Advent calendars are one of my favourite parts of the festive season. The countdown builds the excitement and gets everyone in the Christmas mood! There are tons of chocolate advent calendars that come out each year but lets be honest – they get pretty boring pretty quickly.
I started making our own calendars a few years ago and my mom made us a big fabric one with little pockets in that we can pop stuff into each year. I love it because it can be reused each year and it is nice and big so is a big part of the decor!
But there are so many fun ideas that you can do to create sustainable advent calendars.
DIY Brown Envelopes
I have done something similar before and you can have a lot of fun with it. You can add in chocolates, little sticker packs, notes – anything really. You can stick the numbers on the front of the envelope so you can reuse them a few times.
Fabric Calendar
Our calendar is similar to this – it is just a little bigger and my mom used festive fabric but the idea is the same. Again, you can add pretty much anything you want to into the little pockets depending on the size of them. My mom made our pockets nice and big so we can add 6 little chocolates into each pocket for all the grandkids.
Paper House
I have seen this idea before and it is so cool. You can create a whole decor piece in your entrance way. You would probably need to keep the goodies inside pretty small if you have more than one kiddo but it is still a really great idea that you can reuse a few times.
Paper Pockets
This is very similar to the brown envelops above but I love how these all hang off the wood. You can make them any colour and if your kids open then carefully they can also be reused along with the bulldog clips.
Fabric Bags
These little bags have been made from second hand clothes which is pretty cool and a great way to upcycle old clothes. If you have a little girl she will probably love these little bags for their dolls once they have been opened. Or you can keep them to reuse.
What do your advent calendars look like?
8 Responses
We don’t usually do advent calendars here. My mom once got me one full of Harry Potter-themed socks and a lego one for the boys. We have a few countdown decorations, and one is made from all fabric and it’s my boys’ favorites.
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Every year I spend so much time trying to find store bought advent calendars. Not only are these more sustainable but they are so much cuter!
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How creative you are! Those are so beautiful.
These are such cute ideas!!!! I would love to receive an small gift while counting down to christmas. This isn’t really part of the culture in the philippines tho haha. Looks expensive.
Awwh these are great and such lovely ideas. I will have to show my sister for inspo for my young neices!
These are such cute ideas for an advent calendar. I never thought of doing it that way. I mean it’s not like I have ever done an advent calendar before, but I always wanted to. I just hated wasting a box or plastic bits.
These are all so cute and I am all about the brown paper bag style. So adorable and I can do that in my new home this Christmas 😉 The plaid set is really cute too!
I love the little houses they are so clever and fun.