{How To} Make an advent calendar with a difference

This post is rather out of sync I’m afraid – it should really have been posted back at the beginning of December but it was such a scrabble to even get a calendar sorted in time, that posting about it fell to the wayside.

This calendar is another one inspired by this year’s Ideal Home’s Complete Guide To Christmas and was dreamt up by the wonderful Joanna Thornhill – you can see her post about it here.

I nabbed Joanna’s cones after the photo shoot, and chose a spot high enough that the twins couldn’t pick them off the wall, one by one. Instead of filling the cones with sweets, chocolates or toys we went with Emily’s idea for a chocolate free advent. Each cone holds a folded up piece of paper with a festive activity or treat written on it – from ‘visiting Santa’, to the more simple ‘reading a Christmas story’ – along with a badly drawn picture to illustrate it.

The cones were made from old loo rolls, and covered in striped wrapping paper. The number stickers were from The Oak Room, and the cones are attached to our blackboard wall using mini pegs stuck to the wall with white tack. It’s been a real hit with the twins, and I think it will become a family tradition to be repeated in many years to come.