Sparkly Ornament Advent Calendar

Well ho ho ho hello there! Can you believe how fast Christmas is coming?! Breathe Jo-Anna…breathe. Deep breaths. We got this. 😉 I’m really going to try hard not to stress this year. I want us all to enjoy the season…because the season is what our family looks forward to so much…the month of Christmas baking and music and decoration and gatherings with friends & family.

To kick off the season, like many of you, we have advent calendars to count down to the big day. I usually buy those candy or picture advent calendars, but this year I wanted to do something a little different and make my own. I was inspired by this advent calendar that I saw on Bower Power blog a couple of years ago, so when I received a box of ornaments in the mail recently, I knew they would make an amazing advent calendar.

This is a really simple advent calendar…all you need is a picture frame and 25 ornaments – one to hang on the Christmas tree each day!

The idea with this advent calendar is that there is a unique ornament for each day leading up to Christmas that the kids can hang on our tree.

Here’s How To:

Materials:

A picture frame
A piece of cork board to fit the frame
Paper or fabric to cover the cork board
25 paper key tags (you can find these in any office supply store)
25 silver push pins
25 ornaments
number stamps & silver stamping ink
Large ribbon for hanging the frame.

Instructions:

First choose a frame for your calendar, then string through a 2 1/2 foot long ribbon for hanging.
Then cut a piece of cork board to fit the frame, and wrap it in paper or fabric. I liked this sparkly wrapping paper, as it was very forgiving when I needed to move around the push pins…it hid tiny holes well.
Place the covered cork board firmly into the frame.
Chose 25 different ornaments to hang in the frame.
To mark each day, you can use paper key tags, and stamp them with the number of the day.
Now it’s time to hang the ornaments! First lay out the ornaments approximately where you would like to hang them.
Use a push pin to first hang the date tag, then the ornament.

That’s it! SO simple!

Here’s what mine looked like all done! Sparkly, fun & festive!

The fun part of making your own advent calendar is you can tailor it to your own Christmas decor. Have fun with colours, textures and different kinds of ornaments!

Here are some ideas for your calendar:

Use a picture frame that you can hang on your wall each season.
Or put heavy duty magnets on the back of the frame so that you can hang it on your fridge.
Keep the background on the frame neutral so you can change the ornaments every year. I just used silver sparkly wrapping paper.

Instead of tree ornaments you can hang:

Little envelopes with Christmas messages.
Or put a little note in an envelope that has a seasonal activity to do for that day: things like skating, make hot chocolate, go for a walk, bake cookies…
You can hang little bags filled with candy.
Fill envelopes or little boxes with tiny treasures like money, earrings, erasers…fun little dollar store items.