I have been wanting to make one of these for my kids for YEARS!! But never get my act together for December 1st...mostly because I spent November making presents for the holidays. Has anyone have an idea for a fairly simple but COOL advent calender? preferably one where there could be choclate involved :thumbsup: I went looking at Martha Stewarts web site thinking SUERLY Martha of all people must have an idea but I found nothing...any fantastic ideas?

Here is one with candy involved:

http://www.readersdigest.ca/christmas/decoration/kids_advent_calendar.html

This one involves simple sewing, and also candy or small treats

http://www.ehow.com/how_11216_make-advent-calendar.html

This one looks easy, but start saving the toilet paper rolls now, candy involved too :)

http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/adventcalendars/a/bladventtptree.htm

Very easy, cute and simple, great for little ones. No candy

http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/advent.html

If you have an embroidery machine, this one is really cute:

http://www.emblibrary.com/Emblibrary/pack/X1753.asp

This is ours.. no candy involved but I suppose you could just keep a bowl of candy next to it & when you put a piece up on the wall hanging, take a chocolate! *lol*

Who woulda thought Reader's Digest would have a craft site! I think I'm going to have to try that one! Some fun sites you found, Dina...

One year I just hung a strand of red yarn with 25 gingerbread men cut out of grocery bags. Each had a different activity to do... some simple, some more time-consuming - like: bake Christmas cookies; make gifts for teachers, listen to Christmas music...

Wow thanks Dina!

Love that advent calendar, last night after I posted and couldn't sleep I thought of using felt but wasn't sure if it would look good...now I know it definitely would!

Ellen that is a good idea...certainly healthier than chocolate...well except the cookie day LOL

I will let you all know what I come up with :)

My mom made this in 1973. She copied a pattern she found in a magazine, and made four of them. Lots of cutting small pieces, she used felt. I think it would be really cool with wool felt and if you had an embroidery machine the numbers would be super easy. Or you could die cut them.

It's 24x33 without the pom poms on the bottom. She made the dog look like our family dog which was really fun! This is almost all cut and glue, the ornaments are all made of two layers of felt with a thin cardboard between.

We have used it since she made it and she gave it to my family a few years ago. The kids love to put the stuff up as much as my sister and I did
http://www.amitymama.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=816118

Hey Bernice!! Cut Martha some slack! She's in jail doing everyone's laundry. :joker: :joker:

Nice to see you around here though, come back soon. And I was sad to not get to see you when I was in Olympia. :heart:

Hey Bernice!! Cut Martha some slack! She's in jail doing everyone's laundry. :joker: :joker:

Nice to see you around here though, come back soon. And I was sad to not get to see you when I was in Olympia. :heart:

I *love* this one.

http://www.garnethill.com/cgi-bin/gh/item.jsp?ItemID=00472&search=y&Description=advent+calendar&cursor=0