Easy, Fast and Beautiful Advent Calendar

Time flies, and it’s only a little more than a month until Christmas. If you need a last-minute advent calendar which is easy to make, looks great and doesn’t cost a fortune, go on reading:

The basis for each calendar is a simple 12×12 sheet of scrapbooking paper glued to a 12×12 piece of sturdy cardboard. As I love to repurpose stuff, I use old covers of vinyl records ;)

You further need:
paper glue
scissors, cutter knife, cutting mat
a 3/4 inch circle punch or stamps/stickers with numbers
thin ribbon
hole punch, for example the Crop-a-Dile
24 printed stories/recipes/quotes
if you like, my file with premade numbers

I used a 3/4 inch circle punch to create numbers which match the colors of my paper. If you like, you can use the numbers-in-circles design (download in step 2), print and punch (3 color schemes on one sheet).

Alternatively, use stickers or number stamps, whatever you like.

Beneath the numbers, I used my crop-a-dile to punch small holes through the calendar. If you don’t have a crop-a-dile, you can use an eyelet tool or a hole punch out of daddy’s toolbox. Punch two extra holes in the upper left and right corner, so the calendar can be hung to the wall.

As you can see, I chose to stamp the numbers directly on the dots of this beautiful paper.
I chose 24 short stories, poems, recipes etc. and printed them on high quality paper. I folded and/or rolled the sheets, tied them to a pretty ribbon and threaded the ribbons through the calendars’ holes. A square knot on the back – that’s it. I used a small IKEA Allen wrench to push the ribbons through the holes. If you give the calendar to a couple, you can use two different ribbon colors for them to take turns in opening the gifts.

The calendar will look great, anyway, but you can add embellishments which appear underneath the gifts. Here I chose to attach a snowflake which I tinted with alcohol inks.

Some ideas what to add as gifts:

Poems, recipes, jokes, seasonal short stories, vouchers, a list of "what I love about you", quotations, song lyrics, web links...

Please share your ideas!