DIY Personalized Advent Calendar

Published November 30th, 2016 by grubwife

This DIY Personalized Advent Calendar is such a fun and easy way to celebrate the holidays with the ones you love!

This Christmas will be the first Christmas my husband and I will share as a married couple. And it also happens to be the last we will share with just the two of us before our daughter is born in a few months. Knowing that this time of year can get especially hectic as you try to balance all of your commitments, I wanted to make something special to help us stay in the holiday spirit and enjoy this time of year together.

The idea of making an advent calendar came to mind and it seemed like the perfect way to create simple and easy daily activities for us to get to share time together outside of our normal routine.

Here’s what I put together:

I made 25 envelopes out of regular 8 ½ in x 11in colored printer paper. I first cut squares that were 4 ¼ in x 4 ¼ in then folded to create an envelope.

I used some fun holiday stamps to give it a little something extra, if you don’t have stamps you could simply write the day it should be opened or use wrapping paper to create the envelope!

Using a diamond shape hole punch, I created small holes in each envelope, then I tied a piece of string to each envelope.

Using card stock that I cut to 4in x4 in, I wrote each day’s activity. Then placed the cards inside the envelopes. I made sure to choose some activities that were specific to where we live, different businesses in our town offer holiday events that we’ve not yet participated in and this was a great opportunity for us to try them out. I also wanted to include some of our favorite date night restaurants, these are places we don’t go regularly but that have special memories associated with them.

Here are some other ideas for activities:

• Color Christmas coloring pages
• Write a letter to Santa
• Build a Gingerbread House
• Go Caroling
• Christmas Movie Bingo (check out this great find Free Printable Christmas Movie Bingo)


Next, I decided on a pattern of how I wanted to hang the cards, I thought a Christmas tree would be perfect. I then cut simple string to the length in which I wanted each envelope to hang. Other shape ideas I had were a star or candy cane, but a tree seemed far less complicated.

To make sure that I could hang this easily I used one of two wire hangers that have mysteriously lasted in our house; I attached all of the envelopes to the hanger creating the design (tree) shape! I added a bow to the top and there you have it!


Tags: Advent Calendar, Christmas, Craft, DIY, Holidays, Personalized Advent Calendar