I know, I know, you haven't even stuffed yourself with turkey and stuffing, or gone Black Friday shopping yet, and here I am talking about beginning a Christmas countdown. But let's be honest, once Thanksgiving is over, December is pretty much here and it's time to bring out the ol' Advent calendar. Our family had an advent calendar growing up, and I remember running downstairs and arguing with my sisters about whose turn it was to move the mouse from it's current pocket to the next day's pocket. Ahhh memories.
Last year was the first year I thought about doing our own Advent calendar because my daughter was at the perfect age, but I literally pulled the whole thing together at midnight on November 30th, so it wasn't perfect by any means. We ended up stringing it up on the curtain rod above our slider door, which was SO not convenient since we open those curtains every day. I did love the numbers, (which I downloaded for free but can't remember where-sorry!) and the little bags, so I wanted to reuse them this year. You can easily create your own numbered circles on Picnik using this tutorial. So here's what I came up with for this year:
It love the simplicity of this Advent calendar, and how easy it was to make!
DIY Advent Calendar I started with an empty frame, some jute twine, mini-clothespins, and my trusty hot-glue gun:
I laid out the bags in five rows in the frame to figure out the placement of the jute rope.
Next, I measured the opening of the frame so that I could space the rows evenly. For this frame, I placed the jute every 4:5 inches apart.
(Ignore the pen pointing to 7 inches! I wasn't thinking when I took this pic!)
As usual, I used my hot glue gun to adhere the jute rope to the frame. You could also do this with a staple gun.
I clipped my cute little bags to the rope…
And added fun activities to do as a family and leftover Halloween candy to the bags!
Finally, I hung it in our entry hallway for a touch of Christmas! It will also be the one of the first things my kids see when they come downstairs and head into the kitchen.
I love that you can see our Advent calendar as soon as you open our front door! (And no, my house is not decorated for Christmas yet, I just have a winter wreath on my door from our last Nate Show project- more on that later this week!)
My daughter can hardly wait to get started counting down the days until Christmas! I also scoured Pinterest for other fun DIY Advent ideas and found these for your viewing pleasure (click on the link to go to the tutorial):
Source: blogs.babble.com via Jessica on Pinterest
Source: davidandcarolineparker.blogspot.com via Jessica on Pinterest
Source: modpodgerocksblog.com via Jessica on Pinterest
Source: flickr.com via Jessica on Pinterest
Source: budgetwisehome.com via Jessica on Pinterest
I'm totally doing that last one: wrap a Christmas book to open and read each day. However, I'm doing the 12 days of Christmas books so I don't have to spend a fortune on books! (Tip: Your local thrift store probably has LOADS of Christmas books for sale)
What do you do to count down the days until Christmas?
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