Making an Advent Calendar; or, Preparing for Preparation

I made an Advent Calendar yesterday:

Cue: ooohing and aahhing. I better see this on Pinterest tomorrow! Just kidding. Mostly.

Inspired by...well, a lot of things. You can go to Pinterest and search for advent calendars and see all the gorgeous DIY options out there. None of them really worked perfectly for me, because I didn't want to buy containers, but I still wanted the option to contain candy or small presents if I wanted to (in future years - Jonny and I don't need any more candy during the holidays!).

I'm not going to write a tutorial, because tutorials take a lot of effort and time and I don't want to and it's my blog so I can do what I want. Thank goodness for all the wonderful people who do like writing tutorials, because I used them a lot. I folded origami cups out of Christmasy cardstock - one of those large square pages divided into four parts. Then I stuck numbers on them, printed from this wonderful free printable. (I had to print two pages to a sheet in order to shrink the numbers to half their size, so they'd fit nicely on the cups.) I made the star from this tutorial, modified slightly to make it flat.

The frame once held this guy:

Currently unavailable on Amazon.com

But the glass broke about four years ago, and Einstein was retired. Though it was a great quote for a thirteen-year-old oddball (thanks, Mom and Dad!), I wasn't rocking it as a grown-up. But I kept the frame in the hopes I could use it for some great purpose. I bought a piece of foamboard and covered it in brown craft paper. Then I stapled the back flap on each origami cup to a strip of paper, secured the paper strips and the cups to the board with duct tape (on the back) and glue, and stuck it in the frame. Voila! The trip to Hob Lob to get the foamboard took almost as much time as the rest of the project. Oh, except the Pinteresting. But I was doing that anyway. ;)

Each cup has a slip of paper with an easy Christmasy activity on it. Jonny and I both get to write down 12 activities, and neither of us know what the other is writing. So we may end up drinking hot cocoa twice, or sitting through more than one Rankin-Bass special. But I figured that if we both wanted to do it, we would probably like it enough to do it twice. Plus, half of all the activities will be a pleasant surprise! And if it turns out that he writes "kissing under the mistletoe" on every slip of paper...well, Advent is about sacrifice, too. Gee, that will be awfully rough. ;)

Love,

Katie