Advent Calendars

Well, happy first day of winter.  And did you have your advent calendar ready?  Or, like me, where you up to the wee small hours sticking chocolates into little packages.  

I say Advent Calendars (plural) as I have made a number of them this year.  My Little Foxes school's Christmas Bazaar was on the weekend and I was in charge of the craft stall.  As a result I have made 6 advent calendars, 5 for sale (and they sold - Phew!) and one for Little Una and Little Louis Fox. 

The picture above is not my children's calendar, but one that was sold.  I really thought that this one turned out well, so, I thought I would share how I made it.

YOU WILL NEED:

A piece of wood, approx 1m long

24 or 25 pegs

24 or 25 envelopes

garden twine, approx 120cm

2 screws

coloured paper 

glue gun, scissors, numbers

I used a piece of architrave left over from decorating the back sitting room, but you could use any piece of wood at least 10cm or so wide and approx 100cm long.  First paint the architrave, I used pale green emulsion left over from decorating the boot room.  I like to re-cycle as you know.

Then I glued thin strips of paper, the same width, onto each of the pegs.  While these were drying I turned my attention to the envelopes.  

I printed out a set of FREE advent tags from the lovely Rebecca's blog simpleasthat, she has more FREE printables and beautiful and inspiring family photography ideas.  Envelopes were decorated with the same paper used on the pegs, and a number added to each. 

Once dry the pegs were stuck onto the architrave, equally spaced apart, using my hot glue gun.  I added two screws to the back of the wood and tied on the garden twine.

I filled each envelope with chocolate.  You could of course put a little gift in there instead, but I don't give my kid's sweets as a rule so I let them indulge a little at Christmas.  Then, starting with the last number in your advent I pegged each envelope to the wood. Ta Da - Done!

My friend Ann and I have debated if there should be 24 or 25 treats on the advent calendar.  Advent is after all the countdown to Christmas, you get your presents on Christmas day.  What do you think?
And below is the advent calendar I made for my Little Foxes, with Brian the Elf who always arrives along with the calendar.

As Chief Craft Elf for our school's Christmas Bazaar, I looked at a fair few ideas for advent calendars, here are some of my favourites.