Friday 23 November 2012

Advent Calendar

I can't believe how quickly 'that' time of the year is approaching!! It has been a complete & utter blur, it's almost unbelievable that we are about to start hanging up Christmas decorations. In saying that, I am a Christmas junkie. There is no other way to put it, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas. I love the holidays, the food and especially the quality time spent with family & friends. I also just adore a teeny tiny little bit that there is sooooo much opportunity to get creative in festive season!!!

In saying that, I wanted to share with you my very simple take on the 'advent calendar.' Nothing too fancy shmancy, but something that you and the kids can have a lot of fun with. My inspiration for this was from an amazing blog I am so grateful for stumbling across called inspirationforhome.blogspot.com. All you need, is a large 
pin board, 2 X A3 sheets of paper, sticky numbers, tacks & Christmas decorations.


I firstly covered my pin board in the metallic red A3 sheet I'd chosen - I cut it so I could push it under the frame which was a bit fiddly but I got there in the end!! I then used my white A3 sheet to make individual gift tags, with the numbers 1-25 on them. I chose red vinyl stickers but foam or even flat sticker numbers would be fine. The next step is the one the kids were most excited about, we all went shopping for new Christmas decorations. You need 25 in total, one for each tag of which we used a mix of new ones and a couple of oldies we've loved from 
previous years. You then line up your tags in rows of 5 on your pin board and nominate a decoration for each date.



What I love about this is the kids 
can have fun with moving the decorations and placing them where they would like (well, until the 1st of December anyway : ) I used clear tacks to pin my tags at the top, and then hung the decoration from that so it hovers over the number. Next year, I am hoping that we will have made our own decorations to hang on the advent calendar......somehow we ran out of time this year!! I also used the vinyl letters to place the words Merry Christmas at the top of the pinboard to break up the cork look - but you could put anything you like.



And the end result.......ta da!! A very simple but super fun Christmas activity that everyone can get involved with. Ooohhh and your probably wondering what happens with the decorations - well everyday from the 1st of December the kids take the decoration for that date and hang it on the tree. And let me tell you that are just a little bit super excited to say the least!! So, why not give it a go - every Christmas needs a little bit of handmade. Ps. I bought 2 x packets of sticky numbers/letters without thinking there wouldn't be enough 2's & 1's so cut up a few of the letters to make more which worked fantastically as they are all in the same font.



3 comments:

  1. Well done, Suzy. It looks great, fun, festive and super cutesy. I hope you get THIS comment. x

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  2. Thanks Martha, and hooray yes this comment came through : ) x x

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  3. This is so cute Brookie - so nice and bright! What a great idea. K x

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