DIY Advent Calendar

Simple to make and filled with tasty caramels

It wouldn’t be Christmas without traditions and cute little touches like a DIY advent calendar. So we’ll make one today, stuffed with delicious homemade caramels and inspired by the ginger bread cookies. I came across this beautiful white-on-recycled-paper design when searching for some Christmas gift wrapping ideas. The advent calendar was yet to be made so why not combine the two? You will be perfectly able to make one too using just a couple of simple tools and some basic drawing skills!

What to put inside?

There are so many things you can put inside an advent calendar. You can prepare homemade sweets like me but also write caring messages or get cute little toys. It’s fun to make a collection too, all 24 pieces in one theme! The other day we made painted pebbles farm, it’s a great idea to unwrap a new animal each day!

DIY Advent Calendar

You’ll need:

• a white correction pen
• baking paper
• glue
• twine
• sticky tape
• three wooden sticks (these could be fallen branches, I used gardening bamboo sticks)
• a thin hobby wire
• paper hole puncher

Instructions:

How to make little paper bags

Little paper bags are really simple to make. All you need is a rectangle of baking paper 10x15cm and small piece of sticky tape to secure the bottom. Cut the rectangle out and fold in three pieces as shown bellow. Secure the overlapping vertical edges with a bit of glue. Then fold the bottom upwards and down as shown. Lastly, secure the the bottom of the bag with a small square of sticky tape.

Turning the paper bags into houses

To turn the paper bag into a small house fold the top corners to the back to form a roof. Then take the white correction pen and draw 24/25 simple house motifs on the front. The easiest design is one inspired by the ginger bread cookie decorating. Lots of lines, dots and snowflakes. When you have this done, make two holes on each side of the roof using the paper hole puncher. Fill the house with one homemade caramel, put a piece of twine through the holes and tie on the wire once the tree is ready.

Filling the houses and making the tree

To make the tree you’ll need the three bamboo sticks and some thin hobby wire. Firstly, place the sticks on the floor forming a tree and tie the touching edges with a wire. Once secured, use the same wire to make two ‘floors’ on the tree. Then tie the paper houses onto all three as shown. Depending on how many you make (24 or 25 depending on where you live), divide them between all rows.

Adding the numbers

I used thematic green coloured paper to make the numbers for each house. It fits beautifully with the red and white twine. Simply cut out small circles almost half an inch wide and write numbers on them. Then cut a small opening from the top, approx. one third of the width. Then attach as shown on the images. And your DIY advent calender is done!