Now is the time to start planning homemade advent calendars. Ok it’s a bit early but I am determined not to have a frantic scramble on December the 1st to get one together. This year I wanted a new idea for our Christmas activities. I find Christmas a bit hectic and stressful because I want to do everything. I have so many things I want to do with the children and I always run out of time. This year I am going to plan what we are doing a bit more so I don’t feel stressed and end up packing everything into one day. oh who am I kidding I’m going to do that anyway.
How To Make Homemade Advent Calendar
I wanted to make a homemade advent calendar to contain a list of the activity we will do that day. I also had a lot of packing noodles which came in the boxes which have started to arrive from ebay and amazon. these are those white noodles which stop the items from breaking and I love to use for craft. I knew they would make perfect little snowmen. This is quite a complicated craft for me as it uses so many materials. It is very cute though so it’s worth it.
Materials To Make A Homemade Advent Calendar
For the snowmen
- ribbon
- sticky bits
- white packing noodles
- tiny goggly eyes
- black craft foam
- orange Hama beads
- wooden pegs
For the envelopes
- small brown envelopes
- red and green wash tape
- red and green sticky numbers
I wasn’t intending to make these with the twins – I thought it would be way too fiddly, as they are only 3. I was just setting it up to do with Molly who is six. Rose saw what I was making and was desperate to make some too. She loves tiny things and the combination of tiny beads goggly eyes and ribbon got her very excited.
The snowmen for the advent calendar are made with a packing noodle squashed flat. I put a layer of tacky flue on and Rose stuck on a bow, little goggly eyes and an orange Hama bead for the carrot nose. I made the hats from black craft foam cut into shape.
We used alternate green and red bows to make them look very Christmassy. After they had dried I stuck them onto a wooden clothes peg with some sticky bits.
Rose loved them so much she wanted to make her own little snowman family using the other colours for bows. She didn’t want to put hats on them as they are baby snowmen. Then she stuck them in a ice cube tray for a bed and covered them in a cloth so they went to sleep. They were great for a bit of sneaky counting practice too!
Next I made the envelopes. these are simple brown envelopes with a line of Christmas wash tape at the top and bottom. They have a number for each day.
After that we hung them up on a line of silver thread.
Inside I am going to put a card with Christmas activities to do.
Other Advent Calendar ideas
- Put up the advent calendars.
- Make Christmas cards.
- Elf on a Shelf arrives
- Make decorations.
- Bake mince pies
- Make paper chains.
- Learn a Christmas carol
- Visit the Christmas market
- Twins club Christmas party
- Ice the Christmas cake
- Buy the Christmas tree
- Watch the Polar express
- Hand deliver Christmas cards
- Sing Christmas carol for relatives
- Nativity play
- Make Christmas biscuits
- Put up the tree
- Decorate the house.
- Go to a Pantomime
- Visit the Christmas market.
- Make a Yule Log
- Write letters to Santa
- Watch The Snowman
- Put out milk and mince pie for Santa
- CHRISTMAS! Open presents
Have I Missed Anything?
Have A Look At Our Other Advent Ideas
For our advent calendar of Christmas books and films look here.
For our tree shaped advent calendar of Christmas books look here.
For our Snowmen homemade advent calendar look here.
For another alternative advent calendar have a look at this decoration idea from last year.
If you like this idea then make sure you are following me on Pinterest. I have a board dedicated to fun Christmas ideas.
For all of our Christmas idea in one place – check out our Christmas activities for kids which I keep updated as I add a new idea.
For more Christmas ideas make sure you are following my Christmas Pinterest board and keep a look out on Facebook. Christmas starts here!
