Welcome to our first-ever WCS holiday extravaganza! We've prepared a month full of doable ideas for gifts, yummy things to eat, photos to take, cool decorations, great giveaways, a handy gift guide or two... whew. You won't want to miss a single day! Without further delay, let's get down to business, shall we?
Advent Calendar #1:
matchbox advent calendar by Jody Dent-Pruks
A Note From Jody
I made this advent calendar
for my parents, and I also made one for my kids and a friends kids (never feel
like you have to reinvent the wheel…if you are on a good thing, stick with it!)
I bought cheap boxes of
matches, removed the matches and then covered the little boxes in coordinating
Christmas paper. I have since discovered that you can now buy little boxes this
size in some craft stores, so that would work as well.
I used metal tags with a
number from 1 – 24 on the top of each box and some ribbon around each box for
decoration. I filled each box with a
small sweet or chocolate, a Christmas wish or quote, or a small tree decoration
and layered them in a tall glass vase I found on a bargain table for $15.00.
I wrapped some more ribbon
around the vase and added a larger metal tag and a small making memories metal
embellishment.
Everyone loved their
countdown to Christmas.
Advent Calendar #2:
boxed advent calendar by Jody Dent-Pruks
A Note From Jody
I made this advent calendar
for my parents, and wanted to do something a little different than just opening
up a box with a treat inside.
I had been going through some
old photos and had come across a few Christmas ones that bought back so many
memories for me. I thought it would be fun to gather these photos into a
“memory gift”.
I took a plain Kraft box
(about 6.5” x 6.5” square), covered it in patterned paper, inked the edges and
put a small handle on top. This box was the perfect size
for the 6” x 6” pre-cut white cards (and envelopes) I had purchased for this
project. I used a shipping tag, added computer journaling and inked the edges,
and then I tied it to the box with coordinating ribbon. I scanned all the old photos
and resized them 3” x 3” and printed them out. The cards fit in my printer
so I just made a template to make a black border on the front of each card and
ran them all through at one time. Then I flipped them and journaled each
“memory” inside the cards. Finally I stuck the photos on the front of each
card.
There was a short note explaining that each morning the recipient was to open one of the 24 envelopes to reveal a Christmas Memory. Just be careful with this gift…my Mum cried (good, happy crying) every single morning from 1 – 24 December!!!!!
Advent Calendar #3:
tree advent calendar by Jody Dent-Pruks
A Note From Jody
A version of this advent
calendar appeared in the December 2008 issue of Australian Home Beautiful
magazine and I fell in love with the concept.
I sourced the balsa wood tree
from the Hart & Heim store (Australia) and found small kraft round boxes
very cheaply ($2.00 for 6).
I punched out all the numbers
I needed from red cardstock and attached them to the front of each box.
I used red ribbon to hang the
boxes from the tree.
Again I filled each box with
sweets and small treats for my boys to open each day.
As the days went by I pulled the ribbon through to the inside of the empty boxes and then stacked them up around the tree…so it looks like little presents under a Christmas tree.
