How to make a Christmas Eve crate {Ikea Knagglig hack}

Posted on December 22, 2016

Christmas is all about the children in our house. I always enjoyed Christmas but seeing through the eyes of my children is even more fun. We started off a few Christmas Eve traditions and this year I wanted to make something to hold everything in, so I made a Christmas Eve crate.

I wrote a little about things to put in a Christmas Eve crate and I really enjoyed making ours and putting everything together. Our Christmas Eve crate holds Reindeer food, hot chocolate, new pyjamas, a DVD, a letter from the Elf and our stockings – things to help us enjoy Christmas Eve that little bit more.

How to make a Christmas Eve crate:

First I needed to make our crate! Ages ago I bought a flat pack Knagglig pine crate from Ikea for £5. It was obviously flat pack!

I was originally going to paint it using Pinty Plus Chalk Paint Spray in Vintage Olive but then thought I should make it look a little more festive and used Pinty Plus Chalk Paint Spray in Red Velvet.

I laid my pieces out on a piece of newspaper outside and gave everything two coats of spray. The paint only takes 20 minutes to dry so it was nice and simple to spray and meant I could put the crate together quickly. I checked I had all the edges covered and sprayed over any pieces of bare wood.

The Pinty Plus Chalk Paint Spray dried well and has a lovely colour.

It needed a little something extra so I made a paper template saying ‘North Pole Special Delivery‘. I cut out the letters using my Swan Morton scalpel and positioned it on the crate using washi tape. Then I was able to lightly paint the letters using white acrylic paint.

I love the finished Christmas Eve crate, red really is the perfect colour for it. I’ve been super organised and packed everything, ready for our Elf to deliver it on Christmas Eve. I hope the children are excited to receive it. My 6 year old has already mentioned it so I’m glad to carry on the tradition.