advent calendar

I love advent calendars. There are so many different and creative ways to do them! Max is old enough now to understand the idea of counting down to something, so I knew I wanted to have my act together and make a little advent calendar for him and Cora. So, in typical Abby fashion, I started this calendar last night at 9:00.

It honestly didn't take too long. I was going to photograph the whole process for you, but it was dark, and pictures with just the flash are not pretty. Plus, it was pretty simple, so I thought I could just explain it!

1. I have a big roll of plain, regular weight brown craft paper. (Thanks Carissa...I think you gave this paper roll to me. I use it for all kinds of stuff!) I cut 50 rectangles that measured 5x7 inches.

2. Next I used some acrylic paint and number stamps to mark the days on the little rectangles.

3. I made little sandwiches out of one piece of plain paper and one that had a number on it. I used the sewing machine to stitch around the sides and bottom of each one to make a little pocket. Cute!!

Andrew helped me hang it up when we were done. We actually just put two nails in the wall and strung a ribbon between the two. (Our living room walls are coming down in January, so this was the easiest thing to do!) I had a package of miniature clothespins that we used to clip the little pockets to the ribbon.

We had to hang it high enough to keep the kids out of it. I did give them a little speech this morning about being good and not peeking into the pockets. We'll see how they do!