Quick and Easy Advent Calendar

The holidays should be fun. No point in getting overwhelmed with all the prep and decorations if we can’t enjoy the actual holiday! So here’s a quick and easy Advent Calendar… you still have a week or so to put together. For the Twelve Days of Christmas!! (which I’m still trying to figure out what day that actually starts on)…

First, gather your supplies. You’ll need:

• 12 empty rolls of toliet paper (that’s why I gave you a week to gather supplies. hah)
• 6 sheets of 8×8 scrapbook paper or 4 sheets of 12×12
• stapler and staples
• wooden clothespins
• lace or twine
• paper (and printer is optional)
• washi tape (optional)

Now, cut your paper down to 4×8 strips. Wrap it around the tp roll and staple it three times (by each edge and once in the middle). Then, flatten one edge of it and staple 3 more times to close the end of it. I like the look of the staples on the back, because you can’t even see them from far away. Okay, and yes….this is the total lazy way to put the pretty paper on the roll. I was too tired to wait for glue to dry, but if you’re more patient than me, then by all means, glue the paper on instead of stapling. 😉Now you can add washi tape to one side of your clothespins if you like, or not.

Add little numbers and decorations to your rolls.

Then hang it up on lace or baker’s twine.

Put whatever you want in the calendar. I didn’t add candy to mine because six little tiny hands are somehow drawn to candy around here and can sense it.

I printed up some fun ideas from Add A Pinch . Click on the link and it takes you to the page with the ideas on them, if you scroll down you’ll see a green link with the pdf. She did an awesome job making those. I doubled up some ideas for a few of the days, like making gingerbread houses and watching our favorite Christmas movie, because you can do that at the same time. There’s three pages of ideas, so you can cater them to your age range and needs.