Simple Advent Calendar Tutorial

Hello there, I hope you have all had a good November!  Not surprisingly, I was hoping to get this simple advent calendar post out before now, but sickness is continuing to blight the house, I now have two poorly little ones!  I'm one of these people that need to leave the house for a decent period at least once a day, so I am starting to go slightly loopy, here is hoping they both get better soon. The tutorial is very easy so you might still have a chance to knock one up before we are too far into December, but if not, there is always next year!

You will need:

• A stick approximately 1 metre long
• 25 x small money envelopes (I bought mine in WH Smiths at £2.50 for a pack 50)
• Little treats (I'm not going to tell you what I used, in case my big girl reads this!)
• Scissors
• String
• Washi tape
• Christmas stamp and stamp pad (or pens)
• Foliage to decorate (not essential)

1. Stamp or draw a Christmas based design on your envelopes (don't make the same mistake as me, and make sure you wash your stamp properly after using it, then you won't get red on your white stamp pad!)

2. Work out roughly how you would like your envelopes to hang, I choose 2 x rows of 10, 1 x row of 4 and then 1 x row of 1 for the bottom Christmas Day envelope.

3. After working out rough positions, cut string to approximate lengths so they will hang where you want them too.

4. Put your treats in the envelopes, and attach string to the back with washi tape (depending on how heavy your treats are, you might need to tape a couple of times).

5. Continue until all your envelopes are full, and have the string attached.  To make it easier when hanging, I put mine into groups depending on string length.

6. Make a handle for your stick so it will hang on the wall, by tying a single length of string to each end.

7. Start tying your envelopes on to your stick, I started with my lowest hanging envelope, placed centrally, to act as a good guide as where to hang the others.

8. Continue to tie all your envelopes to the stick, I did find this easiest to do by hanging the stick over a door handle.

9. Finally, add a piece of foliage to each end for decoration if you fancy and hang on your wall!

That's it, easy peasy! Have you made an advent calendar this year? I would love to hear your ideas too.

Have a good week.

Emma x