Make Your Own Advent Calendar With Clothespins & Wood
Doesn't time fly? It'll be Christmas again in just over a month and advent calendars are one of the few things you need to have ready for your loved ones by the end of November at the very latest. While you can simply buy one at the store, homemade calendars usually generate more enthusiasm among the little ones. It's not too hard to make the thing either, as the following video proves!
You'll Need:
- pieces of wood at 1 ft, 1 ft 3 in, 1 ft 6 in, 1 ft 9 in, 2 ft, and 3 ft in length
- 2 pieces of wood at 9 inches in length
- wood glue
- green, brown, dark red, and white acrylic paint
- 24 clothespins
- hot glue gun
- 24 paper bags
- 24 stickers, e.g. golden stars
- fairy lights
- 1 large star made of cardboard
Here's How:
First, take the longest piece of wood and glue down the other pieces of wood along the center of it at regular intervals. The piece of wood that's 1 ft in length comes first at the top and is followed by the larger pieces of wood in ascending order of size. Right at the bottom, glue down one of the pieces of wood that's 9 inches in length.
After leaving the glue to dry, start by painting to entire front side of your tree green except for the piece of wood right at the bottom. The smallest piece of wood is instead painted brown. Leave the paint to dry and turn the tree onto its reverse side.
Now glue on the second piece of wood that's 9 inches in length on this side in the same position as its counterpart. Next, paint the reverse side of the tree green and the smallest piece of wood brown. Leave the paint to dry.
It's now time to paint the clothespins with red and white stripes, so that they look like candy sticks. Glue them onto the front side of the tree as shown in the image below.
Here's probably the hardest part: you'll need to show a bit of creativity for each of the 24 days when filling the paper bags with your loved ones' favorite treats.
Now attach the paper bags to the tree using the clothespins and stick on the golden stars numbered 1 to 24.
To give your masterpiece that festive touch, attach a large star to the top of the tree and wrap fairy lights around the pieces of wood. All you have to do now is wait for December 1st!
It's wonderful to give the little ones (and perhaps also grown-ups) a little bundle of joy to start the day each morning. The effort will certainly be worth it!