advent calender ideas

[alicia622]

I want to make an advent calender- one with space for a little treat- not the kind you move a marker from day to day. And I'd like it to be used year to year. I can sew a bit and knit a bit but no woodworking skills although I am open to painting

Any awesome idea? Pictures are greatly appreciated.

[JTA Mom]

I'd be interested in any ideas on this too!

So far, I've been thinking that one of those plastic multi-storage things would work if decorated adequately. The type that beaders use to store their bead.

Other than that, I'm thinking maybe a board with thin strips of molding/baseboard glued on to it and covered by a cloth 'facing'.

As you can tell I haven't had many great ideas either, lol.

Ami

[LaughingHyena]

I have my childhood one which is 24 felt stockings sewn onto a backing cloth.

I am wondering about knitting some mini stockings and stringing them up with mini clothes pegs. I doubt I will knit enough to make an advent calender this year so we'll just hang them on the tree.

Here's the pattern I plan to use
http://www.joyknits.com/xms_stk2.html

[klewaidz]

Here are a couple from Martha Stewart - This one uses match boxes and would be a great kid project.

I like this one too. Although I may use mittens instead of sock, or make felt stockings....
k

[Think of Winter]

I made one last year that was inspired by the Pottery Barn fabric wall hanging. I don't have a photo online, but if you pm me your email address, I'll send you a picture. I don't love it, but it might give you some ideas. It's basically a big rectangle of heavy upholstery fabric with a pocket sewn on for each day. The pockets are lots of shapes and sizes (squares, rectangles, a tree, holly, a stocking, etc.) made of scraps I had. I put the numbers on with glitter glue.

Do you have an Ikea nearby? They used to sell wooden boxes with lots of tiny drawers, maybe 12 each. You could stack them, and paint each drawer. That would give you more room. I found it hard to find treats for each day that weren't candy. I ended up putting a lot of little messages in it, like "Let's get our Christmas tree today!" and "Let's make Christmas cookies!"

For Halloween, I bought a cardboard advent calendar from the Chinaberry catalogue, and my kids like it just as much.

[Calidris]

Our grandmother made one for us as children which was a Christmas tree painted on a piece of fabric, with 24 small rings sewn in as decorations. Small gifts or treats were wrapped and tied to the rings and opened each day.

[4evermom]

I saw a pretty felt one that was a partridge in a pear tree theme. Lots of pears in a pretty shade of green on an ivory background with gold beads sewn on. It was a poorly made thing but gave a nice effect. I think some of the pockets were super shallow, like 1/2 inch. I wanted to do a more functional version.

[ellemnop]

I just finished one made out of linen and am making two more out of Christmas fabrics with the same pattern. There are some pictures of it on my blog www.elegantscrapsandswaps.blogspot.com - It's the second calendar in the current post. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and you could do it with less or no embroidery to make it more simple. It actually wasn't a bear to cut out or sew together, it was the embroidery that took so long.

Take care,
El

[nurturebaby]

Here's a cute one from Pottery Barn: http://www.potterybarnkids.com/produ...key=gthmocchod

[*Jessica*]

I love the Pottery Barn one! Here's another idea from JoAnns in PDF format.

Advent Stocking Garland

[pampered_mom]

I saw one at Target today that looked like it'd be pretty easy to make. It was basically like a wreath. There was a blue cardboard circle with a hold in the middle and then all around the circle there were these little round gift boxes of different sizes that had the numbers on them.

[AKchick]

I really like that Pottery Barn calendar and the Joann Fabrics idea!

[forest~mama]

Originally Posted by AKchick

I really like that Pottery Barn calendar and the Joann Fabrics idea!

Me too! I got a Pottery Barn Kids catalogue the other day and was drooling over the tree one. I think you could just glue things onto your pockets, and maybe even glue the pockets themselves on, instead of sewing. I plan to make one this year

[HipGal]

I made one last year with pockets. You can see it here:

http://alittlewonky.com/2008/10/27/our-advent-calendar/

It has linen in the back and the pockets are various quilting cottons. It turned out pretty nice! I still haven't figured out how to hang it, though. Maybe put some grommets in? Or I could put a dowel through the top and hang it from a string... Last year I just clipped it to a magnet board, but it was really too heavy to do that.

[AngelBee]

:

[AngelBee]

Originally Posted by klewaidz

Here are a couple from Martha Stewart - This one uses match boxes and would be a great kid project.

I like this one too. Although I may use mittens instead of sock, or make felt stockings....
k

Where do you get match boxes like that?

[Jojo F.]

The Crafty Crow has some great ideas.

We plan on making one of them tomorrow.

[IntuitiveJamie]

I finally uploaded to photobucket...
Here is an advent calendar I made several years ago. It was my first ever sewing project and it's how I taught myself to sew. So it's def. not perfect but I really love it and get so excited to pull it out every December. I now have two little babes that can help pull out the ornaments each day to place on the tree. The last one is the Christmas star on top.
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...t/IMG_2234.jpg
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...t/IMG_2232.jpg
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5...t/IMG_2229.jpg

That year I made them I made 7 of them I think. My gosh it was a lot of work but each one was tailored by the fabric to fit the person receiving it. Overall I would not say this is a difficult sewing project. Obviously if it was my very first and I did it, then it can't be too hard!

[tinasquirrel]

I'm making one inspired by the PBK one. It's still in progress but I'm finished with 14 of 24 pockets. You can see it on my blog (in my siggy).

[wombatclay]

I made one the other night since I wanted a solstice calendar (so 21 days, not 25). Basically a piece of black felt with a "winter landscape"... the snowy ground is white yarn, the evergreen trees fuzzy green yarn, and then there are 21 "O" shaped beads sewn to the background... each night the girls will hang a snowflake from a bead and on solstice they'll hang a fancier snowflake/sun.

The bottom of the fabric is folded over to make a pocket... I left it as one big pocket but you could just sew lines to make as many pockets as you needed. Or instead of beads you could make snowflake pockets.

The pictures aren't great (it needs some tweaking... this was totally free-hand/make it up as you go since I had a completely different calendar planned at the start)... follow the dancing girl link in my sig for pictures.

Hanging- I use a lot of drapery hangers to hang stuff up. In the drapery/curtain/window aisle or the bathroom aisle (for shower curtains). They're little alligator clips attached to hooks. They can damage delicate/heavy fabrics but they might be the easiest option...