Usually I’m to be found on the night of the 30 November desperately pulling together our DIY advent calendar. I had a couple of days off work last week – the kids were at school, I had no grand plans, I was just in need of some down time – and so I made us a new advent calendar for this year. I’m not going to write lots of instructions because it’s a really simple make. I cut 15cm (ish) squares out of white tissue paper. I planned out our daily advent activities (based on these from a few years… View Post

It’s nearly December and I can’t believe that I actually managed to make my own advent calendar in good time this time (if you haven’t seen my Ikea hack advent calendar do go and check it out). If you like the idea of a homemade advent calendar but haven’t got round to sorting yours yet, or don’t think your craft skills are quite up to the challenge of making one completely from scratch, I’ve pulled together my favourite DIY advent calendars that come complete with free printable and/or templates to help make life a little easier. Some of these are… View Post

Last Christmas I loved our DIY copper advent calendar that I’d made the previous year so much I decided I didn’t need a new one. But this week I got the craft itch, and I felt a little festive, so I’ve made this contemporary advent calendar out of a cheap hanging organiser I got a while back from Ikea. An Ikea hack and a homemade advent calendar in one hit.. not bad, eh? Making the calendar also prompted me to plan out our advent activities for December. It’s become a family tradition for our advent calendar to contain a little festive activity every day of advent rather than a sweet,… View Post

Following on from my homemade Advent calendar earlier this week, I wanted to share our list of Advent activities for December. We don’t have a chocolate or gift calendar, instead each day has its own special activity or treat. I try to tie these in with the things we have fixed in the diary already (such as the school nativity play, or the trip to the pantomime), and then I find other activities to suit each day, depending on what else we have planned. Some involve being out and about, others are quiet things that the kids can do at… View Post

Thanks for all the love for my DIY copper advent calendar I shared earlier this week, but do you know what it’s lacking? Some colour! So to balance that out I’ve got ten of my favourite DIY advent calendar tutorials from across the web that are bursting with bright colour and fun.. Source: This Little Street Source: A Beautiful Mess Source: Oh Happy Day Source: The Fox And Star Source: The Lovely Drawer Source: Ebabee Source: Rosehip Cards Source: Saskia rund um die uhr Source: Le plus bel age Source: Bonne Maman