I love Christmas and I’ve been doing my best the past few years to simply my life to make the whole experience more enjoyable. Less presents, which makes for less shopping, which in turn results in more time to spend doing fun Christmassy things! First on our list is our many advent calendars. I never had one of these growing up and I just love the idea so right now we have 4 in the house (gasp!).
The first one is one that I made at an LSS Ink About It – I took a class there a few years ago and never managed to finish it, until a few days ago that is! The idea is that each day has a specific prompt or activity related to Christmas. The kids are finally the right age to appreciate this – Molly is having fun reading the prompts and it gets us all in a holiday mood:
I used Basic Grey holiday paper (fruitcake maybe?), ribbons from my stash and some stamps to make the tags. I got some ideas from AliEdwards blog for the prompts but tailored them to things that my family would generally do.
Calendar #2 was inspired by AliE. I used little boxes, painted them and covered the lids with patterned paper. I think Ali pinned hers to a wall but I used a corkboard. Each box has a tiny ornament in it and every day the kids are opening a box and decorating a tiny tree that I got at the Target $ spot a few years ago. Preventing them from opening all the boxes is my biggest problem right now 🙂
The other 2 calendars are the chocolate kind from Trader Joes. I wasn’t planning on doing the whole chocolate thing but I caved. I just knew the kids would love them.
As promised, here is my layout for my next hybrid tip and challenge. You can find more details in my hybrid corner over on DebbieHodge.com. Come on over and say hi! Isn’t this t-shirt the greatest? Thanks so much to Sarah/Hodgee for sending it.
Sass papers, Doodlebug alpha, Little vintage digital frames by Katie Pertiet
WOW Paula!! Love the calendars and your layout is fabulous!!
What cute photos and a great LO!
melissa4
love the calendars totally cute!
Absolutely awesome projects!!! I love that layout too!! Absolutely fantastic!!
Love the tag calendar! It looks amazing! Fabulous job!
Love those calendars Paula! That layout is fabulous too!
I think making Christmas more fun for mom is a WONDERFUL idea! Kudos to YOU!
The calendars are lovely!
adorable layout! FOUR advent calendars?! go paula! 😀
Your advent ideas are really cute!
love those calendar my dear! and the chocolate ones? well, they are my favorite 😉
Love those calendars!! I just finished a decorative countdown one…I’m hoping by next year I made one with Christmas activities for the kids!
Love that second advent calendar! Jessica Sprague did something similar last year and I swore I was going to do one this year – I’m so mad at myself that I didn’t!
Cute layout, I am so going to Trader Joe’s now for the chocolate calendars!
Love the advent calendars! we only have 1, and that’s enough! ha!
paula, these calendars are beautiful!! and i love the little red rock-on hand accent on your layout…so cute! p.s. you won the rak on my blog. email me. =)
You rock, Sarah rocks, Tommy rocks. What more can I say? That hand with the fingers folded down is freakin’ genius. Eli won’t even try his shirt on (although he did write Sarah a thank you note). I don’t know when he got to be too cool for his own good! He promised me he’ll wear it on Mother’s Day. Maybe I’ll get a layout out of it five months from now. In the meantime I will just have to ogle yours.