11/24 DIY / Seasonal/Holiday

DIY Modern Advent Calendar

Modern Advent Calendar-2

I’ve always always always wanted to make an advent calendar, and I realized that the reason I hadn’t was because I was saving the tradition for when we have children.  What was I thinking?  I like chocolate and toys, too!

The exciting thing about the holidays is traditions, and it dawned on me that we hardly have any, and again, I think I was reasoning that these would be things we do when we start a family.  So, putting this off no more, I’m starting an advent calendar tradition around here.  I assigned him the odd numbers and myself the even ones, and we’re putting zero limitations on what can be put inside so long as it’s small, maybe candy, a note, an activity, gosh isn’t the daily surprise exciting??

Materials:
-mini wood tree stickers (purchased at Michaels)
black paint
foam brush
-paint pens (black and white)
mini tote bag boxes
-string
-scissors
-36″ wood dowel
mini clothespins

mini wood trees

The idea for this calendar came to me the instant I found these wood tree stickers at Michaels that I love for their Scandinavian design.  The annoying thing is that it comes in a pack of 24, which is perfect for the proper advent calendar, but if you’re trying to do 25 days like I am (because 25 bags make a perfect hanging triangle), I’d recommend just tracing one of the trees onto black paper and using that as the 25th one.  Yup, that’s what I did.  Although really thinking about it now, I wouldn’t have minded getting a second pack because these trees are so cute and I’d love thinking up another idea for them.  Perhaps something with gift wrap!

paintI painted all but one tree black.

numbered treesI used a white paint pen to number the black trees.  On the unpainted tree, I initially used a regular black Sharpie and it bled.  This would not have happened with a black paint pen, so that’s a good tip right there: stick to oil-based paint pens.

mini cardboard bagAfter browsing the Container Store for an embarrassingly joyful amount of time, I decided on these adorable mini tote bag boxes.

peel and stickI peeled off the backing of the sticker on each tree and stuck each one onto a tote bag.

DIY Modern Advent CalendarI tied nine pieces of string evenly across a hanging dowel and attached each bag onto the string in a triangle formation with white clothespins.  Any excess string hanging below the bottom row was cut off.

numbers

Modern advent calendar DIY

DIY- Modern advent calendar

This could easily be a Christmas tree alternative as well, perfect for small spaces and people who love functionality (raise your hand with me).

Do you have an advent calendar tradition?  What do you put in yours, or is there a theme?

9 comments on “DIY Modern Advent Calendar”

  1. OMG Amy, I am making an advent very similar design – only I am using envelopes in pink and foil transfer paper. :-). I was actually inspired by the photo tree you had posted a few weeks ago :-) . We are still fighting on the activities to put inside for each day though :-)

    1. Yea we were trying to brainstorm general ideas of what to gift and didn’t get very far. I’m hoping it encourages us to be creative, which should be a lot of fun ;).

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