Christmas Countdown

I love the countdown to Christmas , the last couple of years we've had a small cheap advent calender that was a string of little felt trees with a pouch for a chocolate at the front, but it was really only small enough for 1 chocolate. With 2 children last year we managed to squash 2 in each tree but it's seen better days and is falling apart now.

I thought I could make one, okay I thought about it weeks ago, had a plan and promptly forgot about it. 

I remembered yesterday when I couldn't find any chocolate advent calenders in town. 

So last night I made this.

 I used an old picture frame (I seem to have a few old fashioned frames knocking around) and strung 4 lines of string at the back. Then sat for the long hall making 24 small bags with numbers patches on the front. I just used a fabric pen to write the numbers on (eventually I may embroider over them so it looks better) and picked a selection of 4 styles of fabric which were in my stash. I wanted to make bags big enough to fit small lego toys, sweets and crafty treats in them. The little Christmas pegs were ones we'd made last year to hold up cards ( I'll show you how another time) and I've still to fill a lot of the bags but I think it works well.

I was worried this morning when Maisie asked if she had a Moshie Monsters advent calender, but when they saw this set up they were really excited and began working out who'd open the first bag. Lucas got to pull out the first treats(Mint chocolate trees) and with that the countdown begins :-)

How did your countdown begin?

Amanda.x.