![[Laser cut and engrave] Laser Cut Wooden Advent Calendar House Boxes with Locks](https://storage-us.atomm.com/resource/xtool/community/attachment/xtool-community/6473922a-8600-4f39-9d17-03918b8bb3bc.PNG?x-oss-process=image/resize,w_1200,h_900,limit_0/interlace,1/format,webp/auto-orient,1)
Winter Wonderland Advent Calendar with Lockable Mini Gingerbread Houses
2025 Christmas Contest
Instruction
Information
My girlfriend loves sonny angel babies, and really wanted the advent calendar of them. Despite setting an alarm and waking up very early to try and order it, I was unable to acquire it, so instead I made this. Each house is laser cut and assembled using tab joints and wood glue, then hand painted to make them look even more special. Each house is locked with a small lock and the codes are given to her each morning in the form of a riddle. The houses are large enough to hold a Sonny Angel Baby, but can hold anything you want, from socks to candy to small toys. Palm pals even fit in the house. The houses are stacked to make a tree that adds to the festive look. This makes the advent calendar a decoration as well as functional.
Instruction
Step1: Cut all the parts
Now its time to cut the parts, they are laid out into multiple sheets in the design file named with the number of each you need to cut, each set of doors only needs to be cut once. I used the default xtool parameters for cutting and engraving the plywood.
Step2: Assemble the bases of the houses
To make the process more efficient, I assembled the 24 houses using an assembly-line approach. The first step was constructing the bases of the houses. This required attaching the back panel, bottom panel, and both side panels. It is important to ensure that the tab is on the right side when viewed from the front, with the exception on one of them which I made different for the last day. I used wood glue for all of the joints and allowed them to set before moving on to the next step.
Step3: Attach the roofs and locking loop
The next thing that gets added is the two roof panels and the locking loop to the houses. These are the parts highlighted in yellow in the picture. Once this dries it is a great time to start decorating the roofs, with a variety fun patterns using white puffy paint and other paint/charms. I decorated some to look like shingles, others to be snowflakes
Step4: Hinges and doors
Now its time to add the doors, here is where the mini hinges come in. I used super glue to adhere them starting by attaching it to the house structure, followed by attaching it to the door. Super glue accelerating spray was super helpful to speed up this process and get good adhesion. The hinge goes on the opposite side of the locking loop.
Step5: Glue Into a Tree and Add Locks
This last step is just to tie everything together, I used popsicle sticks between houses as supports and hot glue to create a tree shape (structure below). I then added my mini combo locks that I had set to custom codes. To reveal the codes I gave my girlfriend a small envelope every day with a riddle in it that reveled the code.
The tree was structured as follows (top to bottom).
1 house
3 houses
5 houses
7 houses
8 houses
