DIY Advent Calendar

Advent is just nearly upon us - the meaning of the term means coming or arrival.  We celebrate the joy of the birth of our Savior, the truth and power of his presence in our lives and anticipation and hope we have of Christ's return.  We did this together as a family last year and I am so looking forward to taking the time each day together to remember what this precious time of year is about to us.  We put a passage of scripture in each package to read together each day and even though Silas is just two my prayer is that these little moments are the beginning of a foundation of faith he will one day have.

So here's our little DIY Advent Calendar I made this year...

                              

It was super easy and I used some things I found at the dollar store, some things I already had and some things I had ordered from a really sweet etsy shop.

1.  I got all of these sweet little goodies from Paper & Present on etsy.  She had great prices and great customer service!  I received my package really quick - check her shop out!

2.  I found these red and white striped treat boxes at the dollar store.  They came in packs of six and also come with round tags (which I used) and clear little baggies - which will be really cute later on for little christmas cookies and such (double score).

So I decided to do twelve red & white striped boxes and twelve black & white chevron bags - here's how I assembled them:

1. I used leftover chalkboard tags that I had made for this project (I made extra in case I ever wanted to use them for other things).

2.  I also decided to use the round tags that came in the package - I just flipped them over, used a black permanent marker and a little red & white bakers twine to pretty it up.

3. I rummaged through my paper scraps and found some red & white checkered paper to used with the chevron bags and simply wrote the numbers on them as well.  

4.  Yay!  All of my little countdown packages were coming together.  

5.  Next thing was to grab the twine and decide on how many little spots I needed to hang things on.  I simply used duct tape to keep these little guys up - I'm keeping it simple.

The last thing was to hang up my little packages with clothespins (I used both mini and regular size) and I was all done!  Now its just waiting for us to fill them up and start counting down.

I'm so excited its now christmastime, I just love every part of it.  Do any of you have advent calendars or other Christmas traditions?  Do share!!

PS: Our Advent Calendar from Last Year  - here.

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