Advent Event

Some of you won't be ready to be thinking about Christmas just yet, but if you're like me, a bit of a Christmas nut, you'll have already started making your yuletide plans.

Even if you're not ready for 'the day' itself yet, the moment for thinking about the advent count down is racing towards us.  Which is why, when I received an email from the lovely people at John Lewis, I jumped at the chance to try one of their 'make your own calendar' kits.

An exciting box duly arrived and Little Miss was eager to peek inside and examine the contents.  It turned out we had everything we needed, including lots of colourful felt and thread.  Well, almost everything, we needed some goodies to go inside of course.  It didn't take us long to find a fabulous set of advent choccies, one for each pocket - perfect.  After a little debate we settled on stickers to add to each day (Little Miss came up with this one) and some Christmassy fabric to spruce up the edges (my choice).

With our daily treats all sorted, the weekend rolled around and we started work on the calendar itself.  The pockets were all cut ready and there are templates to use for the numbers, letters and some Christmassy shapes.  We used some of those but decided to get a little more inventive and added holly, trees and even an angel to the mix.  The felt for these additional bits was sticky backed, making it a little hard for smaller hands to cut but on the plus side, super easy to apply, so we each had a task.

Next came the stitching.  Little Miss is quite a handy stitcher for an 8 year old, but these youngsters do tire easily of such work, so it wasn't long before I was in sole charge.  But no matter, I had a bit of fun, adding some different stitches and a little extra detail to some of the squares.

It looked good and we could have finished there, but to add one last festive touch I used the extra fabric that I bought to bind the edges and give the whole thing a pretty red border.

 The only thing left to do was fill the pockets and Little Miss was certain that job was all hers.

At the end of the weekend, we hung it on the wall, stood back and took it all in.  We were pretty pleased with our efforts and now the only thing to do is wait for the first of the month to roll round.  You never know, she might end up needing a hand with those chocolates!

If you fancy trying your hand at your own 'Make Your Own Calendar' or if you simply want to buy one ready to go, have a look the selection at John Lewis.

(I do love them, I got the pop-up nativity this year - can't wait!)

S x

♥

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