Advent Calendar

Since I had originally intended to keep this blog going by posting all my fun crafty endeavours and it’s been a while since I’ve posted about some crafty endeavours, I thought I’d better do so before it gets any later into NaBloPoMo.

Last night I made a refillable advent calendar for Rob and I. It was a really fun project and only took me about an hour and a half. Sadly, I don’t have my digital camera so I can’t show too many pictures as I describe what I did. Bear with me.

What you’ll need:

24 Lee Valley’s watchmaker cases, size 70mm
Red construction paper
Green construction paper
Silver gel pen
Nice (high quality) writing paper
Scrap paper
Scissors
Various candies, chocolates, treats that you like

How to do it:

Trace the lid of a watchmaker case onto the scrap paper and cut it out. Trim a few millimeters off the circle so that it’s just slightly smaller. Check to see that it fits inside the lid of the watchmaker’s case. If it does, you’re set. If not, trim a bit more until it fits. Now, using the template, cut 12 green circles and 12 red circles out of the construction paper. Using the silver gel pen, write the numbers from 1 to 24 on the construction paper circles. (Aside: I was going to try to find pre-numbered stickers but couldn’t. There are many ways to get numbers onto the circles, including number stickers. I just couldn’t find any that weren’t black). Put the numbered circles into the lids of the cases. It should look a little bit like the schematic I have drawn there.

Now comes the fun part. Fill half of the tins with the treats or candies that you picked out. For the other half of the boxes, you’re going to use your high quality writing paper. On 12, 4”x5” (6 cm x 12.5 cm) pieces of this paper write some fun Christmas activities (one per piece of paper). Fold up this paper and fill the other half of the tins.

Put the lids back on the cases randomly (or ask someone else to do it for you as a surprise). Stack or pile the boxes (with the 24 on the bottom and the 1 on the top) on top of a pretty plate. I used a silver cake plate. And … done!

Here are some ideas for the ‘holiday activities’ that we put inside our tins:

• Go Christmas shopping
• Eat something festive for dinner
• Read a Christmas story
• Listen to Christmas carols
• Drink peppermint hot chocolate
• Bake gingerbread
• Etc.

Talk to you soon,

B.