Advent Calendar

I have a confession. I LOVE advent calendars. Love, love, love them. I think it is a great way to mark down the days until Christmas with great anticipation. It makes something exciting every day of the month, not just on Christmas day. It makes us more mindful of what the season is really about.

Here is the advent calendar I made 3 years ago:


I still love it, and will likely keep it forever. My kids were so tiny!

I have seen a lot of really cool ideas floating around in blogland. I am pretty sure I have contemplated making just about every one of them. I told you I LOVE advent calendars. So this year, I made this for us:


What? I feel like you are unimpressed. Not festive enough? Ok, how about this?


I am looking to find some great magnetic letters so I could put Merry Christmas on the top. The whole thing can be taken down after Christmas and returned to a regular magnetic board. Festive and functional.

I will admit, I like that it is magnetic and can be re purposed, but the boxes not lined up precisely...is kind of driving me crazy!

I started by painting my frame red. This Christmas we really don't have much red out though, so I changed my mind. I love the Heritage White for keeping up year round anyways.

If I could go back and start over, I would have painted the box numbers in black...oh well. The boxes came from Michaels craft store. They are a fairly heavy duty paper mache box. Mine were not on sale. I will definitely be on the lookout for the next big sale on these guys.


I stamped each box with a number for the day of the month using rubber stamps. Something was off. The red from the ink pad wasn't coming out red enough, and it just didn't have enough oomph. So, I decided to add some sparkle.


I traced each number with Elmer's Glue and then added some red glitter.


I think the little extra touch made all the difference in the world. I also made Christmas day a bigger package and tied a raw silk ribbon around it to show extra importance for the day.

I would love to see what your Advent Calendar looks like. Send me a link and I will come and take a peek! Merry Christmas!