Our Advent Calendar

Now I've heard that Advent does not necessarily begin Dec. 1st - is this true??? I'm not sure, but Wednesday I decided I might as well whip out an Advent Calendar to begin none other than the next day, Dec. 1st! Great planning, huh? So the challenge was to create something that could be made with what I already had in the house. This.could.get.interesting. :-)

Seriously, I'm actually super excited about the end result! Ta - da!!!

This isn't really my "decorated" mantle, but it is a stand in until I "really"

decorate it and so the kiddos don't get into the calendar!

I found inspiration via searching on Pinterest for all of about 5 minutes,

then combined elements that I liked and knew I had

material for. So with that said...

Materials used:

Cork Board (trim painted in ASCP Old White)

Ron - Loc Muslin to cover cork (Spray Adhesive)

Thumb tacks - (yes...some are yellow, blue, whatever - they're hiding!)

Ribbon

Envelopes

Cardboard

Glue (or tape)

Printed my own numbers

Cut everything

Glued and Glittered the border on the numbers

(odds gold, evens red)

Cute little star punch ($ store???)

Jute twine

Paper for Writing Daily Activities in the Envelopes

Is that all??? I kind of can't believe I had all that!

Cut, knot, cut, knot, repeat for 25 times total! ;-)

I made a little bow "star" for the top of the "tree"

I rolled the edges and secured the fabric with Spray Adhesive.

I made Christmas day extra glittery ~ with a pretty angel tack! :-)

(I've had that thing since I don't know how little I was!)

This did take a bit of time, but was suuuuper easy.

The kids even helped a little bit here and there as they were interested!

I have to admit, I love this because our family is so, well,

sporadic shall we say, that I am planning to fill the

envelope each night after the kids are in bed. Then the hubby

and I can decide, "Hey, tomorrow let's say we're

going to The Nutcracker!" Well...that wouldn't be

completely sporadic, but we still don't have tickets because

we still don't know what day we're going - you following?!!! lol

Soooo......

Our first activity was "Bake Cookies With Mom". :-)

Nice and simple, huh? And honestly never done at our house.

There was definitely a lot of excited jumping up and down by the kids!

And Snickerdoodles and milk were our pre-dinner "snack".  ;-)

Happy Advent Calendar Making!

~Anneke~

You can now follow me via Pinterest and Twitter!