I've wanted to make an Advent Calendar for my girls for the longest time and feel that this Christmas they were finally old enough to start enjoying it's meaning and the fun activities! WORD OF WARNING: this takes a good chunk of time and requires lots of little components, steps etc. so waiting until the kids are napping or down for the night would prob be best!
I'm really loving how it turned out! I got a lot of inspiration from Pinterest that gave me my general idea, and then spent the day at Hobby Lobby filling in the details of what I wanted! The neat thing about DYI Advent Calendars is you could practically do anything and everything style-wise and make them gender specific. Since I have girls, I wanted something that wasn't to fufu-frilly, but charming and elegant! Let's get to makin' it.
Here is everything you will need (all items purchased at Hobby Lobby):
First you want to roll out your burlap and lay your 24 brown baggies down to get an idea of how much burlap you will need. I used the smaller brown baggies and did 6 rows of 4.
Next, you want to select 12 papers of your choice from whatever paper book you purchased, fold them and cut them in half so you will have 24 pieces to glue on your baggies.
Pick a pattern and start glueing (side note: do NOT glue brown baggies to burlap, you will ONLY be glueing the clothes pins to burlap which I will demonstrate in a bit)!
Next, you want to take the assortment of doilies and lay them out in a pattern on each baggy and glue them on.
CAREFULLY number the baggies 1-24.
The next step is to prepare and assemble your notecards that will have the scripture passage of the day and the activity of the day. I did two separate cards in each baggy. (There are MILLIONS of lists for Advent scriptures on Pinterest as well as daily activities, which you can come up with on your own and personalize them to your family)
After the cards are completed, stuff them in their corresponding baggy. Then you want to take your strip of thinner burlap and form a big bow.
Wrap your burlap over your wooden beam, sealing it with hot glue as you roll as pictured below. Then take a piece of twine or any other "string-like" material and feed it through the BACK part of your bows knot, and tie dangling pieces on either side of the beam. You can add some holly or any other decor to spruce up the top. I hot glued mine on and it was easy as pie:). Once that is completed you want to glue the BACK of the laundry pins in their selected spots so that you can take the brown baggies off and on each day as needed for the kids to look inside!
Then just find a decent size wall space and put your creation on display!! My kids have been LOVING looking in their baggies each day, reading the passages, and completing the daily activity!
Merry Christmas!
Bryt
xoxo
