Gingerbread Advent Calendar

After being stretched thin, this year's advent calendars had to be a little quicker to make than those of past years. Here's how to do it:

Grab a Christmas village building at the local craft store. There are different styles, they have a light in them and are quite cheap! You just have to get to them before they sell out.

With a circular drill bit, cut a hole in the back about 1.7 inches in diameter. You may want to sand the opening.

Then from a similar piece of wood (buy it at the craft store) cut a larger circle about 2.5 inches in diameter. You may want to sand the edges.

Now you can paint everything brown. Mix baking soda in with the paint before you begin if you want to try a gingerbread texture as seen below.

Attach velcro to the back of the door and house to keep the door on. If your door has a hole in the center from the drill, use a button or crafting brad to cover it up. (I tried a red button I happened to have on hand but the paint wouldn't adhere to it—it didn't adhere to the brad that well either.)

Puff paint can be used for the frosting effect. Though, it's kind of clunky and difficult to get fine details with. Try paint and a brush if you want more detailed control.

Next, wrap 25 little gifts and stuff them into the house. Close it all up and gift it away!

For my advents, I usually include a piece of candy for each person and an age appropriate activity prompt. Here is my list of activities for a young family.

Handmade Advent Calendar

 

Watch how to make this advent calendar out of crafting tubes and Christmas paper.

Buy candy in bulk and add slips of paper with silly little prompts on them—customize them for age. (For example: For a three year old...What do you think Santa eats for breakfast when he gets back from delivering all the presents?)

An example of another color scheme.

Dowel Tree Advent Calendar

 

Here's a fun idea to help with the countdown to Christmas day. Try making a simple tree using just a few dowels and hang packets of candy from it. A bonus is that the tree can be disassembled for shipping.

Also included in each packet is a slip of paper with instructions for a very short activity for the family to do. For example: "Family Hug! Wish each other a happy holiday. Now eat your candy!"

These packets each hold a different candy from the other—one for each person—and the kids can easily rip into them since they're made with napkins! 

WHY NAPKINS you ask? First, napkins can be sewn up using a sewing machine, and it's easy to find holiday patters which often include fancy foiling, so why not? Unless you want your advent calendar to last from year to year—which I don't—consider using napkins.

Here's another an alternate example of what the advent tree calendar could look like.

 

Below is a link to a FREE printable PDF with illustrated instructions and a supply list so you can make your own advent tree calendar. I've also included some activity ideas—you can cull from those whichever ones will fit the family you are crafting this advent calendar tree for. I hope you enjoy your crafting time!

Download and print FREE instructions here.

Alpine Advent Christmas Calendar

Looking for a simple, modern Christmas craft? Here’s a tutorial on how you can make this Alpine Advent Christmas calendar—plus, it comes with free templates for the trees.

The calendar is made up of three sizes of trees. I also recommend using at least three different colors of paper. They could be different greens, as I have used, but they don’t have to be. You could use red, black or even a patterned paper if you wish. 

Supply List:

• Number stamps (or you could use number stickers or paint them by hand.)

• Elmers rubber cement (I prefer this glue because it dries without wrinkling and you can rub off any excess.)

• Colored or patterned paper

• Gold craft paint

• ruler

• Optional: 1 package of .75 inch wooden blocks (to be used on the small trees)

• Optional: 1 package of 1 inch wooden blocks (to be used on the big trees)

• Hot glue gun and sticks

• Scissors or Exacto knife

• Bone folder or other scoring tool

First, print the templates onto your paper. How many trees you print on which color is totally up to you. CLICK OR TAP HERE FOR TREE TEMPLATES.

Next, cut out your trees along the SOLID lines. The dashed lines are for folding.

Then, using your ruler and scoring tool, score along all the dashed lines. (You can, but don’t have to score the tabs)

Now you can fold along all the dashed lines. Fold the paper IN so the dashed lines will be on the inside of the tree. Then you can stamp, paint or stick your number on the middle triangle as seen in the example above. Here, I’ve painted gold paint onto my number stamp and stamped it onto the paper.

Spread rubber cement on the two areas shown in the image. Then stick those two edges together—glue facing glue—to make a triangle shaped cone. Rub any excess glue until it comes off.

You can now fill your trees with candy! I made these to send to a family of four. I wasn’t sure how much candy would fit inside the trees so I took one of the smallest and one of the largest trees to a store with candy bins (this is by FAR the cheapest way to get a variety of candy.) This allowed me to see about how many treats I could fit into one tree and buy accordingly.

Once full, close up your trees by inserting the tabs into the slots.

Using a paint brush—I used a fan brush—swipe some gold paint on all three sides of the top tip of each tree. Now, you could stop here and call it done! But...

If you decided to buy “trunks” you’ll use hot glue to attach a wooden block to the base of each tree. Use the large blocks for the large trees and so forth.

And now you’re done! Your Christmas Tree / Alpine Advent calendar is ready to give away or use yourself! If you missed the link to download the tree templates, click or tap here.