The countdown to Christmas is around the corner. One of my favourite parts about the countdown to Christmas is advent calendars! I have four advent calendar DIYs that you can do with your family to make every day until Christmas extra special.
The Ultimate Advent Calendar
This is a Christian Dare DIY for the more advanced. I used an Ikea Kallax 5×5 unit with 25 matching doors, wrapping paper and vinyl numbers to create the ultimate holiday giveaway advent. Custom vinyl gives it a clean and simple look, but don’t forget to fill your shelves with magical surprises. I love that the large size means you can hide all sorts of goodies inside.
For an advent calendar that won’t take over the whole house, I have three advent creations for custom Christmas fun.
Recycled cardboard house advent
You will need:
- Recycled Cardboard boxes
- hot glue gun
- a craft knife
- craft glue
- a house stencil (which you can print off the web)
- puffy paint (optional)
- faux snow
- vinyl numbers
Instructions:
- First print out a simple house stencil, I found this one online. If you feel super talented, you could even try making your own stencil.
- Transfer your stencil onto your recycled cardboard
- Once you have all 5 pieces of your house ready to go (4 sides and 2 roof panels). We are going to hot glue them together.
- Allow to dry. Now you can add trim if you like with white puffy paint.
- Next, we are going to cover the roof in craft glue and light sprinkle on some snow.
- Add in your numbers and you are ready to go.
- But don’t forget to place a surprise under each house!
Envelope Advent:
You will need:
- Wire hoop wreath form
- string or yarn
- wooden mini clothespins
- white square envelopes
- vinyl numbers or craft marker
Instructions:
- First things first – fill your envelopes. I suggest picking experiences for inside these like ice skating with grandma or skipping school today and skiing instead… etc.
- Once all your envelopes are filled, seal them up and either hand write numbers on each card or apply vinyl.
- Now to hang them: I suggest pre-cutting 25 lengths of string or yarn and attaching them to the gold hoop wreath form and a miniature clothespin at the other end.
- Now all you have to do is clip on the number envelopes. And don’t worry about the order, half the fun is hunting for the correct number.
Paper Tree Advent:
You will need:
- Coloured paper
- Scissors
- Glue stick.
- Oh, and candy of course.
Instructions:
- You can make all these trees out of one shade of green paper if that is all you have at home, but I would recommend you pick a variety of shades of green.
- Draw and cut out these super simple patterns for 3D triangles…this takes me back to elementary school geometry glasses…. Quick quiz, is this an isosceles or equilateral triangle?
- Now using your glue stick you are going to glue together the sides but leave the bottoms open.
- Fill them up with candy and seal up the bottom.
- Now I like mine super minimal so I didn’t even add numbers. This means you can pick any tree any day and as the forest slowly disappears, you know we are getting closer to the big day.
- Of course, if you want to add numbers you can do that before you glue it up with either a craft marker or some ready-made number stickers.
