Christmas in July: Homemade Advent Calendar

Happy Christmas…in July! Actual Christmas will be here before we know it and one thing I’ve always wanted to do was to have an advent calendar for my family.  My children love counting down til Christmas (or any holiday) and I have never been able to bring myself to buy an expensive advent calendar.  So we typically either have a cheap one filled with cheap chocolate or do nothing.  So this year I wanted to get ahead of the game, and come up with a fast and simple homemade advent calendar that we could customize for our family!

So I came up with this cute way to countdown to Christmas using simple white kraft bags.

What I love about using the bags is that we can add a story, a scripture, a fun activity to do, a service opportunity or even a piece of yummy delicious candy to them!  I can change it up every year, or each bag can be different.  I can completely customize this homemade advent calendar in any way I want without a lot of effort.  I really love how this turned out!

Supplies needed to make your own homemade advent calendar:

• White Kraft Paper Bags
• Hole Punch
• Red and White Baker’s Twine
• Jute Cord
• Martha Stewart’s Adhesive Stencil Typwritter Font
• Stencil Brush or Foam Brush
• Black Craft Paint

These stencils are so easy to use, you just stick them on, paint and take them off again!  They are reusable and they do really well at preventing bleeding too.

I started out using a foam brush, but it was a little big, so part way through my project I switched to a stencil brush. Either will work!

After all of the numbers were stenciled on the bags (1-24), I simply punched two holes at the top of each bag.

I then used both jute cord and baker’s twine to thread through each hole and hang.

I love the natural look of the jute, but the red and white gives a little fun and Christmas-spirit and color to the project!

You can fill these homemade advent calendar bags with whatever you want!  My family will definitely prefer them stuffed with treats!  But you can definitely customize this to your family’s preference and needs.

I love how my homemade advent calendar turned out!  It is so simple to make and inexpensive too.  And my family can’t wait until December 1st to use this!

Ashley

Ashley is an interior designer turned DIY / Craft Blogger located in the Indianapolis area. Her passion for interior design grew into a love of creating and one day she just decided to start blogging about it, at Simply Designing! Ashley loves power tools and her hot glue gun, but her sewing machine slightly scares her. She loves life, finds joy in the simple things, and is a firm believer that a good cup of hot chocolate or ice cream cures most things.