These home-made advent calendars are extra fun because the kids are the ones that make them! All you have to do is find some little treats and ideas for filling them. If you are stuck for inspiration, we've got plenty of ideas for filling home-made advent calendars to get you started!
There are so many ways you can use these cheerful Christmas stockings! Make an advent calendar, hang a double-sided banner, use as money or gift card pockets, put up a Christmas number line to 25, make colourful labels for presents, play a pairs matching game, decorate the classroom ...
Numbered or blank, these delightful stockings come in pairs so that you can assemble them into pockets (glue around the edges, leaving the top open, and stick together), string them up as a banner, give them as cards or labels, decorate the house ... there are so many ways you can enjoy them!
This Advent Banner is a very clever idea - a mixture of a banner and advent calendar, as well as a potato printing activity, a painting activity, and a cutting and colouring activity!
Sometimes the simple idea are the best! This advent calendar jar also works well alongside a chocolate advent calendar...fill it with interesting things to do or some of our printables.
You will need to save matchboxes all year for this craft - or buy some from a craft supplier! But once made this advent chest will become a family treasure.
Kids can have fun making this cute Advent Matchbox Tree, for you to fill with exciting treats - just open one draw a day during December and soon it will be Christmas!
These festive advent mini cards are the perfect size to pop inside any advent calendar that you fill yourself and are a great tradition to start with the kids. You could write challenges, fun Christmas activities or even an interesting Christmas fact on each card...
These pretty, festive number cards are perfect for making your own advent calendar countdown.
These pretty advent number strips are perfect to slip into the pockets on a fill-your-own advent calendar.
Try an advent calendar with a difference - an advent paper chain. It is fun for the kids to make themselves and is an economical - as well as decorative, alternative to the shop-bought advent calendars.
This printable advent planner lets you plan 24 days of fun Christmas activities as you countdown to the 25th December. Simply think of a fun Christmas activity for each day of the planner (for example, read a Christmas story, make Christmas cookies, go ice skating, decorate the tree etc.).
This is a simple advent craft which might make a fun collaborative project for the classroom and would certainly brighten up the playroom or kitchen! Children simply move Santa from cloud to cloud as December progresses. For fun you could substitue a photo of your house...
Here is an unusual advent calendar! The kids will enjoy making this advent train ... and they'll have even more fun finding the gifts inside the train during December!
This is a lovely, decorative advent calendar - with a difference! Rather than discovering a treat every day, we plan to write down one thing that we have enjoyed, something we are grateful for, or a special memory, just before bedtime.
This Christmas tree advent calendar is fun to make with your youngest children - and they will love sticking the brightly coloured pompoms on each day!
This very simple advent calendar is perfect for small hands to turn over the pictures and looks very bright and cheerful on the wall.
Here is a really unusual idea for a home-made advent calendar - but it is extremely popular with the kids, who love the surprise of untying the ribbon each day and seeing what has dropped below!
We've made this count down wheel craft for Advent but of course you could adapt it for any important occasion. Use up lots of crafty bits and pieces to decorate it, or use a white paper plate and let the kids decorate with paint or colouring pencils before adding the numbers.
There is nothing so special as a home-made advent calendar - and the best thing about them is that you can choose exactly what will go in them each day, personalising them to suit your family. We have lots of ideas to get you thinking below...
This Muffin Tray Advent Calendar is fun to make with your kids - and even more fun to fill with treats for December and the run up to Christmas! The muffin trays are a more useful size than the standard advent calendar if you would like to include a small gift each day.
Here is a very simple idea for an advent calendar which the kids can put together themselves and enjoy during the Advent period.
This gorgeous robin advent calendar will help you count down to Christmas day with style! They are relatively easy for children to cut out and put together - and they really do look cute!
Here's a fun printable advent calendar for younger children. It involves colouring, hunting for numbers and sticking too - what could be better!