3"x5.5"x0.5", and there'll be 24 of them posted here altogether, more or less at 9AM (GMT+2) each day. Here in Finland we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve already, so on the 25th you'll have to settle for a grand group photo instead of a new box.

Each box has a twine loop on the back for hanging (see photo at the bottom of this very long post), and, once the boxes have been on show as a part of my exhibition in February, you may get a chance to acquire a little something lovely for your wall. I've yet to determine how to price them, but if you absolutely fall in love with a piece the moment you see it, I might take an advance reservation if you ask nicely.

This Paperiaarre advent calendar is my own personal art project, for which I receive only the limited glory my readers shower upon me in the comments section (and the joy stalking my blog statistics gives me), so please share this with anyone you think might be interested! The more viewers and comments the happier the artist!