Ideas for an Advent calendar?

[Think of Winter]

I really want the Kathe Kruse advent elf, but I won't spend $100 (or even $50 after Christmas.) Does anyone have ideas for an advent calendar I could make? I can sew. My sister suggested an advent paper chain with a different Christmas-y thing to do on each link. I love this idea, but I might want to do little gifts, too. By the way, the Kathe Kruse elf is an elf-shaped wall hanging with pockets for each day. It looks like it would be a pita to make

[FillingMyQuiver]

nak
one idea is to do a row of stockings, like here:

Soule Mama, Uncommon Grace

you could also make a simple wall hanging w/ pockets, similar to Pottery Barn's Thanksgiving calendar

or a stocking w/ pockets, ala Pottery Barn again

If you google make your own advent calendar, there's quite a few ideas that come up.

[MountainLovinMama]

My mom made an advent garland for my kids - she dyed 24 little knitted socks red, embroidered numbers on each one, sewed on a few festive buttons and holiday decorations (bells at the toe, etc), and we hang them on a long wide red ribbon across a wide window. I stuff each with a small treat, a small ornament, notes, etc - and a little bit of holly or greens sticking out of each one.

[adtake]

Originally Posted by MountainLovinMama

My mom made an advent garland for my kids - she dyed 24 little knitted socks red, embroidered numbers on each one, sewed on a few festive buttons and holiday decorations (bells at the toe, etc), and we hang them on a long wide red ribbon across a wide window. I stuff each with a small treat, a small ornament, notes, etc - and a little bit of holly or greens sticking out of each one.

What am amazing thing to do with left over, lost socks!! I LOVE THIS!! going to share with moms group!!

[LaughingHyena]

I love the string of socks idea.

Ours is 24 little felt socks sewn on to a wall hanging. The background fabric is decorated too though I can;t remeber how. It was mine as a child and my parents passed it on last year for DD and DS.

[mamaoriana]

Hi everyone, I just wanted to mention that I will be doing a post next week about the advent calendar with lots, and lots, and lots of ideas for gifts to put in it. I'm going to try to have it ready for Monday.

xo

[Think of Winter]

Originally Posted by mamaoriana

Hi everyone, I just wanted to mention that I will be doing a post next week about the advent calendar with lots, and lots, and lots of ideas for gifts to put in it. I'm going to try to have it ready for Monday.xo

Ooh, can't wait!
I am cutting mine now, so I'll be looking for things to put in it soon. Thanks everyone!

[Miss Information]

subbing for ideas

[bellabear]

Does anyone have a design for stockings?

[mamaoriana]

I posted on my blog today about the advent calendar. On Wednesday, I'll add another post about all the little gifties you can put inside, and on Friday I'll post about the tradition of the advent wreath. I hope it helps!

[Callimom]

We have an advent calendar I made. It's a large piece of cream felt (about 24 x 30 inches) and I sewed a green felt Christmas tree onto it. Each day we attach a felt ornament to the tree. The ornaments have little pockets in them and in there are notes about how we will celebrate each day. Some are easy - read an extra seasonal story at bedtime, have a "Christmas bath", make hot chocolate w candy cane stirers (sp?) Others are more elaborate - make our gingerbread house, see a seasonal concert, make cards etc.

hth
Karen

[CallMeKelly]

http://www.atoygarden.com/index.cfm?...roduct_ID=2063

Not sure if the above is anything like the elf you were talking about but...
If you already have any clothed dolls around just sew pockets on their clothes or even find some newborn clothes in Xmas colors... even better just stitch witch or hot glue the pockets on. Or use a pair of dolls or more so the pockets are big enough to hold what you like.

http://www.atoygarden.com/index.cfm?...roduct_ID=2064 sewing pockets on an apron to put on the doll(s) would be even easier!

[ladyslipper]

Originally Posted by colleen95

I really want the Kathe Kruse advent elf, but I won't spend $100 (or even $50 after Christmas.) Does anyone have ideas for an advent calendar I could make? I can sew. My sister suggested an advent paper chain with a different Christmas-y thing to do on each link. I love this idea, but I might want to do little gifts, too. By the way, the Kathe Kruse elf is an elf-shaped wall hanging with pockets for each day. It looks like it would be a pita to make

I loved the Advent elf too, I am trying to reproduce it myself because I don't want to pay that price. I'll post a picture if I come close to the cuteness of the kathy kruse elf.

[Belleweather]

What about using small boxes? We got some little gift boxes and glued them into rows, decreasing each row by one box and centering them until we got a Christmas Tree Shape. I painted the whole thing green, and then painted the numbers of the days on each box. We put little chocolates in each box with a thought for advent and empty one out each day.

[Mom2-4Gs]

I thought this one is pretty cool and this one too.

They're a little different from the other ones but I still like them.

[eloise24]

I am absolutely loving these Advent Boxes . If you look around her blog, there are examples of ones she made and ones made by others (the original idea came from Martha Stewart, I believe).

I bought my boxes last week and can't wait to decide how I want to decorate them!

[naturemama1]

One of my favorite holiday crafts! We've done a bunch.

This year I ordered a pack of 6x6" Christmas scrapbook papers, and we used 25 of them to fold into origami envelopes. We strung those on a string and hung them as a garland from one of our fireplace mantles. The "goodies" inside are a collection of little things, everything from an idea for an activity we'll do together that day (like the day that the town does free train rides and Christmas carolling around town, or the library's tree lighting party, or a service project we have scheduled), to a couple of stickers, to instructions for where to hunt and find a hidden Christmas book to read together, to a pretty gift tag where I've written down something that we can all be thankful for and pray about that morning.

As another one this year, I ordered blank match boxes from Oriental Trading Co. (they call them craft boxes), and covered them in some of the other scrapbook papers, so we have 25 tiny decorated boxes. I'm finishing gathering together a collection of mini treats to tuck inside the boxes (again, very inexpensive and simple -- two beads that we'll use to make necklaces that day, two jellybeans, two stickers), and I have a dozen different ideas about ways to display them. I looked around the web for inspiration and found LOTS -- some different types of matchbox advent projects are here:
http://kiddley.com/2006/11/22/fill-y...ith-activities
http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jsp?sto...8229594673.xml
http://lostbuttonstudio.blogspot.com...-calendar.html
http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/...RD&rsc=related
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44135464@N00/2051313219
http://flickr.com/photos/10806782@N08/1368216154/
http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/...sc=also_try_p7


I also used the pattern on this website to make some embroidered felt envelopes last year. I may string these across another one of our fireplace mantles, or we might chop down a teeny-tiny sapling from our backyard and make a miniature Christmas tree display to hang the envelopes from. Or ooh, maybe the "thing" can be finding each day's envelope on the tree and moving it to the garland.
http://allsorts.typepad.com/allsorts.../now_what.html

It's not too late, if you want to do something with your little ones! The envelopes can be folded in a couple of hours, tops, and you can look at your town's schedule of community festivities, brainstorm some indoor craft projects, or write down particular books you'll read that day. LOs love the surprise of opening something up and the anticipation of counting the days; they don't need "stuff" inside.

If nothing else, make a paper chain to count down to the holidays. We've done a multi-holiday one -- inspired by this blog post:
http://dawnathome.typepad.com/by_sun...rchain-wi.html -- incorporating Christmas, our new baby's due date, January crafts, Valentine's Day, and family birthdays. Simply taking off a chain is its own reward at this age!

[akvtmama]

This thread is just what I needed! I am inspired

[NamastePlatypus]

Southern Living had a cute idea, get little metal buckets and number them with a little goodie in it and hnag them on the tree to find.

[Think of Winter]

Thanks for all the great ideas, mamas! I decided to do a wall hanging with pockets, and naturally it is taking a lot longer than I'd planned. I'll post pics when it's done. Love to see more ideas for things to tuck in the pockets, especially natural/waldorfy things/not purchased things.