Wreath Alternative to Make at Home

Today Cora was at a friend's house so Calvin, Maia and I went to the Happy Plant garden centre. They have a fantastic Christmas display, part of which is pictured here. Santa sometimes "tells stories" too which the kids love. They also have a darkened room with all the different lights and things. We went through that 4 times today on Maia's request!

One of the things that caught my eye in this Christmas wonderland was a wreath alternative made from wood, in a tree shape, with wicker woven roughly around it. It had a bell hanging in the centre. So I picked up a roll of ribbon, and some bells. It took me a while to figure out how I could make it at home. In the end I bent a wire hanger into shape, then wrapped paper towels around each section to pad it out. I then hot glued the ribbon around it and tied on a bell. Pretty simple, took me about an hour. It may not look very professional but I love it and so does the family. :)

Homemade Advent Calendar

So very simple... the hard part is thinking of things for the kids to do each day. We have things like, pajamas and Christmas movies, go for a winter walk, hot chocolate by candlelight and reading by fairy light (school room ceiling has fairy lights). There are also some very simple things like colour a Christmas picture.

For this project I used:

Maybe 5m/15' ribbon (at a guess)

Pegs (I used small coloured ones but you could use normal ones)

Holographic Card (very cheap at the pound shop)

Markers

And that's about it! Except I did put a small bow on the 24th instead of ribbon.

All I did was cut bits of card in half, then each half into four roughly equal strips (cutting across the shorter length). Of course I counted 24 out. Then I folded them over so that the two ends met at the back side of the 'gift'. Inside I wrote a special thing to do for the day. Then I wrapped a ribbon around it, wrote the number on it in marker, and pegged it to the line.

I think the kids are really going to love it. I can't wait to see their faces when I put it up!