Does your family count down the days to Christmas with an advent calendar? It’s easy enough to buy one already filled with chocolates, teas, or small cheap plastic toys. But have you thought about creating a personalized one with vintage or found items?
You can pick up advent calendar blanks at most craft or hobby stores and add your own items to them. Or, if you’re handy, there are patterns and plans available to create your own, whether made of wood, fabric, felt, or other materials. Decorating with bits of ribbon, sequins, buttons, and other findings such as beads, or cut outs makes it special and one of a kind. Gather up your creative juices and bits and bobs to get started. We have some ideas that won’t break the bank.
Mini cupcake tins can be filled with coins, miniatures or candy and decorated with vintage fabric or wrapping paper.
Small paper or cellophane bags can be hung on twine using clothespins. Fill them with individual spices or recipes for the cook in the family.
Paint a board or large cardboard rectangle and attach colorful socks, each one numbered and filled with a tiny gift.
A spool holder can be hung with tiny gift bags. Fill each one with spools of thread, assortments of buttons, and other vintage sewing accessories for the seamstress in your life.
Vintage letterpress trays decorated, hung, and filled with goodies can be reused year after year.
Now, what to fill your advent calendars with?
Depending upon what you collect or prefer, each pocket can be filled with bits of vintage jewelry, tiny porcelain collectibles, vintage linens such as hankies or small doilies. Doll collectors may appreciate tiny accessories like shoes, handbags or doll clothing. Dollhouse furnishings for a collector could include miniature lamps, pictures, and small household items such as vases or kitchen utensils. Book collectors may enjoy bookmarks, bookplates, small reading lamps, book covers or gift certificates to a favorite bookshop. Toy collectors might like vintage items including yoyos, jacks, pick up sticks, pop pencils, card games or any carnival type small prizes. For the writer in the family, stamps, pens, note pads, self inked stampers, wax seals and stickers would be appropriate.
Local thrift stores often sell bags of random small items mixed together for a reasonable price in both the decor and the toy areas. These are a great way to pick up little bits and pieces to add to an advent calendar as they often contain small toys, cake toppers, and random items such as napkin rings, tiny sewing kits, and collections of miscellaneous craft items. Check garage and estate sales for bags or baskets of small items at bargain prices. Keychains or tiny tools like miniature pocket knives or wrenches make great gifts for someone who loves to tinker. A gardener might love seed packets and a new pair of gloves.
Be creative and don’t let convention rule your choices. Think outside the box and, most of all, have fun.
