family holidays: washi tape advent calendar

Spoiler alert: If you are one of my kids, stop reading now! (It’s a good thing none of them read this…) This is the second in a series about enjoying Christmas with your kids. 

I am kind of obsessed with advent calendars. Advent is by far my favorite time of year. For me, advent is about slowing down and spending time with family. Wait, what? Did she actually just say that? Yes, I did. I wasn’t always this way. I spent many years missing the whole season, stressed with all the things that I “needed” to get done. The shopping, the mailing, the lists.

Several years ago, I made a fantastic fabric chain advent calendar with my girls in an attempt to slow down and refocus our family during the Christmas season. We’ve used it from year to year and totally loved it. This year, I wanted to do something a little different. I was totally inspired by this twig tree and I had a nice blank wall in my house. But I wasn’t sure that I was ready to commit to twigs. Washi tape was my answer.

This is a simple advent calendar to make. You’ll need:

1.      Washi tape

2.      One 6x6 pad of patterned paper (I used Evergreen by Basic Grey) 

3.      Numbers (I used a set of stamps by Freckled Fawn but check your local craft store for other stamp or sticker options)

4.      Circle punches (or scissors)

5.      Blue painters tape

Start by applying your washi tape to the wall in a basic evergreen tree form. I used brown washi tape and created a twig base but green (or hot pink or aqua or whatever) washi tape in the shape of a tree would be great also.

Next, I punched various size circles out of my 6x6 patterned pad. I used the bigger circles for my calendar numbers, writing the day’s activity on the back of each “ornament”. I stamped my numbers using a basic dye-base ink pad and colored in the numbers with colored pencils.

I hung my numbers randomly on my branches, finishing the tree with a hand-cut star and pot. Super easy. Here are the activities that I included for this year.

I can’t wait for our house elf, Felix Navidad, to show up on December 1st with his roll of washi tape to (re) build our tree…

(P.S. Stay tuned. You will be meeting Felix for yourself soon. But not before a little crafting!)